Chapter 3
chapter three
Mateo
15 months ago
Four. That’s how many times I’d peeked around the cubicle wall at the girl sitting behind the front desk of the bank in as many minutes. Her head was still down, fingers working the keyboard in front of her, and a long strand of dark-brown hair caressed the side of her face outside of a slicked-back ponytail.
Natalia Russo.
I’d gone against my own rules to find out that name. It was easy enough to poke around in the system at the credit union where my company was installing security to pull her information. Usually a work photo wouldn't do a person justice, but hers? Damn near black hair, dark irises that could melt you, high cheekbones and faint blush, a few buttons open on her white blouse—she looked like magic from the moment my eyes caught a glimpse. Still did, while avoiding me. Or trying her hardest to.
The pen in my hand tapped anxiously against the desk.
"Why don't you just go and talk to her, Cap?" my best friend and business partner, Frankie, suggested from the rolling office chair beside me. He hadn't looked up from the desktop he was fiddling with, writing code into an open text box and wearing that hat I’d told him a dozen times looked unprofessional.
The bank was slow this afternoon. Barely audible Jim Croce crooned in the background, fluorescent bulbs burned down onto the white tile floors, and a man darted back and forth across the puke green throw rugs with one of those silent vacuum cleaners. I jammed my tongue in my cheek and craned my neck to look around the makeshift wall again. Still there. Still pretending I wasn’t.
"I made a move, Pike," I said. "I put that sticky note right in the center of her screen. She's either seen it or she's writing emails with an obstructed view and pretending she didn't."
"Why are you waiting for her to text you when she's sitting ten feet away?" Pike ran a finger across his top lip and continued typing. "We’re going to have to pass her walking out the front door. Or are you going to ignore her like you're in high school again?"
I flicked the back of his ear, earning a frustrated grunt. "Type, monkey."
This wasn’t like chatting up a girl at the bar after a few drinks and sparring with the jukebox. I couldn’t just go talk to her . I wasn’t an ugly guy, but some dim lighting and a beer blanket never hurt anybody. I could use that extra confidence at the moment.
"She's probably nervous, too," Pike added, as if reading my mind.
"I'm not nervous. I just don't want to come on too strong. She can't leave if she's not interested and I waltz over and back her into a corner." I scratched at the base of my neck, pulling at the tufts of overgrown hair. Then, just in case, sunk my nose into the crease of my armpit for a perfunctory sniff.
Frankie jammed a key finitely, then twisted in his chair to face me. "But you're aware of that, unlike most other guys. So use that expertly honed intuition and retract yourself if you feel like she'd rather stick a fork in her eye than speak to you."
"I'm not that bad," I reasoned. "Do you see that girl? She's dealt with the worst of us. Trust me."
He slapped his hands down on his knees. "If it were me, I'd just go talk to her. Ask her if she liked her coffee this morning."
The coffee I left on her desk before she arrived, with a note and my number, leaving the ball in her court. Of course she liked it, because I'd fished her empty cup out of the break room garbage the day before to take a photo of the order sticker.
That wasn’t weird, I kept telling myself. What would have been weird was if I tasted the coffee before dropping it off at her work station. The garbage thing was smart.
"Oh, fuck off. If it were you, you'd run home with your tail between your legs and jerk off about it for three days."
"Screw you, man." He tried and failed to keep a straight face, reclipping paperwork into a three-ring binder and shutting it with a soft thwap. "You know what, whatever. Wait for her to text you, don't fucking wait, I don't care. But the job is done here, so it’s now or never. I'm going home now to jerk off about something, I guess. Are you coming?"
"You want me to come jerk off with you?"
Pike's patience with me was next level but he had his limits. He pressed the button on the console and the computer powered down like a jet cooling its engines. Then he was out of the desk chair and shouldering past me and into the lobby of the bank. I spun with him, pinching the bridge of my nose. We were done with the installation, and if I walked out that door with Pike I’d pretty much never have the chance to talk to her organically again. He was making my decision for me.
Natalia looked up for the first time, watched him traipse by with the binder under his arm and the car keys swinging around his fingers, and glanced in my direction. We locked eyes for a long second before hers shot back down to her screen.
That small gesture was a glimmer of hope, the tiniest opening of an invitation. I weighed the options quickly, deciding not to hit my pillow later asking myself what-ifs. Swiping my phone off the desk, I slid it into my back pocket and hustled in Frankie's direction, catching him before he pushed out the door. "Be out in a few minutes," I told him. I tilted my head toward the front desk and he smirked back, saluting me with two fingers to his forehead.
But then Pike looked past me. "He's a good guy, I promise. You make him nervous, so you have an advantage anyway." I turned and Natalia was watching us again, a shadow of a smirk lifting her lips.
“Yeah, yeah, see ya, Pike.” I cleared my throat. “Hey, I heard if you use your left hand it actually feels like someone else is doing the job,” I hissed under my breath.
