I’m not so sure about her promises.
All I know is that she’s opening the door and walking out, and I feel like someone has slammed a vise around my heart, slowly bleeding me dry.
I stand there for a moment, trying to breathe, trying not to feel everything all at once, the world threatening to crash all around me.
There’s another knock on the door.
Maybe she’s changed her mind.
Maybe she’s come back.
It’s happened before.
I answer the door without looking.
Mateo is standing on the other side, still in his black suit from the game.
“Can I have a word with you, Alejo?” he asks, his voice cool and collected, but there’s tension simmering in his eyes.
This is definitely a night where I shouldn’t be answering any doors.
“Sure,” I say with an air of defeat, because I know this isn’t going to be very good either.
Disappointing Mateo is something I desperately try not to do. I want his approval, I want to do well by him, and tonight, there was no such thing. Tonight I failed him.
“I don’t know where to begin,” Mateo says, putting his hands behind his back and rocking back and forth on his heels. “I really don’t.”
“Can we start with me saying I’m sorry and that it won’t happen again?”
He cocks a brow. “You can say that, sure. But that won’t change anything.” He takes in a deep breath. “Alejo, what happened to you tonight?”
I shrug, trying to play it off. “Had a bad day, I guess. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“No, no, I don’t think that was it,” he says. He starts to pace around the room, hands behind his back, much like he does in his technical area on the pitch. But maybe with fewer arm gestures.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I say.
He comes to a stop and stares at me, his chin raised high, an eerie calm in his eyes. Mateo can be extremely intimidating when he wants to be. “Do you want me to tell you what I think happened? You can feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m not so sure that I am.”
“Okay,” I say, sitting down on the bed.
“I think that earlier, when Thalia was upset about what the press was saying about her, you somehow took such offense to it that it actually pulled you right out of the game. I think you stepped out there on that pitch, seething full of anger at the press and the people in the stands, the other team, and especially her ex-husband, the team’s manager, and you let your emotions cloud your brain.”
I try to swallow. “What makes you think that would have any effect on me at all?”
“Because I’m not stupid, Alejo,” he says. “Do you know that I just ran into Thalia out there in the hallway?”
Oh shit.
“I saw her coming out of your room,” he adds. “I asked her what she was doing, and she made up some lie about talking to you about the game, which maybe wasn’t a lie because she didn’t look happy at all. In fact, I think she was close to tears. But anyway, I call bullshit on all of this because I have been watching the two of you for the last few months, and I would have to be a real fucking idiot not to suspect that something is going on between you two.”
“We’re just friends,” I say weakly.
Mateo lets out a dry laugh. “You are a horrible liar, Alejo. That’s one of the things I like about you. You wear your heart on your sleeve and you can’t lie for shit. But it’s also your downfall. I know you aren’t just friends. I know you’re screwing around. I don’t really care to know when it started, but it’s obvious it has.”
“How so?” Now I’m curious, though I don’t want to admit anything.
“It’s in the eyes. It’s always in the eyes. No matter which room you’re both in, your eyes always find each other. You say something to each other that no one else can hear or understand, but you both know what it is. That’s what it’s like when someone becomes your whole world. They’re all you see.”
My eyes flit to the carpet, but if Mateo knows everything through my eyes, then he knows everything by now.
“Tell me I’m right,” he says.
I shrug again. “You’re right.”
Silence.
“Alejo…do you even know what you’re doing? Have you actually slowed down and taken a moment to think about it?”
I glance at him sharply. “She’s all I think about.”
“She’s forty!” he exclaims with wide eyes. “You’re twenty-three!”
“Twenty-four.”
“Whatever.”
“But weren’t you almost forty and your wife twenty-three when you first met her?”
He stills, blinks. Shakes his head. “Yes, but that was different.”
“How is that different? Because you’re a man and Vera is a woman? It’s not okay the other way around?”
“It’s a different scenario. Completely. Alejo, Thalia is your physical therapist. She’s off-limits. She’s forbidden to you. You’re crossing a line that can’t be crossed.”
I cock my head. “And weren’t you married when you first were with Vera?”
He frowns and gives me the kind of look that tells me he wishes he could slap me in the face. “This has nothing to do with my personal life.”
“But everything to do with my personal life?”
“Yes!” he exclaims. “And what you do with your personal life affects the team. What I do in mine doesn’t. That’s the difference.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better at all…she just broke it off. Kind of. A break, I guess, until Christmas.”
Mateo sighs dramatically and runs his hands down his face before sitting next to me on the bed. “Look. This has to stop. Not just until Christmas, it has to be stopped beyond that. You can’t do this.”
“What if I play better than ever?”
“It’s not just about the game,” he says, his voice going low and grave. “Okay? It’s about Thalia. I’m her boss, okay? I am in a position to fire her. It is well within my right to go to her room right now and fire her because she’s breaking a very important rule, and it’s a rule I know she’s aware of. You understand?”
I swallow.
Fuck.
Things are going from bad to worse.
