Chapter 31
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
Mateo
Tampa
Daniela ushers the team quickly out of the Tampa Airport, and we’re soon standing in the thick heat. Palm trees and tropical bushes line the airport drive. Cars stop to drop off somber men in tropical sets and equally somber looking women in equally vibrant dresses. They enter the airport.
The team files into an air-conditioned bus, and Florian sits beside me.
The other team members chatter about the upcoming game. Florian looks sad, and I know it must be strange he’s not playing.
Everything between us is stilted and awkward. Two days ago Florian said goodbye to his family.
The bus zooms forward toward our hotel.
“This is like Puerto Rico,” I say to Florian. “Sort of!”
Florian gazes at me contentedly as I list all the similarities that I’ve found so far between Tampa and San Juan. It’s mostly the weather.
But then, I haven’t left the bus.
The hotel is big and pink and vacation-y looking, the sort of place that sells images of itself on shirts and mugs.
Daniela goes to the front desk, then returns after a few minutes looking triumphant and grasping a stack of keycards.
“And here are your keycards,” Daniela says, giving keycards to me and Florian.
Florian’s eyes widen. “We are sharing a room?”
“Of course. You’re boyfriends.”
“Oh.” He blinks, and Daniela’s forehead crinkles, even though sudden facial movements are not something that a woman of her age wants to do.
“That is correct,” Florian says. “We are together. Thank you, Daniela.”
I look at the keycard. “317! That must be on the third floor. We need an elevator. Unless you want to walk—maybe you want to walk! Since you’re an athlete.”
Florian gives me a soft smile. “An elevator is fine, Mateo. It is right behind you.”
“Oh!” My cheeks heat—so does the back of my neck—but Florian’s smile doesn’t change. He takes my bag and then walks to the elevator.
I hurry after him. “I can carry those!”
“I had a head injury,” he says. “Not a back injury.”
“Yes, but—”
Florian steps into the elevator, then I step in quickly beside him. The elevator is full of people. They are tourist families in colorful shorts and flip-flops. Some of them have wet hair, coming from the pool behind the hotel, and water drips over the faux-porcelain tiled floor.
They eye Florian and me curiously. I wonder if anyone recognizes us. The children start to chatter amongst themselves, and Florian presses against me as more people fill the elevator.
I stiffen and resist the impulse to lean into his selection of sturdy muscles. He stiffens too, and oh God, I’ve made things awkward again.
I glance at Florian, and he looks worried. Shit.
The elevator pings on the third floor, and we weave past the playing children and their proud parental figures. The hallway is quiet, and the doors of the elevator slam behind us before they zoom upward to more luxurious suites.
Not that this hallway isn’t sufficiently luxurious.
Technically, Florian is staying in my room.
I never thought I would have a job like this, and it is amazing.
Until I joined the Blizzards, I’d never stayed at a hotel as nice as this. I’d seen the fancy hotels in Puerto Rico only on the outside. They’d been large and imposing, despite their colorful tangerine and pink outsides, the color depending on which billionaire in the US ran it.
But now I’m in Florida with the Blizzards and I’m in this hotel.
Florian walks beside me. We don’t talk, which is fine. Normally, I do the talking. But for some reason I don’t know what to say.
It’s all I can do to not tell him that he can get another room. But even I know that is a bad idea to say in a hotel hallway where we haven’t ascertained how thick the walls might be and who precisely is on this floor.
We stop at the doorway. “Well, that’s it!” I give a bright smile. “That was a short distance.”
“Yes.”
I glance at the two bags that Florian is carrying. “It probably felt longer for you.”
He blinks.
“Since you were carrying something,” I add, lest I accidentally offend him or something.
I open the door, and he holds the door open for me. I hesitate, then realize he is still carrying all sorts of things and rush into the fancy room.
“Well, I’m strong. It felt short to me too,” he says.
I roll my eyes.
He chuckles.
A loud noise sounds, and we glance behind us.
The door slammed shut.
We are alone in a hotel room together.
Florian
Mateo’s face has frozen in something between a smile or a grimace.
“How are you feeling?” I ask carefully.
“Fine!” He beams. “Fine! Fine!” Then he blinks, and he’s probably going to apologize because he thinks I can only hear the word ‘fine’ so many times before I combust.
“Good.” I walk further into the room. It’s nice. American hotel rooms are large, and this is no exception. A palm tree waves in front of the balcony.
I open the door of the balcony and step into the thick muggy air.
Insects hum. The pool shimmers below. Children scream, and some of the guys on our team are chatting to some women in bikinis. Somehow the women’s hair is perfect, even though there is a pool beside them.
“Is this like Puerto Rico?” I ask Mateo.
