The One That Got Away: A Novel

by Halle, Karina

  “I don’t think I’ve had time to feel nervous,” I say, turning to the side and trying to suck in my stomach. “Are you sure this dress looks okay?”

  I glance at Elena’s reflection in the mirror, the little smirk on her lips. I glare at her. “What?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “Just, this is the third outfit you’ve put on, so I think you might be nervous whether you want to be or not. The Ruby I know doesn’t fret. You’re fretting.”

  I make a face and smooth my hands over my hips. I swear they’ve gotten bigger and the black dress I’m wearing clings a little tight.

  But it does have a flattering neckline.

  And I am running late.

  “Are you wearing matching underwear?”

  I turn around and march past her to pick up my purse. “None of your business.”

  “Do you need a condom?”

  Shit. Do I?

  Just because the last time I saw Luciano I slept with him, doesn’t mean that will happen again. It’s been two years. This date doesn’t mean that we’ll pick up right where we left off.

  Even though where we left off was a night that’s imprinted on my mind, seared into my memory. When I walked away from Luciano’s that morning, heading to the hostel, I felt like I was leaving another life. You know that movie Sliding Doors? I keep thinking that my life split into two at that moment, and I chose to leave. I would have had another life had I stayed.

  Maybe I would have fallen in love.

  Maybe I would have been happy.

  Maybe I would have stopped being so fucking scared all the time.

  But the reason I left was because I was scared. Scared that being with him would fuck things up with his own family, that I’d further ruin the relationship between him and his brother and his stepfather.

  Scared that I might get hurt.

  “Here,” Elena says, holding a condom out for me. “Take it just in case. I know you don’t talk about Luciano much, but I saw the way you looked at each other last night. That man wants you. Two years doesn’t mean anything in his mind.”

  I gulp, squeezing the condom in my palm.

  I know she’s right. I saw the way he was looking at me too. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be the subject of his gaze, to see the way lust glimmered in his eyes. It stirred up feelings that I had buried deep inside, only resurfacing when I was using my vibrator, or sometimes when I was sleeping with someone else. Hell, there had been a few times when I was having sex with Marco that I was fantasizing about Luciano, but there’s no way I’ll ever tell him that.

  “You’re allowed to have fun, Ruby,” she says, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “You deserve it. Just try to keep it casual and no one will get hurt.”

  No one will get hurt.

  Even though I originally just wanted to meet him at a bar, not a restaurant, even though I was hesitant about calling this a date. But when he texted me this morning, telling me he wanted to take me out for dinner instead, I didn’t think twice. I said yes.

  I slip the condom in my purse.

  “Are you sure I look okay?” I ask her.

  She peers at me. “Is your lipstick going to come off?”

  I smack my lips together. “It’s longwear.”

  “Then you’re good.”

  I take in a deep breath, my lungs feeling tight, and then I tell Elena that I’ll be back later.

  From the look on her face, I think she’s betting I won’t be alone.

  I step outside of our hotel, shrugging my leather jacket on as I go. I know with my black jacket and combat boots, plus my dark hair, I look a little goth, but I don’t care.

  The restaurant he picked is called Palácio Chiado, which is right around the corner from my hotel. I know he’s at a meeting right now and he’d just texted me to tell me that he’ll be a few minutes late and that he has a spot under his name.

  I find the restaurant and go up the steps and between the pillars, gawking at the place as I step inside. Holy shit. This is the most opulent restaurant I’ve ever seen. I’m realizing now that Palácio isn’t said glibly, this is an actual goddamn palace.

  Stunned, I give the hostess Luciano’s name and her face lights up.

  “Of course,” she says. “Right this way.”

  I feel like a celebrity as she leads me through the lounge area of velvet couches and chandeliers and past the long bar and then around the corner to a marble staircase. At the landing is a Christmas tree all lit-up, but my eyes are drawn upward, to the stained glass window behind it and the magnificent murals and frescoes on the ceiling.

