Chapter 12
Twelve
Jason
The afternoon sun filters through the rainforest canopy as our group makes its way down the winding path toward the hot springs.
My legs are pleasantly sore from this morning’s hike over the lava bed and I’m looking forward to soaking in the warm waters.
Our group disperses into the women’s and men’s locker rooms to change and reconvenes on the path to the hot springs, where steam rises through the trees like morning mist.
The hot springs flow through a series of natural pools carved into the landscape, fed by mineral-rich waters heated deep within Arenal Volcano, according to the brochure the resort provided when we made the tour arrangements.
The volcanic peak looms in the distance, its perfect cone shape softened by wisps of clouds that have lingered after the torrential rain earlier.
Tropical plants cascade over the rock formations, creating intimate alcoves throughout the spring system.
“This is incredible,” Adrienne says, already pulling off her cover-up to reveal a simple black one-piece suit.
My eyes find Victor near the edge of the main pool, dipping a foot in to test the water temperature.
He’s changed into navy board shorts that sit low on his hips.
I’d managed to keep my eyes averted in the locker room, and now I look away quickly when I realize I’m staring at the play of muscles across his back.
“The water’s perfect,” he calls out, and something about his voice—relaxed, genuinely happy—makes my chest tight.
Logan and Silas are already in one of the smaller pools, Silas’s blond bangs brushed back from his forehead as he leans back against the rocks with a contented sigh. “This is even better than that Korean spa in Queens my friend Chloe and I go to,” he declares.
I hesitate at the pool’s edge, suddenly self-conscious about being shirtless around Victor. It’s ridiculous. We’re both grown men, and it’s not like he hasn’t seen me without a shirt before. But that was fifteen years ago, and I was younger. Fitter. Less gray.
“Dad, are you getting in or just standing there?” Kelsey teases, already chest-deep in the warm water beside Adrienne.
I pull off my t-shirt and slip into the pool, the mineral-rich water immediately soothing my hiking-tired muscles.
The temperature is perfect, hot enough to relax every tension, but not so hot that it’s uncomfortable.
I move toward the far edge of the pool, where Victor has claimed a spot with a view of the volcano, even as that voice in my head whispers that I should keep my distance.
“Mind if I join you?” I ask, though I’m already settling into the water beside him.
“Course not,” he says, and when he smiles, I notice the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. When did those lines appear? They suit him, I realize. They make him look distinguished, settled in a way he never was when we were younger.
We sit in silence for a while, watching the steam rise from the water and listening to the soft conversation of the others.
The late afternoon light catches the droplets on Victor’s shoulders, and I have to grip the edge of the pool to keep from reaching out to touch them.
God forgive me. I don’t know how to stop wanting him.
“This place is magical,” I say, needing to break the spell before I do something stupid.
“Leah would have loved it,” Victor replies softly, his gaze fixed on the distant volcano. “She told me that Costa Rica was on her bucket list. Volcano-fed hot springs and white-water rafting.”
The mention of Leah doesn’t sting the way it used to.
Instead, it settles something in my chest, a warmth that has nothing to do with the hot springs.
But it also brings the guilt rushing back.
How can I be sitting here, wanting Victor, when Leah never got to visit Costa Rica?
Or do any of the other things we were going to do someday?
“She would have been taking pictures of every single tropical flower,” I say, my voice thick.
“And making us pose at every waterfall like the water was pouring into our mouths,” Victor adds, his smile fond with memory.
“While complaining that the humidity was ruining her hair,” I finish, and we both laugh.
It’s the first time we’ve talked about Leah together without the weight of that night hanging between us. The first time her memory feels like a bridge instead of a chasm. And that terrifies me more than anything else, because if Leah isn’t the barrier between us, then what is?
You know what it is, the voice in my head whispers. Everything you were raised to believe. Everything the Church says about love, and sex, and marriage. Everything you’ve built your faith on.
But another voice, quieter but more insistent, asks, What if love is love? What if God doesn’t make mistakes?
Across the pool, Logan is explaining something about intellectual property law to Silas, who’s listening with the kind of attention that speaks of deep affection rather than genuine interest in entertainment contracts.
Kelsey and Adrienne are floating together, fingers intertwined, lost in their own world.
There are other people around us—the rest of Kelsey and Adrienne’s friends, tourists, a handful of locals—but there are at least two same-sex couples right in front of me and no one is paying them any mind.
“Look at them,” Victor says, following my gaze to my daughter and her fiancée. “They’re so happy.”
“They are,” I agree, watching Kelsey laugh at something Adrienne whispers in her ear. My stepdaughter has never been happier than she is with Adrienne, and I’ve never questioned that their love is a blessing. So why is it different for me? Why does any hint of happiness for me feel like a betrayal?
“Sometimes I can’t believe she’s getting married. It feels like yesterday she was fifteen and rolling her eyes at everything I said.”
“She was never that bad,” Victor says with a chuckle. “Though I do remember a few spectacular tantrums the year she was eleven.”
“You remember those?” I’m surprised. I’d assumed Victor had only seen the good moments, the carefully curated visits with her biological father.
“Jason, I was at your house constantly after Leah got sick. Of course I remember the preteen drama.” His voice is gentle, understanding. “I remember when she was having problems with one of the girls in her class.”
