Chapter Four #2
“Felix.” Mischief laced Uncle John’s authoritative tone, betraying the firm, unimpressed contour of his angular features and hard eyes. Felix dropped his hand, rubbing the back of his neck, getting a read on the situation . His throat shifted with a swallow, like he’d temporarily lost his nerve.
“What is it?” Uncle John teased with a laugh, breaking character. His lips hitched into a warm smile. “Do you need something?”
Felix blew out a relieved breath. “Can I cut in?” Yikes. I grimaced. His Portuguese was atrocious.
The makings of my protest died because Uncle John had already extended my hand out to Felix for the taking. I swore once Ma got wind of this, she’d pop a blood vessel.
The fight left my body at the greedy acceptance of Felix’s grasp closing over mine with ownership, just like before. It compelled the lock on my knees to ease up, sending me careening back into an alternative reality where this turned out differently.
I liked how small my hand felt in his and the possessive dusting of his thumb as it traced over every detail in my hand, accompanied by the gauging swish over my ring finger.
He quieted my racing thoughts and made me feel safe when he was anything but. I reveled in it. I needed more of it. His touch emptied all levelheadedness I had. It made me forget Ma was in the room at all.
As long as he didn’t let go of my hand. As long as the spell didn’t break, nothing else mattered.
I was barely aware of Uncle John leaning into me. “He’s a good boy, Belmira,” he assured approvingly under his breath, pressing his lips to my temple.
Felix wasn’t a boy, though.
Not with that stocky build, those wide shoulders the dark blazer stretched over, or the depth of the rough calluses built against his enormous hands. His shrewd hazel eyes held a wolfish precision to them, more vibrant and alert than earlier, intoxicating gilded-copper strokes stark against the enchanting green framed by lashes darker than his hair. Chiseled cheekbones spilled into a square jaw dusted with a freshly trimmed beard the same shade of chocolate brown as his hair, and lined up under his chin.
And while he was shorter than Sean and taller than Dougie, Felix towered over me.
Maybe that wasn’t saying much, given I was just shy of a very honorable five feet without the conservative heels that offered an extra three inches, but his aura alone forced me to crane my neck back to meet his eyes. I swore I could hear every silent, debauched thought racing through his mind from the heated way he raked his stare over me.
Averting my gaze, I fought for a breath. I didn’t hate it.
How he looked at me.
How he made his intentions clear with his actions.
Felix was a man. A man who would eat me alive if given the chance, who’d nourish me where she would starve me.
If I wasn’t careful, I’d make the fatal mistake of letting my guard down.
Uncle John made a performance of motioning his index and middle finger at his own eyes, before training them at Felix, implying he was watching him. “ Juízo na cabeca.” Use your head.
“Always,” Felix assured.
People would talk. It was better we didn’t give them a reason to make something out of nothing. And that’s what this was. Nothing .
When Ma questioned me… that would be my response.
I just needed my erratic heart and the urgent warmth twisting under my belly button to get the memo, too.
Satisfied, my uncle gave him a firm head nod, clapped him on the shoulder, and retreated to his table, luring my aunt back to him.
This was a bad idea, but my legs willingly complied—common sense, who?—when Felix drew me into him. The jolt from earlier returned with the force of a thunderstorm when my chest brushed against his abdomen. I studied the threads on the buttons holding his shirt closed and the tiny interwoven fibers of the plaid pattern. My stare skulked upward, focus riveting on the triangle at the trunk of his thick throat, until I was confident enough to look at him directly under the wispy strands of my bangs.
I regretted the decision immediately. His hungered eyes latched on mine, strong fingers spreading and digging into my waist a little, lighting me up inside.
This was a bad idea.
His lips quirked with a crooked smile, more than aware of exactly what he was doing to me. At this rate, so was the entire room. There was enough electricity circulating between us to power the whole Northeast Coast.
It felt more chemical than it did logical. How he quieted my racing mind by planting seeds of a future I had no right longing for.
It scared me.
I held on to every shift of his eyes, giving me a careful once-over, the uptick of his amused brows when I blushed, and the subtle curve of his lips meeting a hidden cheek divot under his beard, effectively turning my legs into a wobbly mess. He tempted my weak ankles in my heels and made the gusset of my panties uncomfortably damp.
I craved more. Wordless, his strong arm slid around my waist possessively, the motion turning my insides into the gooey center of a cinnamon bun. I wasn’t aware of my own limbs as he firmed up his hold. My body simply complied while my blood pumped. He stared down at me over the smooth ramp of his straight nose, and where I struggled to keep the fear out of mine, I found an unspoken conviction in his, gifting me a comfort that wasn’t his to offer. The suggestive bite of his fingers cataloged the dip of my waist, his right hand adjusting to lock mine firmly in his, ensuring I couldn’t escape.