I look to Mateo, panic clawing through me. “Please. Please don’t fire her. I’ll do anything.”
He pats my shoulder and gets up, his back to me as he walks across the room. “I’m not a monster, Alejo. I like Thalia a lot. I think she does a great job, and so far, her side of things hasn’t been compromised.” He pauses and gives me a loaded glance over his shoulder. “Maybe that says something about the fact that she can keep her emotions in check but you can’t. Regardless, I don’t want to fire her and I’m not going to. But you have to cut this out. Because if Jose finds out or someone like Dr. Costa, then I’m going to be forced to do something I really don’t want to do. Okay?”
I nod, my heart rate slowing down. “Okay.”
“I mean it though,” he says. “You have to stop this with her. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, and believe me, I’ve been through some shit with my love life. I’d fallen in love with someone I shouldn’t have, but in the end I stand behind all the choices that I made because it brought Vera into my life. But this could end up hurting the both of you in ways you can’t imagine.”
“And what if this is a moment in my life, a moment I will look back on, like that moment you went through where you chose love over everything else? What if this is that moment for me, and in the future, I’ll stand proudly behind my choices?”
The word love spills from my lips, the first time I’ve uttered it in this regard.
It feels right.
Just like she does.
“The difference between you and me,” Mateo begins, “is that Vera didn’t have a job on the line. A career. She didn’t have to give up much to be with me. But Thalia? She’ll have to give up everything she’s worked so hard fo
r her whole life. Do you really want to do that to her? Do you really want to put her in that position?”
My head drops, my body feeling exhausted and weak all of a sudden.
The pain in my heart is draining all my energy.
“You’re a good man, Alejo,” Mateo says, putting his hand on my shoulder. “I’m proud of you, I really am. I just want what’s best for you. That’s all.”
He takes his hand away and moves toward the door. He pauses. “Tomorrow we’ll just tell everyone what you originally told me. You had a bad game. You slept poorly. A one-off thing that won’t happen again. People will forget about it pretty quick, so long as you let them forget it.”
I just nod. I can’t even form words.
I feel numb.
“Have a good sleep. Someone will give you a wake-up call in the morning.”
And with that, Mateo is gone.
I feel like he left me with nothing.
Chapter 22
Thalia
I make myself a cup of coffee and curl up in my new reading chair that faces the window, fluffy slippers on my feet, a plush lavender blanket wrapped around my shoulders. It’s early, so it’s still dark outside and cold as fuck. Central heating in Madrid isn’t really a thing, at least not in my apartment.
I glance warily at my cactus on the windowsill.
Despite the gloom, it’s still thriving.
I wish I could say the same for Alejo and me.
I take out my phone and call home.
My mother answers on the third ring.
“Thalia,” she says. “You’re calling me. Please tell me you’re actually in Seattle somewhere and you came home early for Christmas.”
It’s mid-December and Christmas has been on my mind, mainly how I’m actually going to be spending it alone. It won’t be the first time that has happened, back in the day, before Stewart. Sometimes my work schedule made it impossible, sometimes I just didn’t want to go home to the chaos of my family.
But that’s not why I’m calling her.
“I’m not,” I tell her. “Listen, is Dad there?”
“You want to talk to your father?” she asks, sounding rather incredulous.
“I do,” I tell her. “I want to talk sports.”
“Oh. Fine.” I hear a muffled sound and then, “Charles, your daughter wants to speak with you about sports.”
“Hey, sunshine,” my dad greets me. I’ve always taken pride in the fact that out of all my siblings, I’m the only one with a nickname. “Haven’t heard from you in a long time.”
“Hi, Dad,” I say softly. “I know. I’m trying to be better about calling.”
“To be fair, I suppose I could be calling you too.”
“Yes, you could.”
“So, what did you want to talk to me about? Are you coming home for Christmas?”
I hear my mother yelling in the background, “Tell her she has to! She listens to you.”
“No, I’m not coming home for Christmas,” I tell him. “I just got settled here. I’ve been traveling so much for work. Last week we were in Qatar for the FIFA Club World Cup. The Middle East is always a trip.”
“I know, I watched the game. You won. You’ve been doing great, actually.”
“The team has, yes.”
“Nah, I mean you too, sunshine. You’re part of the team. Don’t sell yourself short. You have a bad habit of doing that. You need to puff yourself up a little. Be proud.”
I don’t know what crack my father is smoking, but when I was younger, hell, even up until recently, he’d never say anything like that. My father wasn’t exactly one of those encouraging parents. In fact, he was a perfectionist, and demanded excellence from all of us. Just because I was the only girl, and the youngest, didn’t mean I was off the hook.
In fact, I think he was tougher on me than the rest of them, maybe because he wished I was a boy. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but when you’re the only girl out of four very active and competitive brothers, you can’t help but think it. That’s one reason why I threw myself into sports when I was young enough to remember. I just wanted to be one of the boys. I wanted to be included, and I wanted my father’s attention and approval. The more I played, the more involved I was, whether it be soccer or tennis or ice hockey, the more he seemed to respect me.
