Chapter 32
chapter thirty-two
Natalia
I stared upwards at the buzzing white sign and yellow bulb lights. Elvis was there dancing with a red acoustic guitar across his waist and smiling down at me like he knew a secret.
There was a gold awning at the front of the building, white steel fence posts with hearts embellished on the spokes, and an old pink Cadillac parked in a twenty-four-hour wedding drive-thru bay.
The irony of this being the sole place within walking distance to find an Elvis impersonator was not lost on me. It was some kind of divine intervention, forcing me to face the music—no pun intended. There were obviously more romantic places to get married, but after planning a wedding and nearly losing myself in the process, I understood exactly why this kind of place existed. Those people were geniuses. They knew what they wanted, and they went and got it.
Safe to say, letting anyone interfere in our wedding was the biggest mistake Mateo and I had ever made. It complicated everything, it made us question each other, and it clouded our choices, bringing us to this.
Mateo had made it clear that he was ready to put the hard work into whatever the hell this was to fix it. I wanted to let him, and a little part of me knew that when I walked out of the bar alone it would only be a matter of time before my fiancé showed up to reel me back to him.
The chapel doors swung open and I peeked inside, hoping to catch a glimpse of what was happening beyond the gold ruching and red roses. There was the slightest breeze that made the hair on my arms stand on end and I rubbed the chill away as a couple walked across the green carpet with their wedding license. He was wearing a white dress shirt two sizes too large and a bow tie that barely clipped together at his neck, and he swept his blonde bride in her red tube dress and feather boa into his arms, kissing her so hard her lipstick painted his mustache when they finally pulled away.
That spontaneity and lust was electric. It was how it felt to be in love with Mateo. Simple, yet unconventional. We weren’t ever going to fit in a box, but we’d spent the last five months trying to force it, and hurting ourselves in the process. I’d known that, but it hit me all at once, watching longingly as the newlywed strangers walked down the sidewalk into their new lives, together. And I realized I was jealous .
“Tal.”
The voice spun me around. Mateo was there, standing alone with his hands in his pockets. Wind had mussed his hair the way the beach back home always did, and that paired with those despairing, soft brown eyes took the air out of my chest. My heart hammered against my ribs; blood rushed to the tips of my ears.
He stepped right into my space and blocked everything else out around us. The bright lights in the chapel sign formed a yellow aura around his head.
“I figured you’d find me.” It came out no higher than a whisper. My gaze landed on his throat and I studied the familiar beauty marks that peppered him all the way up to his jaw.
“There’s nowhere you could go that I wouldn’t.” Mateo took a hand out of his pocket and timidly reached for mine. I let him. His thumb grazed over the diamond ring on my finger, sliding the band back and forth. “I’m never leaving you alone, baby. No matter how mad you are, no matter how distant we might find ourselves, no matter how impossible it might feel to patch all the holes. I’m going to do it, Natalia. I’m going to show up.”
My lip quivered traitorously. A burn threatened at the back of my eyes, and Mateo’s grip on my hand tightened as he tugged me forward and my ear connected with the soft linen over his chest. For a man so deliberate in his words, Mateo’s heart was racing.
“That ring on your finger means something. I am yours . Not the other way around. Like you so earnestly reminded me at the beach club, there’s a man with a drink and a man with a ring waiting for you everywhere you go, but you wear mine .”
“I was being a teensy bit bratty when I said that.” I pinched my thumb and pointer finger together.
“We’ll deal with that later,” he promised, wrapping both arms around my shoulders and crushing me against his body. His scent draped over me and set my soul on fire, and my eyes closed as I got lost in the protection of it. “I don’t want to be at odds with you anymore. And I don’t think you want to be with me,” he guessed correctly. “But if you still do, then fight with me, Tally. Yell at me. Get it all out. Tell me I’m a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve you, call me a misguided momma’s boy, remind me how badly I almost fucked this up, make me beg. Just don’t be done with me. Okay? Because I won’t survive that.”
“I’d never call you a misguided momma’s boy,” I said, hiding my smirk. “But I’m glad you’re self-reflecting.”
He jostled me. “Punk.”
“I wanted to blame you for everything this morning, because I’m so used to having to defend myself to other people, and justify my anger, but that’s not fair to you. I should have been paying more attention, reading the signs, realizing you were struggling. I don’t know how I became a person you couldn’t talk to when you needed to, and whatever I did to make you think you had to keep things from me, I—” My voice trembled. “I’m sorry, Matty.”
He tried to brush it off, shaking his head. His thick fingers threaded through my hair, scratching gently against my scalp.
“Let me say I’m sorry to you, please.” I stepped back so I could pour all my grief directly into his hard gaze and make him hear me. “You don’t always need to take things on the chin, you know. You’re human . It’s not your job to solve other people’s worries and problems, because you’re not a brick wall, Mateo. You’re allowed to say you’ve had enough and not feel smaller for it. No one would ever think you’re smaller for it.”
“I would, though,” he mumbled. “That’s the problem. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me, Tally, I promise you. I can’t be…less than I was.”
“In Delta?”
Matty glanced away from me. “I’m the fixer. People looked to me for that. I had the answers, I made the right choices, every single time. If I can’t figure something out now, then what am I, really? I’m a shell, a fraud. I had that panic attack in front of my parents and ever since then I’ve been pretending that the anxiety isn’t controlling me, and hiding it from you, hoping it would just go away.”
“You don’t live in fight or flight mode anymore.” I slid my hand through the coarse hair on the side of his head and pulled him back to me. His cheek felt heavy in my palm. “This isn’t war. You’re allowed to make a mistake and fail. You’re allowed to ask for help.”