  Here the staircase splits in two, both of them leading to the top floor. I continue to follow the hostess, wishing I had my camera with me to capture everything. My shitty iPhone photos won’t do this justice.

  She leads me into another room with a massive golden lion hanging from the ceiling, and then through to another room where there’s a large stately bar in the middle. She brings me to the corner at a small table for two and hands me the menus.

  Wow. I should be reading the menu but I’m glancing around the place, marveling at the details in this room, and watching the other patrons. I have to say, it’s been a really long time since I went out to a nice restaurant. When you’re living like I do, you have to play it as safe as possible with your money, so Elena and I do a lot of cooking.

  The waiter comes by, bringing a bottle of mineral water, and it isn’t until I’ve started looking at the menu that I see Luciano walk in the room.

  Oh my lord.

  Seeing him last night at the club was like waking up in the middle of a dream.

  But tonight, it’s like the dream is coming to me.

  He looks fantastic. His wavy dark hair perfectly styled, a black blazer over a grey V-neck tee, faded black jeans, black boots. He’s somehow gotten even more handsome over the last two years, though it could be confidence. He oozes it now, and it’s no longer a mask.

  “Hey,” he says as he comes over to me and bends down, greeting me by placing his warm palm on my shoulder and kissing both my cheeks.

  My eyes flutter closed and I instinctively breathe in. Sea salt. Pine. He smells the same. He smells like safety and happiness. If only I could bottle him and take it with me when I have to leave, put it on when I wake up in the night from the bad dreams that never go away.

  He pulls back, his gaze lingering on my lips for a moment, and all the cells inside me tense, wondering if he’s going to kiss me and set me ablaze.

  But he goes and sits down across from me and I have to exhale slowly, my breath shaking.

  So, it’s been what, thirty seconds, and I’m already a mess?

  “You look wonderful,” he says to me.

  “As do you,” I tell him, flashing him a smile. “Doesn’t seem fair that you only get better looking with age.”

  He snorts and picks up the menu. “I think my nose has gotten bigger.” He presses his finger on the tip of it. “This dent here is turning into a butt.”

  I laugh. “Oh stop. You do not have a butt nose.”

  That part of him was the last place I kissed, standing in his apartment, saying goodbye.

  “I can’t believe it’s been two years,” I tell him.

  He looks up from the menu, his smile wan. “I know. It’s good to see you. I mean, really good. I never in a million years thought I would see you again.”

  I didn’t think I’d see him either.

  But I’d hoped.

  I’d been walking around Lisbon with Elena this past week hoping I’d see him somewhere. I checked out the places I knew he liked to go to, I stood outside his apartment a few times. I was looking for him, my fingers crossed.

  “The last place I expected to see you was a nightclub,” I tell him, which is true. “I thought you hated those places.”

  Marco’s scene.

  “I do,” he says. Then he shrugs. “But we won the game and the team convinced me it was a good idea. I may be their captain, but I pretty much
do everything they say.”

  “You seem like you’re so much happier now. With your team, with the way you’re playing.”

  Another shrug. “I think so. I think after the shit we went through last year that we all just dug deep and really looked at what was inside us and what we were contributing to the team. At least that’s what I did. I saw it as a challenge. It’s still a challenge. Even after this season and the seasons after.” He licks his lips, looking like he wants to say something else.

  “What?” I ask.

  But then the waiter comes by, asking for our drink and food orders. Luciano orders a bottle of red wine from Porto for the both of us, and I quickly settle on a truffle pasta dish.

  “You didn’t want the bacalhau?” he asks, teasing.

  “Hey, I’ll have you know I’ve been eating nothing but bacalhau since I got here. It’s the cheapest thing on the menus sometimes. Anyway, you’re the one who just ordered a chicken breast with rice. I mean, who comes here and does that?” I gesture to the restaurant.

