26. Alex
CHAPTER 26
ALEX
O n Friday afternoon, I took the 1500 train to Córdoba. Connor followed on the 1800, and he met me at our hotel not far from the city center. We were far enough from Rota that even though we didn’t travel together, we didn’t bother with separate hotel rooms. No one was going to find us in a tiny place tucked into a hidden corner of this city.
Of course, our activities upon his arrival were predictable. Thanks to duty days, being on call, and staying necessarily discreet, we hadn’t had a moment alone since that night in his pool a week ago. What could I say? My hand just didn’t get the job done the way Connor did. Judging by the odd looks we got from the older couple across the hall when we left in search of dinner, we’d been… loud.
We both chuckled as we headed downstairs. We tried to be considerate of people around us, but what could I say? Sometimes, especially when I hadn’t had him alone for a few nights in a row, we got carried away.
Ah, well. As long as no one from the base had overheard us or saw us leaving together. I could still be a little paranoid about that sometimes, but I reminded myself that relatively few people went more than twenty or thirty klicks away from the base. I usually thought that was a damn shame—what a waste of an overseas duty assignment to just stay home and never go explore the country!
These days, I was completely fine with Americans sticking close to Rota. The fewer people ventured away from the base, the fewer chances there were for someone who recognized us to see us out fraternizing together.
As we walked from our hotel toward the city center where the restaurants were just beginning to open for dinner, I had to fight hard not to put a hand on Connor’s back or even slip my hand into his. That wasn’t who we were, though, and not just because we had to be discreet. This was friends with benefits—traveling fuck buddies, honestly—not boyfriends.
Are you sure about that, Alex?
I glanced at him in the warm light of the late evening sun, and my insides tumbled in a way they shouldn’t have with a man I was just supposed to be screwing on the downlow.
The sex was fun, and there was a certain amount of excitement that came with the clandestine nature of what we were doing. That wasn’t what I was feeling right now, though. This wasn’t rebelliousness or lust.
I missed you.
The thought almost had me tripping over my own feet. That was it, wasn’t it? We lived close together. We worked in the same facility. But the only time we could be Alex and Connor instead of HM1 Barlow and Lieutenant Commander Marks was when we were safely behind his villa’s walls or miles away from home.
When we were like this.
No matter how much I liked these moments, they were all we could have as long as we were both on active duty. And no matter how much I liked this man, I was fooling myself if I thought he liked me enough to date me on the downlow for over a year. He may have been enjoying the hell out of the sex, but the novelty of that would wear off long before I’d safely retired from the Navy.
This was all we were, and it was all we ever would be, and I couldn’t afford to lose sight of that.
You’ve known that from the beginning. Why are you suddenly getting all fucked up over it?
Maybe because at the beginning, I didn’t know I’d feel like ? —
“Is that the place?” Connor’s question pulled me out of my thoughts.
I shook myself and looked in the direction he was indicating. Sure enough, on the corner across the street, was the restaurant we’d been looking for. I’d been so far up in my own head, I hadn’t even noticed their distinctive sign above the familiar patio seating.
“Yeah.” I smiled. “That’s it.”
He eyed me as if he’d caught on that I’d been someplace else, but he didn’t question me. He followed me across the street and into the restaurant, and we were seated at the edge of the patio. From here, we had a nice view of a small plaza ringed with orange trees and with a statue at the center. I’d been here for lunch before, and an awning had shielded diners from the brutal sun, but it was nearly 2100 now—still daylight, still hot, but not as blinding or scorching. Like this, it was quite pleasant.
Connor swept his gaze around the plaza. “It’s going to be hard to go back to regular American restaurants after this.”
“I know, right?” I chuckled. “Especially now that I’m adjusted to Spanish meal times. You can’t just walk into a family restaurant at 2200 in the States and expect a long, sit-down dinner, you know?”
“Ugh, I wish we could do that. When I was stationed in Portsmouth, my shifts would always end late enough that there was no chance in hell of going out.” He sipped his drink. “My boys are going to want to move over here the minute they realize their night owl asses can have dinner that late.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep. I’m a bit of night owl myself, but my kids took after their mom—almost completely nocturnal. I don’t know how Quinn’s girlfriend deals with it.” He wrinkled his nose. “She’s one of those… morning people.”