Not that I was going anywhere. No, at this point, I was liable to do something wildly irrational, like follow him into an alcove or right out the doors of the community center.
Maybe hole up in a hotel for the foreseeable future.
Move states.
Marry him if he asked.
“Hey,” he greeted on a smoky rasp. It was a good thing he kept me upright. I’d apparently left my equilibrium in the car alongside my common sense, and my legs were looking for any reason to give up on me.
“You have three minutes,” I blurted. Uncle John had gotten the first minute and a half of the song. The remaining length of the tune was as long as I’d allow the hex Felix had placed on me to last.
His lips quirked in a half-smirk, and I resented that his nonverbal tell turned my head fuzzy. How the hell was I expected to keep my wits with him around?
“I’ll make ‘em count.” Yeah, that was what I was afraid of. Someone like him could cause a lot of problems in three minutes.
I forgot to resist when he melded our bodies together, and the motion of our two-step swaying created friction between us and invited my hardening nipples to test the padding of my bra.
This was too close.
My eyes lurched up to his, my body struggling to process two competing physical responses at once—I could either free the sharp breath wedged tight in my lungs or slow the pervasive throbbing matching the tempo of the song, but I couldn’t do both.
He bent his head toward my ear, finding the outer shell. “You took off.”
My instincts took over, and I shuffled closer to him. “Sorry,” I murmured.
“That’s too many apologies for one night, Belmira,” he observed, deliberately rolling the vowels in my name, goosebumps stretching over my arms in response. “Are you upset about Dougie?”
Dougie? Dougie, who? I blinked. Oh. Right. Dougie . My cousin’s best friend. Former crush circa ’93. The D in the B+D doodle. That Dougie.
…Wait. I made a face. What about him?
Felix laughed through his nose, finding his answer in my fluster. “Just checking.”
“Just checking for what ?”
The world tipped over on me when he hinged me at the waist in an unwarranted dip, the trapped squeal drilling in my lungs. I clawed at him for purchase, flared eyes screaming “this isn’t that kind of song!” but he didn’t care. With his hand bracketed at the small of my back, my hair slipped over my shoulders as Felix leveled his face to mine. “Where I stood.”
Was it imperative he made his point by ensuring only one of us was upright? That my safety depended on him not letting me go? I might not have remembered who Felix was—I blocked a lot of my childhood out—but he was doing everything in his power to guarantee I never forgot him again.
Righting me, he gently tugged me back to him, the tip of his nose tracing the outline of my ear.
I swallowed, choosing my next words carefully. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but you need to cut it out.”
But those words lacked the mettle they needed to have. Who was I trying to convince here, him or me? Regardless, another man wasn’t the threat Felix needed to worry about.
His mouth dipped lower, his lips moving across my ear. “What am I doing, Belmira?”
Unraveling me.
“I am not a game.” I was going to catch a lot of shit for this. It would be nothing short of a miracle if Ma ever so much as let me walk up to the chain-link fence surrounding our house at this rate.
“Agreed,” Felix said, his chuckle low and predatory. “You’re the prize.”
And then he went and said disarming shit like that. The fluttering hit my stomach, and I tried to buy myself room. Operative word—tried. Or thought about it, anyway. “My ma is watching.” Or she might be… someone definitely was… right?
He made a show of considering the problem I’d presented him, creating less than an inch of space between us, keeping his head bent my way. “Better?”
I rubbed my lips together. “No.”
“It’s nice to know I’m not the only one affected here.”
I wouldn’t confirm or deny that. Offering too much information to the man who screamed nineties-fuck-boy poster child right down to the curtain haircut seemed like a pretty terrible idea.
The slow flash of squared, even teeth when he grinned—had he worn braces?—erred suggestive despite the nonchalance lacing his response. “We’re just dancing.”
“This is more than just a dance, and you know it,” I retorted, my skin tightening. “You don’t need me this close.”
Despite the intoxicating quality of my attraction for him, Felix’s presence bolstered me into doing what I so rarely did—speak my mind. I didn’t fear retribution. It was refreshing. Addicting. Empowering.
Short-lived, I reminded myself, sobering. It ended after this song.
“I want you this close, Bel,” he said bluntly. “And you can tell me I’m wrong, but I think,”—Felix studied the hitching of my traitorous chest, his golden stare gliding up the column of my neck, ending their journey on my ruddy face—“you like me being this close, too.” I gaped at him. He was overconfident. Charming. But wildly arrogant. Amused, he nodded. “Thank you for helping me prove my point.”
I hadn’t said anything at all. But silence was confirmation, wasn’t it? The third and final verse of the song prematurely ejected me from the trance, earmarking the impending loss. I cleared my throat, expression dulling. “You have a minute and a half left.” Then, I had to let him go.