His laughter trailed off as the glass doors waved open and thud shut behind me, leaving me and her mostly alone. A shy, albeit smug grin lit up Natalia Russo’s face.
"Do I make you nervous?" she asked quietly. Something pinched the inside of my chest, hearing her voice for the first time. Soft yet deep, it matched her dark hair and the shade of her lipstick. It felt familiar in the way that déjà vu does, like maybe I’d heard it in a dream before, and forced me to imagine all the other alluring pieces of her there were to uncover.
"Most pretty things do." I shrugged, blasé. "Probably because I was never allowed around the china plates as a kid. But I'm learning to be gentler."
Her nose scrunched in the most adorable way, all of her features coming together and kissing at the center of her face. Then she slid the keyboard in front of her to the side, propping her arms on the desk. "Gentle is boring."
That was a whisper tossed into the loaded space between us. My eyebrows knitted together and then relaxed. Either she was flirting with me or I was deeply confused and now mistakenly aroused. Her pupils danced forward and back; the ring around them was a brown like toffee. "Now that I see you up close I guess it makes sense. There's something in those eyes that makes me think you like getting in a little bit of trouble.”
On cue her eyelashes met the topmost part of her lids and it felt like she was telling me to look right through her. To find a secret hidden somewhere. "Thank you for the coffee," she said. I hadn’t been able to stop staring and she knew it too, because I felt the teasing sureness in her next words before she even said them. "Little cold once I got here though, if I'm being honest."
God, I loved a brat. She was more and more my type by the second. And I liked that I’d made her comfortable enough to take a playful shot at me. It made me more confident in my gutsy reply.
"You know, it's really good right out of bed first thing in the morning."
Her blinks slowed, and my smile followed hers, all the way to my ears. We were both enjoying whatever this little thing was. She wouldn't be entertaining it if she wasn't interested.
"You're inviting me over for a slumber party?"
"I was just buying you a coffee, sweetheart. You're the one talking about slumber parties."
She laughed then. It was so quiet and short-lived and she closed her hand over her mouth like she'd get in trouble for it. But that sound was even more perfect than her voice, bubbling up to a higher pitch before tapering off. Whoever made her self-conscious of that laugh was a son of a bitch because I was yearning to hear it again.
Natalia's face returned to neutral and she shot a glance behind her, to the rooms where her coworkers sat. A guy in his mid-twenties with a thin tie and a too-tight dress shirt watched us curiously, with a crooked nametag on that said “Andy.” Her expression soured and I stared at him until he turned back around. Yeah, I’d say Natalia Russo fucking hated her job. She pulled her cardigan across her chest and folded her arms.
"Am I going to get you in trouble?"
"Possibly," she said. “But I don’t really care. Let them fire me.” Her long, French-tipped nails tugged at a loose thread on her sleeve.
“Who needs a job anyway?” I shrugged.
There was a little caddy with a pair of scissors on her desk. I reached for them slowly, asking for permission and curling the fingers of my other hand toward her arm. She lifted it hesitantly, curiously, and watched me snip the yarn.
"Aren't I a little young for you?"
"I don't know. You haven't told me how old you are yet."
"Twenty-five."
I blew out a breath and counted the lights on the ceiling. "How's your relationship with your father?"
"Terrible."
"Then I think we'll be just fine."
Her tongue darted out, painting her bottom lip, and I leaned my body farther over the counter. I didn't want to whisper but I wanted our conversation to be just that. Ours. She was thinking about every last reason this could be a bad idea, and I knew so because I had all the same tells. Her eye contact had waned, her hands fidgeting and anxiously picking; even her breathing was coming quicker. Not quite panicking yet, but weighing the pros and cons of something that could lead to it. I made her nervous. I backed up again.
She tapped her fingernails against each other. "Why don't women your own age like you?"
"I travel a lot."
"Is that a money brag?"
"You couldn't pay people to go to the places I’ve been." My neck craned over the ledge of the counter, catching a glimpse of something blue and crumpled inside the small garbage at Natalia's feet. "Did you throw my phone number away?"
She kicked the tiny basket farther beneath her desk. "Yes."
"I thought this was going well."
"Customer service is my specialty…" She squinted, reading the name embroidered across the chest of my work shirt. "Mateo."
"Duran," I added. "What do you think of that name?"
"What do I think of your name?" she said with a laugh. Like it was the most ridiculous question she'd ever heard. More so than the hundred she got a day sitting behind this desk clicking buttons and counting change. She pulled her keyboard back in front of her and started jostling the mouse to wake the screen, alluding to work. For all anyone could tell I was there opening a new account. Not trying to get the bank teller in my bed.
"Yeah. I figured it might be yours one day. So I wanted to make sure you liked it."
“Wow, that was something.” She snorted. Natalia had the most perfect full lips, and I would die just to see her teeth sink into the bottom one. At the very least I amused her; she tolerated the way I was coming on, terrible pick-up lines and all. It made me keep trying.
“That was an honest question.”