Mateo took a deep breath. His hand latched onto my hip and his thumb drew circles, likely to anchor himself while he spoke. “This whole thing with TechOps and putting off a hire— it’s because I can’t trust anybody but my boys, my team . They were the only people I had for so long, Tal. It’s a different type of loyalty, and I don’t expect you to understand it. I realize how insane it is to not be able to hire a person more than qualified for the job, but the security company is mine , like the cam business is yours. I didn’t realize how much stake I put into that until Pike left. Then my parents showed up, and the wedding planning became exhausting, and the sex work suffered, and our relationship grew strained. By the time I realized I couldn’t do it alone like I thought I could, it was too late. The lie was dug too deep, and I couldn’t take it back.” His eyes were glossy and wet. “I didn’t want you to look at me like I wasn’t the same man you fell in love with anymore.”
My chest caved in on itself. It hurt to swallow. God, I hated myself for not giving him a chance to talk to me this morning. I hated myself for assuming everyone in my life was going to hurt me, that it was inevitable, that Mateo was even capable of doing something like that. I hated my parents, briefly, before I reeled it back, but most of all, I hated that there weren’t enough words to articulate how wrong he was about the limitations of my love.
“Mateo, when I look at you, I see everything I’ve ever wanted.” His tears were a dagger in my chest, and one fell quickly before he rubbed it away. “I mean it when I say I wasn’t fully me until I found you. I was waiting for the blank to be filled in for my entire life, and you showed up and wrote your name in it. There isn’t a version of you that I would feel any different about. I want to know everything. I want to be let in. Please don’t hide from me again.”
“I swear,” he whispered. “It’s the way I feel about you that takes my fucking sense away.” His breath played across my lips with each word, his thumbs resting in the hollows beneath my rib cage. “It scares me more than anything ever has, because it makes me weak and stupid, Natalia. I would do anything to have you. I’d walk into a firefight unarmed if you were standing on the other side. I need you. From the moment I saw you I’ve needed you.”
“You’re not the only one who’s made a bad choice in the last few months,” I reminded him. “I pretend I’m not desperate for my family’s approval, but this entire wedding has become about me proving a point. I don’t know why I care so much.”
Somewhere deep down, I knew it was hoping that one day I could have a relationship where my family would support me regardless of how niche and uncomfortable it might be. If I could be both the successful, put-together daughter and also the private seductress, the first one may cancel out the other.
Not so much my parents, for obvious reasons. Really, I longed for that connection with my sisters.
“I’ll never forgive your father for what he did to this pretty little mind.” Mateo tapped my temple. “We got so caught up trying to placate our parents and play nice as if this isn’t the most important day of our lives. No one else matters, and losing each other in the madness was the one thing we said we wouldn’t do. If you want something different, Tally, we can do that. We can figure this out.”
“The venue is paid for.” I smiled meekly. “The catering is booked, and people have bought flights and suits and blocked out rooms in the resort. It’s happening, Matty. It will still be perfect, I’m not worried about that. I’ll love it because it’s the day I get to marry you. I know I can be a little crazy but I’m not cancel-a-wedding crazy.”
He leaned in and planted a kiss on my forehead. “But you’ll always remember it as the day you settled for because you didn’t get what you really wanted.”
When the smoke cleared, and the ice sculpture melted, we would be back to our regular, reclusive lives like the last six months never even happened. It was a blip in the tapestry. The only thing that would always remain the same was us, and holding onto that would get me through Key West in June.
“All I want is me and you like it’s always been. Like it will always be,” I said.
Mateo scooped up my hands and brought them to the center of his chest. His eyes were dark and dilated. He swallowed hard, and his cheeks dimpled as a thought crossed his mind. “Then marry me. Right now.”
“What?” My short laugh was entirely full of disbelief.
“Marry me,” he said again, a full smile curving across his handsome face. “I don’t need any of that other shit—the flowers, the seagulls, the fucking DJ. I don’t need my parents or the boys or some random officiant with a little binder full of poems he reads to every single couple that comes through. I need you, though, and what’s more me and you than saying fuck everything else?”
Mateo turned us toward the little white chapel and all its dazzling lights that sparkled against the setting purple skies in Las Vegas. Everything else in my mind went blank. My heart pounded like a drum. My stomach flipped. I couldn’t place what was happening inside of me. Anxiety, excitement, rebellion. It was like running and being chased but wanting to be caught for the thrill of it.
My mind was quickly made up. “What will we tell everyone?”
“Nothing.” His teeth caught his bottom lip. “Who needs to know?”
My mouth opened but nothing came out. We could have everything. A secret, intimate, spontaneous nuptial, and also the wedding everyone was expecting, but on our terms. Already married, and simply there for the party. There was nothing else I wanted in the world more.
“Okay.” I nodded, my voice breathy and rattled. I threaded my fingers through his, squeezing tightly. “Let’s do it.”
Mateo picked me up bridal style, the feathers of my dress ruffling beneath his large, warm hands as they settled on my back and thighs. I crossed my heels at the ankles and threw my head back, laughing. When I came up for air Mateo stole it from me again, kissing me hard, opening his mouth over mine as our tongues swept against one another and my arms latched around his neck.
“Are we doing drive-thru or counter service?” he asked. “We don’t have a car, but I’d let you ride me through it.”
My eyes rolled playfully. “I came here for Elvis, didn’t I?”
“Then Elvis you shall get.”
Mateo walked us across the threshold of the building, and surrounded by pink stained glass and red rose petals in an empty room, I became Natalia Duran.