Suffice it to say, I didn’t grow up hearing things like this. It was a lot of tough love, and we were never allowed to boast about our wins or our accomplishments. It taught me to do the work without expecting recognition, and maybe in the long run, it actually helped me get to where I am today.
“Well, don’t worry about Christmas,” he goes on. “We’re having it at Ted and Josephine’s house, and it’s going to be hell. All their kids terrorizing the place, it ruins the occasion.”
“Charles, they’re your grandkids!” my mother’s muffled voice pipes up again. “It’s going to be lovely!”
“Well, I didn’t ask to have ten grandkids, did I?” he shouts back. “Thalia, I know your mother gives you shit for not having kids with Stewart, but thank god you didn’t. All your brothers’ kids are more than enough. Your old man needs a break.”
Surprisingly, the mention of kids, and my lack thereof, doesn’t cut like I thought it would. It just slides right off me.
“Dad, can I ask you something?”
“Of course you can.”
“Can you keep it between us? As in, not tell Mom?”
“Do you think I tell her everything?” he whispers into the phone. “A man needs to have some secrets too.”
I giggle. “You can say the same for me, because I happen to have a secret.”
“I’m not going to guess, lest someone overhears and starts to wonder…”
“Right. Well. Okay, I don’t really want to talk sports. I mean, it’s kind of about sports because that’s my life, but it’s also…I know I don’t talk to you about this stuff normally but I figured maybe you’d be the best person to ask, because I’ve never asked for your opinion on it.”
“Lay it on me.”
“I need advice, Dad. About my love life.”
“Ohhh,” he says softly. He clears his throat. “Okay.”
This is totally out of left field for him, I know that. Like I’ve said, my father and I have never had a very deep and open relationship. It’s only as he’s gotten older (and as I’ve gotten older, I suppose), that we’ve become closer, more like adults than father and daughter. It’s a tough zone to move out of, but I think having moved away right after high school, going to university and then to LA, really helped in setting that up. In fact, I think that going off on your own and creating a bit of separation from your parents is the only way you’re really allowed to grow and become the person you’re meant to be. You can’t do that if you’re forever trapped in old roles you’ve outgrown.
“I kind of told Mom about this a few months ago, but I lied, and even with the lie she disapproved. I’m not looking for approval. I don’t need a lecture. I just need advice on what to do next. Maybe I just need someone to listen to me and not judge me for once.” I take a sip of coffee and stare at the cactus. “I have developed some very strong feelings for someone that I work with.”
“I see. Another therapist?”
“No. No, that would be…easier. It’s a player. And I’m not going to tell you who, although I’m sure you will figure it out.”
“Oh.” He clears his throat. “I assume that’s against the rules.”
“Yes.”
“But that doesn’t exactly help when your heart is involved, does it? It doesn’t listen to the rules.”
I exhale, happy that so far he’s not calling me an idiot or something. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Have you told him?”
“Uh. I know he knows I like him. I mean…we’ve been, uh, together, for a few months now.”
Silence. “Oh. Okay. So this isn’t just someone you work with that you have feelings for and that’s it?”
; “No. It’s beyond that. We both have feelings for each other. It’s turning into something and that something is terrifying.”
“Terrifying because…?”
“Because…I could lose my job. Because I just went through a horrible divorce and my heart is just this raw, uncooked meat right now. I can’t…I can’t imagine giving it away to anybody. I won’t survive it if things don’t work out.”
“And what makes you think things won’t work out?” he says, whispering again. My mother is probably lurking near.
“Because he’s younger than me. He’s a lot younger than me. And I’m not sure what kind of future I can have with him.”
“Does he love you?”
His question causes my stomach to drop. “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “Maybe? He’s Spanish and passionate, so it can be hard to tell sometimes.”
“Do you love him?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know that either.”
“You would know if you did,” he says after a beat. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t.”
“Well, right now, we’re kind of on a break.”
“Was that your doing?”
“Yeah, but our relationship started to complicate his game. He really fucked up and I thought it would be for the best if we just avoided each other for a bit. Just until a few games were played, so he could prove himself.”
“Prove himself to you?”
“No. To everyone. I just didn’t want that all on my shoulders. I wanted to put my feelings to the side and let him do his job.”
“You know, your feelings still exist, even if you’re ignoring them.”
He’s got that right. My feelings are welling up inside me like a tangled knot I’m afraid to undo.
“And how did he take that break?” my dad asks.
“Not well. He won’t even look at me most of the time. He has been doing great though, so at least there’s that. Back to scoring lots of goals, being a menace on the pitch.”
“Alejo Albarado,” he says, figuring it out. “That’s him, isn’t it? I saw the game against Manchester United.”
“You did?”
“Sweetie, I watch all your games. But I knew that one was going to be a doozy, with you being back in England and Stewart being there. I was really hoping you’d wipe the floor with them.”
The Younger Man: A Novel Page 27