“Madison,” I recall. “Yeah, she was a little bitch.”
Victor chuckles. “Right. Madison. Leah and I tag-teamed that crisis. Ice cream and bad movies.”
The memory surfaces clearly now. Victor on our couch with a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough, Kelsey curled up between him and Leah, all of them critiquing some romantic comedy when I came home from Wednesday night choir practice.
I’d felt so grateful then to have Victor there, helping shoulder the weight of parenting a bullied preteen while Leah was too weak from chemo to stay awake for the whole movie.
“You were good with her,” I say quietly. “During everything with Leah, you were exactly what she needed.”
“What you both needed, I hope,” Victor says, and there’s something careful in his voice.
I turn to study his profile. The strong line of his jaw, the way his hair curls slightly at the nape of his neck where it’s damp from the steam. “Yes,” I admit. “What we both needed.”
We fall quiet again, but it’s a different silence now. My heart is racing, and I can feel the familiar war starting in my chest. The part of me that wants to reach for him battles against the part that’s spent more than forty years being told that good Catholic men don’t have these feelings.
But I do have them. I’ve had them for a long time, and prayer hasn’t made them go away. Guilt hasn’t made them go away. Fifteen years of silence hasn’t made them go away.
A bird calls from somewhere in the forest above us, the unmistakable liquid gurgle of a Montezuma oropendola, ending in that odd hollow note that always sounds to me like someone knocking on a wooden door. The afternoon light slants across the foliage bordering the pool we’re in.
“Has there been anyone?” I ask, before I can stop myself. “Since...?”
Victor raises an eyebrow at me. “Since you, you mean? Yes, Jason, I’ve had sex with other men since you.”
I can’t stop myself from looking around to see if anyone heard that and when I look back at Victor, his jaw is tight.
“I didn’t mean—“ I don’t know what I meant, or what I’m trying to say.
Victor leans his head back against the edge of the pool. “It’s fine.” He’s shifted slightly away from me, though.
I think about how I’d left him naked, covered in come, on my living room floor while I fled to the bathroom to clean up, my mind reeling with guilt and confusion. I was grieving and confused and terrified of what we’d done.
But looking at him now, remembering what he’d said last night, that he’s never regretted it. That he would have done it again any night since, even though I’ve spent fifteen years pretending he meant nothing to me.
My God, what have I done?
“I’m sorry, Victor.”
He turns his head and opens his eyes to look at me. “What for?”
“For how I treated you afterwards.”
He’s quiet for a moment, then nods. “It was a hard night for everyone.”
It’s a gracious out, and I should take it. I should let this conversation end here, let us go back to the careful distance we’ve maintained for fifteen years.
Instead, I hear myself say, “I’ve thought about it. That night. More than I should have.”
Victor goes still. “Really?”
“Yeah.” I keep my eyes on the volcano, because I can’t look at him while I say this. “I’ve thought about what we did. And what we didn’t do.”
The silence stretches between us. The water laps gently against the rocks. Somewhere behind us, Silas laughs at something Logan says.
“Jason.” Victor’s voice is careful. “What are you saying?”
What am I saying? I’m not even sure myself.
“I’m saying that we’re here for a few more days.” I finally turn to look at him. “And I’m tired of pretending I don’t notice you.”
Victor searches my face. I don’t know what he’s looking for. Permission, maybe, or some sign that I mean more than I’m saying.
I don’t.
“Just this week?” he asks.
“Just this week,” I confirm. “No strings. No expectations. We scratch an itch and then we go back to our lives.”
It sounds clinical when I say it out loud.
Transactional. It’s wrong. Casual sex is as much as sin as what we did that night.
Sex is supposed to be reserved for the sanctity of marriage.
But I’m tired of avoiding him, tired of pretending I don’t notice the way he moves, tired of the low hum of want that’s been running under my skin since I walked into our casita and found him with wet hair and wearing nothing but a towel.
And the only way I can do this—temporarily have what I really want—is if I know there’s an end point. If I know I’m not signing up for something I can’t handle. I’ll go to confession when I get home.
Victor’s face gives nothing away for a long moment. Then a slow smile spreads across his face. It’s not the bright grin I’ve seen him give Kelsey, but something quieter. More private.
“I can do that,” he says.
Something loosens in my chest. Relief, maybe. Or anticipation. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He shifts back toward me, close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his skin even through the hot water.
“Just this week,” I repeat. I can’t bear to hurt him again.
“I get it, Jason. I’m plenty familiar with casual sex.”
Right. Of course he is. He knows how to do this in ways I don’t.
The thought sends a spike of something through me. Not jealousy, exactly. I have no right to be jealous. But something adjacent to it.
“Okay,” I say. “Good.”
“Good,” he echoes.
Before either of us can say anything else, Kelsey’s voice cuts through the moment.
“Dad! Daddy! Come join us for lunch!”
We both turn to see her waving from the path to the restaurant. Victor rises from the water first, and I absolutely do not watch the way the water streams down his back.
Lunch at the small restaurant is filled with everyone’s chatter about the hot springs, our earlier hike, and the rest of our week’s activities. I find myself stealing glances at Victor across the table. When our eyes meet, he gives me a small nod, like we’ve just sealed a deal.
I suppose we have. It’s too much of a cliché to think of it as a deal with the Devil, so I won’t.