I made a face. “That’s just wrong.”
“No kidding.” He sighed melodramatically and shook his head. “The things we tolerate in the name of love.”
My stomach did a somersault that I didn’t want to think too hard about. Yeah, I’d heard of people doing and putting up with all kinds of things in the name of love. Some rogue synapse in my stupid brain even thought there was a chance someone out there might do that for me.
A hypothetical morning person putting up with my night owl tendencies? Maybe.
An actual physician whose entire career would be upended if someone even caught a whiff of us together? Not gonna happen.
But I wasn’t going to think about that tonight. We were together for the weekend, and I would enjoy this while I had it.
“So.” Connor picked up one of the menus we’d been ignoring. “What do you recommend here?”
“Um.” I peered at my own menu, and for a moment, I struggled to even understand the words. Not because they were Spanish, either.
Fuck. What is wrong with me?
Connor turned his menu over, and he sighed with obvious relief. “Oh, fuck yes.”
“What?” I turned my own menu over and immediately understood his reaction: the text was in English. “Oh, sweet.”
“I thought you knew their menu.”
“Not by heart, no.” I skimmed over the options. “Last time I was here, I got the steak. That was great. They have really good wine, too.”
He nodded as I spoke, furrowing his brow at the menu. “Damn. I must be hungry because everything sounds good.”
“Yeah, it does.”
In the end, we both ordered steak, and the decision wasn’t a difficult one. While we’d been hemming and hawing over all the amazing things on offer, the server brought two steaks to the couple at the table next to ours, and the smell was absolutely irresistible.
After she’d taken our order, Connor sat back in his chair, glass in hand. “Okay, so that was easy, but still—thank God for English menus.”
“I know, right? My Spanish is decent enough to get by, but an English menu is always a relief.”
“Seriously.” He sipped his drink. “My Spanish is getting better, especially in restaurants. But I’m always afraid I’m going to order something weird by accident. Or just pronounce something the wrong way and insult someone.”
“There is that. My first year in Spain, I worked with a corpsman who couldn’t understand why her gardener gave her a weird look when she commented that it was hot out.” I laughed, shaking my head. “Our chief had to gently explain to her that in Spain, you don’t use ‘caliente’ to describe the weather. Or the heat of your food.”
Connor furrowed his brow. “Wait. How do you use it?”
I thought about it, aware there were other people within earshot who might understand English. Lowering my voice, I said, “You’d use it to describe the things we did before we left for dinner.”
“Before we— ooh .” He burst out laughing. “Oh God. Did she basically tell her gardener she was horny?”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“Oh, man. I would die. ”
“She almost did.” I laughed. “She couldn’t look the poor guy in the eye for the rest of the time she was stationed here.”
“I don’t blame her. I’m surprised I haven’t made some horrible gaffe, but I’ve only been here a few months, so…” He half-shrugged.
“Give it time. You’ll get there. Or you’ll end up ordering the fried cuttlefish like I did.”
He shuddered and made the most hilariously disgusted face. After another drink, he asked, “So what other things should I try? Spanish food, I mean?”
“You can’t go wrong with most of it, honestly, especially if you like seafood.”
“So I’ve noticed.” He paused, then wrinkled his nose again. “Though I did try a place out on the beach in Rota that… Ugh. I don’t know what they did to those chicken thighs, but…” He shuddered again. “Never again.”
“I think I know the place you’re talking about. I ate there once, and it didn’t taste right. And another corpsman told me she’d seen three different people come in with food poisoning from that place.”
“Oh God .” Connor looked horrified. “And it’s still open?”
“We’ll see how long it lasts.”
“Well, they won’t be getting any more of my money, that’s for sure.”
“Same. As far as things you should try…” I gazed out at the thin crowd and the orange trees in front of the restaurant. “Oh, there’s a place out in Cádiz, in the plaza in front of the cathedral where there’s a bunch of cafés. One of them—I’ll look up the name and text it to you later—they have this dish called patatas alinadas.” I couldn’t help groaning. “God, it’s amazing .”
Connor’s eyes lit up. “Yeah? What is it?”