She rested the end of her pen between her teeth. She was fucking calling my attention to her mouth; I wasn’t imagining things. "Duran is a good name, but…Mateo doesn't exactly roll off the tongue."
"You can call me whatever you want," I offered. "Whatever makes your tongue happy."
I remembered Pike for the first time since I stopped to talk to Natalia and glanced at the door. It was a bright and warm late October day in South Florida, not a cloud in the sky, but the tints on the windows of the bank made the entire room feel gray. It was the kind of job where clocking out at the end of the day felt like being let out of prison.
"Look." She sighed, dropping the pen. "I think you're attractive, and I appreciate the coffee and conversation, but I don't know anything about you, and…” A pause. “I am not the type of girl to do relationships. My life is…complicated."
I rubbed at the hair along my jaw. Usually, I was pretty off the cuff. I could hold a conversation with anyone, talk myself out of anything. I was trained in crisis prevention and de-escalation in the special forces of the United States military; it was literally part of my day-to-day to be the guy who knew exactly what to say. But for some reason this five-foot nothing bank secretary with the pencil skirt and the little attitude that turned me on more than it should have had me stumped.
"You want to know about me?” I asked. "Okay, I'm thirty-four. I was born in the Bronx and I have a younger brother named Angelo, so if you think my name is bad, get a load of that one. When I was eighteen I enlisted in the Army. My parents fucking hated me for it for years, maybe they still do, but we don’t talk about it. I drink on occasion, mostly to relax, but sometimes not. I've never done any hard drugs, never even smoked weed, and after spending fifteen years in the military that's basically unheard of. My favorite movie is Dirty Dancing , and I can't watch horror. I actually had nightmares so bad as a kid I peed the bed until I was twelve."
Natalia was shaking her head but her straight white teeth curved into a smile.
"I started this business two years ago with that jerk outside waiting for me to make a move on you. We live together. His name is Frankie, but our buddies we served with and I all call him Pike. He and I are kind of a package deal, so if you've got any friends…" I trailed off suggestively. "And I love a challenge. Our job is done, so if you tell me no today, I’ll find another reason to come back in here again tomorrow. And not because I can't take no for an answer”—I leaned forward, close enough to notice her eyes had some flecks of yellow—“but because if I'm reading this right, I don’t think you want me to."
Natalia tucked the strand of her hair hanging in front of her face behind her ear and I imagined a moment where I might be able to do it for her.
“Am I reading this right, Miss Russo?”
Her neck tilted. "I'm not a cheap date."
"I've got money."
"And I'm terrible at expressing my feelings."
"I'm a great listener."
"Sometimes I just want to sit in silence, or read a book, or stare at the ceiling and not talk to anyone."
"I bet you're gorgeous to look at from across the room while you do."
A curious, fiery light flared in her eyes. She relaxed backward into her desk chair, the thin plastic creaking softly. "I'll drive you crazy."
"God, I hope so."
The bell on the front door jingled and the sunlight from outside brandished a sliver on the floor as a woman walked in and formed a line behind me. That was it, that was my verbal vomit attempt at convincing this woman to give me a chance. I alluded to marrying her and then told her I was a bedwetter. To save the shred of my dignity that was still left, I stood up straight and took a step back, gesturing with an arm for the woman behind me to take my place with Natalia.
"Think about it," I said. "And if you ever decide to call me, I'd love to take you on that date."
She glanced toward the floor, my guess at the garbage can and the neon Post-it note with my number scribbled on it. "I’ll think about it.”
I nodded. With that, I turned on my heels, shouldering outside into the daylight and the busy parking lot. Our installation was over; there was no reason for me to ever walk through those doors again unless I decided to open a new bank account as an excuse to show up looking for her weekly. The fact that thought even crossed my mind was alarming, and I pushed a shaky hand through the front of my hair, slicking it back.
The thing about me was that I did get nervous. I overthought everything, but I was damn good at keeping a cap on it. For the first time in my life, that wavered. All I could think about was how badly I’d just fucked up, how she’d laugh about it to her girlfriends, how she was probably already in a relationship, or had a roster of men at her disposal. My anxiety had me glued to the sidewalk, knees locking into place as I contemplated turning back to ask her to forget it ever happened for the sake of us both.
Frankie was sitting in the driver's seat of the truck across the parking lot watching me with an eyebrow lifted. You know what, I would just blame him. It was his bright idea to go talk to her. I was always going to let her make the decision, leave my number, hope for the best. Now it was all fucked.
I took two aggressive steps in his direction, about to point a finger before my cellphone started ringing in my pocket. I put it to my ear without a second thought. "Hello?"
"I thought about it.” Her voice was slightly higher pitched, filtered through the receiver, but I knew it all the same. I twisted back toward the bank, looking through the window at the girl there with the phone to her ear, a coiled wire strung down to her desk. “And I’m not busy Friday night.” I watched her lips move, confirming she was indeed saying what I was hearing.
"No? Okay. Me either."
"Okay," she said softly, trailed by a hum of a laugh.