  “A man who has practice in the morning. And just so you know, you’re drinking most of that wine too.”

  “A wild man last night, but on his best behaviour for our date.”

  “Oh,” he says, his eyes dancing. “So, it is a date after all?”

  My heart does a little flip. “I guess that maybe turned into a yes.”

  “I knew this place would impress you,” he says.

  “You also know I’m easily impressed.”

  “So, tell me, Ruby,” he says, and the sound of my name on his lips still makes me feel like I’ve got a live current running through me. “What have you been doing these last two years? How long were you in Barcelona for?”

  “I was there for six months.”

  “How did you manage to make it work?”

  “When I got there, I started working at the hostel. I liked it. I got to meet new people every day, I was able to show people around the city and give them advice, I got to arrange pub crawls and beach parties. It actually felt like my calling for a while.”

  “I can see that,” he says.

  “And I picked up Spanish again, which was great.”

  “Perfect. We can speak to each other now when we don’t want anyone to hear us.”

  “You know Spanish?”

  “I learned it in school, along with English and French.”

  “Well,, I learned Spanish in high school and forgot it and then I learned it in Spain and forgot it again, so I’m sorry to say I’m not an apt pupil. Though it’s a hell of a lot easier than Portuguese. I don’t think I’ll ever get a hang of this language.”

  “You’re not alone in thinking that,” he says warmly, as the waiter comes by and pours us the wine. He does that thing where he shows you the label and waits for you to take a sip, except Luciano puts the responsibility on me.

  I look up at the waiter as he pours a millimetre in my glass and looks at me expectantly.

  “You really expect me to have an issue with this wine?” I ask him. “I’ll drink anything.”

  Luciano laughs. The waiter looks less than impressed, and he’s still waiting.

  “Okay. Bottoms up.” I shoot it back. Yep. It’s wine.

  “It’s good,” I tell him. “Tastes like wine.”

  The waiter leaves and I glance sheepishly at Luciano. “Sorry. I’m just realizing how uncouth I am. But hey, uncouth is a step up from what I used to be.”

  “I’m not sure I learned this ‘uncouth’ in English class.”

  “It’s a civilized way of saying I’m a hot mess. I like to think I left my hot mess phase behind, shedding it since the last time you saw me, and now I’ve evolved to the next stage. But, as we say back home, you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig.”

  “We have a saying here. Pão pão queijo queijo.”

  I know these words. I think about them for a moment. “Bread bread cheese cheese?”

  He laughs. “I’m impressed. It means it is what it is. In this case, you are what you are.”

  “An uncouth hot mess.”

  “No. You’re Ruby Turner. And you have your own path through life, that’s all. Just because you have a different way of doing things, doesn’t mean you’re a hot mess. You’re just you.”

  He’s looking at me in such a way that my stomach is fluttering. There’s so much…tenderness in his gaze, affection gleaming in his eyes, that it makes me realize I haven’t had someone look at me like that in a long time.

  In fact, that last person might have been him.

  “Well, I’m glad you have so much faith in me,” I tell him, the butterflies still inside me. “But my path through life is roadblocked at the moment.”

  His low brows knit together. “What do you mean?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know what I’m doing with myself. With my life.”

  “You’re living, aren’t you?”

  I glance at him. “Well, yeah. We all are.”

  “Not all of us.”

  I take a big sip of my wine and sigh. “Okay, so I’m living, but I had all these goals and dreams and plans and none of them worked out. I was at that hostel in Barcelona for half a year and I only went to two Barça games. Just two. And they’re my favorite team. I certainly didn’t write about them either. Then, after Barcelona, I went to the south of France where I worked at a bar in a town called Menton. I picked grapes and olives in Italy, living on an organic farm. I worked at a ski lodge in Austria. It wasn’t until Elena invited me up to Finland that I finally found my way back to the game I love. But is it even close to journalism, what I went to school for? No.”