“It’s kind of a potato salad, I guess? I know, I know, it doesn’t sound all that exciting. But it’s so good. They make it with olive oil and lemon juice, and then just some onions. That’s really all there is to it.” I blew out a breath as I reached for my drink. “Any time I go over to Cádiz, I have to put in an extra half hour or so at the gym just to make up for how much I stuff my damn face with potatoes.”
Connor snorted. “Okay, now I’m intrigued. It sounds really simple, but hey, some of the best dishes are.”
“I know, right? Especially…” I gestured around us. “A lot of Spanish food is pretty simple. I had tapas in Sevilla once, and it was literally just caramelized onions and goat cheese on baguette slices.” I chuckled. “I must’ve ordered like eight plates of them.”
“Ooh, I had something like that in Sanlúcar. If I ever get the hang of caramelizing onions at home, I’ll never leave the house.”
“You don’t know how to do it?”
“No, no, I do.” He rolled his eyes as he picked up his glass. “It just always ends up FUBAR.”
I laughed. “Sounds like me and basmati rice.”
“What? You can’t cook rice?”
“No, I can. I just… fuck it up. I don’t know how or why, but every time I’ve tried to make it…” I waved a hand.
He chuckled. “Everyone has their Achilles’ heel in the kitchen, am I right? My son’s girlfriend gets so irritated because he’s pretty decent in the kitchen, but any kind of short pasta—like penne or whatever—he just cannot cook it right.”
“Well, that balances out her being a weird morning person, doesn’t it?”
Connor laughed. “I hadn’t thought of that, but I’ll tell her that next time she complains about his pasta.”
“Fair’s fair.”
“Exactly.”
Shortly after that, our food arrived, and it was exactly as incredible as it smelled. The steak was a perfect medium rare, and the fries were exactly the way I liked them—not overcooked or oversalted. We shared a very good bottle of Spanish wine, and this was just… perfect. The warm night. The excellent food and wine. The peaceful surroundings.
And of course, the company.
I tried not to let myself think about how romantic this felt, or how easy and right it was for us to spend yet another relaxed evening as a couple. What that might or might not mean.
I tried not to.
But I failed.
* * *
“Between dinner, the long-ass day, and everything we did earlier,” Connor said as he lay back on one of the two beds in our room, “I don’t think there’s going to be much happening tonight.”
I slid up next to him. “You think I’ve got anything left?” I dipped my head for a soft kiss. “This is perfectly fine with me.”
“Good.” He wrapped his arms around me. “I like this part anyway.”
Sinking into his embrace, I grinned. “Do you?”
“Well, yeah. I like not sleeping alone.”
“Me too.” I hadn’t thought I would—hadn’t thought I could relax with someone—but I craved these nights together. I kissed him gently, and we both let it linger for a moment. “Maybe we’ll both feel up to more tomorrow. Assuming we don’t wear ourselves out walking to and through the Mezquita.”
Connor huffed a soft laugh. “I think we’ll manage.”
We shared another kiss, and then we settled in to go to sleep, his back against my chest and my arm around him. He laced our fingers together, and before long, he was out cold.
I wouldn’t be far behind, but my whirling mind kept me awake a few minutes longer. Partly because I was overthinking everything, and partly because I wanted to savor this quiet closeness. I’d done a lot of hooking up over the years, and not every guy was prone to cuddling with hookups. Some did, some didn’t.
Connor had, from the start, loved being as close as possible, and I was hooked on it. Even when we weren’t going at it, I liked it when we were touching. I couldn’t get enough of it, honestly.
Maybe because there were so few opportunities for it. We had to keep a safely platonic distance between us whenever we were out in public. The only time we could risk a touch, however chaste, was behind closed doors.
Maybe that was blurring the lines of what fuck buddies were supposed to be doing. Whatever. I was too tired to think too hard about it.
I did know that considering our arrangement, it should’ve been weird that I was so chill about the times we weren’t having sex. With other guys, I’d have had my guard up—worried they were subtly trying to steer us toward something that wasn’t just physical.
With Connor…
God, I could only hope.
I held him a little tighter and kissed the back of his shoulder.
Is it too much to ask to have this for real?