He joins me on the balcony. “Sort of. I like the hot weather.”
“When did you leave?”
“When I was twelve. My parents divorced, and my mother moved to Worcester. Some of her friends had moved there.”
“And you liked Worcester?”
“Well…” He frowns.
“It must have been cold.”
“Yeah, it was. But that wasn’t the problem. I mean, snow is fun, right? Snow days at unexpected times.” He gives a bright smile. “And it’s close to Boston. Not that we went. Well, a few times on the commuter rail. But we could have gone. But it’s…”
“Were people homophobic?”
He looks alarmed. “No. People were great. But it’s where—” And even though Mateo is a much better talker than I am, even though English is both of our second languages, he’s suddenly silent.
And I know.
“Your mother passed away there.”
He gives a jerky nod. “At least she’s not in pain now, right?”
“She was in pain?”
“Yes. She had ovarian cancer. It spread.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know. It’s sad. Sometimes life is sad. There’s nothing anyone can do. It just isn’t nice when it’s your own mother. It’s...” Mateo’s throat moves. “She should have lived longer. She should have enjoyed life more. She was working, then taking care of us, and then…” He winces.
I pull Mateo into my arms, and he leans his head against my chest. I stroke his back.
“I got into massage to make her feel better. She had hip pain. Calf pain.”
“That’s nice you could give her that.”
“It was something. I wish I could have done more.”
“I’m sure she appreciated it.”
He nods against my chest, then he steps away. “I’m sorry. I’m being ridiculous. She died years ago.” He claps his hands. “You’re in Florida! And you don’t even have to play!”
“I don’t mind playing.”
He gives a startled laugh. “I guess you don’t. It would be bad if you hated the job that you worked so hard to get.”
“My career is not a sad story.”
“No. It’s not.”
“But you can tell me about your mother,” I say. “Even if the story is sad. I don’t mind.”
“Well. It mostly wasn’t sad. We had fun. She laughed. She loved soap operas.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. It probably helped me realize that I was gay. The male characters were working for me much more than the female ones.”
“And she was fine with it?”
“She was.”
“And your father?”
He looks down.
“I’m sorry, Mateo.”
“No! It’s not like that. He isn’t a bad man. But maybe if I hadn’t been gay, we would have had more things to talk about, you know? He liked to watch sports and—”
“I like to watch sports.”
His eyes widen, then he laughs. “You do.”
“Not that I’m…” I close my eyes. “I didn’t just compare myself to your father.”
“You sort of did.” He chuckles.
“I’m sorry things aren’t easier with him,” I say before Mateo’s face can go sad and pensive.
Mateo shakes his head. “I’m explaining it wrong. He wasn’t bad. He simply wasn’t right for my mother.” Mateo frowns. “Or maybe he was. Maybe they just worked too hard. Maybe the conversations they had had become upsetting, all about household things and childcare things and…”
I wrap him in my arms. “I’m sorry.”
“Your family is very nice.”
“And I still did not tell them about myself.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Well, you could…” I chew on my lip. No. No, I will not interfere.
“Try again?” Mateo asks.
“We could go to Puerto Rico together,” I say.
For some reason he looks surprised.
“Maybe over Christmas,” I explain. “We can stay in a hotel, but you can still see him.”
He blinks. “You want to spend your Christmas with your fake boyfriend and his distant father? I don’t even know how good his English is.”
My cheeks heat. It’s too much. Holidays are for real boyfriends.
Dummkopf.
The world is too hot, like all the Florida heat is rushing into the air, despite the whirr of the four-star hotel’s air conditioner.
“It was a suggestion,” I say stiffly. My cheeks are hot.
He slides his eyelashes up. “I wouldn’t mind.”
My chest loosens. It wasn’t too strange of a suggestion. It was fine.
“Maybe it would be strange not to meet him? Since we’re… you know.”
“Pretending to be boyfriends?”
“Boyfriends normally meet parents after a while.”
“That’s right. But traveling there… It would be expensive.”
“I have money, Mateo.” My forehead crinkles. Mateo should have noticed that.
For some reason he is not looking at me, and I hate it. He glances at his phone. “I need to get to work.”
I nod. Mateo is here to give massages.
“Will you be okay?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He looks at me uncertainly. “You can go to the pool. Maybe hang out with the other players.”
I nod, but to be honest, they’ve been acting strangely. Maybe they don’t like that I need so long to recover.
“Maybe,” I say. “Go.”
He nods multiple times, then his cheeks turn that pretty pink color again, and he leaves the hotel room.
The door clicks behind him.
I shouldn’t have suggested visiting Puerto Rico with him at Christmas. I knew better.