  Wow. I guess I’ve been carrying all that with me for a while. I busy myself with another gulp of wine as Luciano surveys me, tilting his head to the side.

  “We all have goals in life, dreams,” he eventually says. “But everyone’s path is different, and ever changing, and sometimes it’s not a straight line. Sometimes you have to put your focus on other things, sometimes you just have to focus on living, on surviving. But if you keep at it, your dreams will find their way back to you.”

  “Your dreams were a straight line,” I tell him. “You discovered at a young age that you had talent. Look at you now.”

  “Who said this was my dream?” he asks, the corner of his mouth curving in amusement.

  I raise my brows. “It’s not?”

  “I have many dreams,” he says. “We’re allowed as many as we want in life.”

  “So tell me one of your dreams,” I say, putting my elbows on the table and resting my chin on my hands.

  “I want to be captain of a team that wins the Champions League.”

  “That might happen.” I pause, realizing who I’m talking about. “No. That will happen.”

  “With Sporting? Do you really think so?” he asks wryly.

  “No. You know I don’t. You need to get transferred somewhere else.”

  “Well that’s the plan. Stick with them here for a few more years, get this team back into shape, and then leave.” He leans back in his seat and looks around him to see if anyone is close enough to hear us. They aren’t. “I feel like such a traitor saying that.”

  “Do you remember when I interviewed you? When I asked you if you felt loyalty to the team because they basically raised you at the academy? You said it feels right to stay with the team that has been there from the start. Do you still feel that way?”

  He shakes his head. “No. This team is holding me back. I know it. Last year was proof. But it doesn’t stop the guilt.”

  “Feeling guilty just means you have a conscience, that’s all. You need to go play for Barcelona.”

  “Actually, I’m hoping Real Madrid.”

  My eyes widen. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  He laughs loudly. “Look at you. Oh, I would dare, just to see the contempt in your face. You really are a true Barça fan, aren’t you?”

  “You can’t be serious about Real Madrid. The fans boo their own playe
rs, even when they’re winning. Do you want to get booed?”

  “If I’m paid enough, I’ll take it,” he says with a grin.

  “They’re dirty players.”

  “I’ve never had a problem getting dirty.”

  His eyes fix on me and there’s no mistaking what he means. My thighs squeeze together and I swallow, trying to ignore it.

  “You’d have to play with Ronaldo.”

  “I know Ronaldo.”

  Oh, of course he does.

  “Well then, if you end up going to Los Blancos, then I’m going to show up at all your games to heckle you.”

  “I would love that.”

  I roll my eyes. “Be careful what you wish for.” I have another sip of wine, starting to feel delightfully buzzed. God, it feels good to talk to him. So easy. So right. The only thing I have to contend with is the way my body responds to each look, each word.

  “So, I guess your brother will have to make quite the deal to get you over there.”

  This is the first time I’ve mentioned Marco. He was starting to feel a bit like the elephant in the room.

  Luciano gives me a thin smile. “We’ll see. I’m free from my contract next year. If Real Madrid wants me, they’ll have me. Marco has an easy job.” He pauses. “Have you told him you’re in town?” He’s trying to make the question sound innocent, but I can hear the edge in his voice.

  “No. I haven’t. I haven’t been in contact with him since I left Lisbon.”

  “Ah. So it wasn’t just me.”

  I give him a loaded look. “Hey. We’re both at fault.”

  “What do you mean?” he asks, glancing at me sharply.

  “I mean for not keeping in touch.”

  He relaxes his shoulders. “Oh. Yes.”

  I wonder if he feels guilty about what happened between us. I know Marco and I weren’t together, even if it had literally ended that same day. But he is his brother, and he did kiss me when we were together. We were complicated from the start.

  “Does he know? Did you ever tell him? About us?”

  Luciano swallows thickly, darkness coming over his eyes. He gives a barely perceptible shake of his head. “No. I had no reason to.”

  At least we’re on the same page there.