Felix’s gaze softened, the set in his shoulders deflating. “I’m not whatever you think I am,” he assured in a defeated last-ditch effort. The sturdy arm wreathed around my waist hugged me closer. “I promise.”
“What do I think you are?”
He searched my eyes. “A playboy with something to prove.”
Terse laughter spilled out from me, twisting into a dry scoff. “Right.” Spoken like a playboy with something to prove. Nothing was inherently safe about him, no matter what I’d momentarily deluded myself into believing.
Straight-faced, his tone turned solemn. “I’m not, Belmira.” Had I offended him?
Fine. I took the bait. “Then what are you?”
His eyes bounced between mine, jaw flexing before it relaxed. “Whatever you want me to be.”
I stiffened in his embrace. What the fuck was his deal? Nothing . I wanted him to be nothing because we had nothing. I couldn’t offer him anything beyond the precious, fleeting seconds remaining in this song.
Felix was everything Ma despised. His bad command of Portuguese. The overconfidence bordering arrogance and his quick wit. He wouldn’t fear her any more than Martin had. But Martin had small-town infamy and the money to accompany that. He had a name that meant something. I hadn’t even remembered Felix, but Ma would.
There was a reason she hadn’t considered him as a viable option.
“Does that line usually work?” I wasn’t normally this… mouthy with people, especially strangers. Publicly, I operated in my customer service persona. Polite. The right dash of bubbly when needed.
But he brought out a different side of me that bordered concerning, if not dangerous, because if I wasn’t careful, the jig would be up.
Slighted, Felix’s brows nudged together. “It wasn’t a line.”
My gummy mouth made it hard to swallow. Now I’d offended him. That hadn’t been my intention, but it hadn’t changed the impact. It was for the better.
Turning my head, my hair slipped over my shoulder, curtaining my face. “Sure sounded like one.”
Leaning in, his throaty voice wafted over me. “I don’t need lines. I don’t have difficulties in that area.”
My lips pursed. Well, there was a visual I hadn’t needed. “Got it.”
“That came out wrong.”
Acid congealed in my stomach. It had come out exactly as it was supposed to. “ Playboy .”
I reached around awkwardly, pushing down on his arm to loosen the link around my waist.
“Are you about to take off again?”
Yep. If he’d let go of me, anyway. “That was always in the forecast.” One hundred percent chance of flight risk in the evening, a mix of emotional whiplash throughout, with very low lifetime visibility.
A grousing rumbled out of him. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Yes, you did,” I clipped. “But it doesn’t matter.” What mattered was the glaring epiphany mocking me over how absurdly irritated I was by the unsolicited information I’d instigated because it confirmed my biases. “Let go of me.”
I had no right to be this irrationally angry. Maybe Ma and Martin were right. I did provoke people. I brought out the worst in them.
“I don’t think I’m supposed to.” I stilled, my stomach bottoming out. We weren’t talking about dancing anymore. “No, I…” Felix considered it for a moment longer, his features tilting askew, processing an unexpected turn of events. “No. I know I’m not supposed to.”
My lids squeezed shut. I wished he hadn’t said that.
Tension engulfed the opening notes of the next song. We didn’t part the way I imagined we would, the way I’d intended.
“Time’s up,” I croaked, unable to compel myself to pull away. Upset that I had to at all.
“Bel, look at me, please.” His imploring request was a needle teasing the swollen circumference of my ballooning emotions. Why should I look at him? I didn’t want to be reminded of my loss already. “Bel?—”
The needle punctured the surface with a blistering, loud POP ! “God, why won’t you give it a rest already?” I demanded, bristling.
His expression flattened, and my focus snapped elsewhere.
I’d given him what he asked for. One stupid dance.
It was over now.
“Look.” Felix’s exhale fanned down on me, and I basked in its short-lived warmth. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable…” The sentence tapered off into a full, meditative pause. “I’m real sorry if I am. I just thought…” Hesitation settled in the tight line of his mouth, the incomplete observation petering out.
I knew what he thought. I felt it.
Whatever this was.
In another timeline, this turned out differently. But in this one? Nothing could become of it. It was too great of a risk.
I’d accepted the stasis of my existence and Ma’s rules a long time ago.
This was for his own good and mine.
Crimson tinted his sun-soaked complexion, humiliation wrinkling the edges of his golden eyes. “I thought you felt it, too,” he concluded with a strained chuckle, mouth rounding with an unspoken wow .
My chest pinched. Hurting him hurt me, and I wasn’t entirely sure why or how that was possible. Whatever was unfolding between us was bigger than I could comprehend, but the risks were something I understood.
As much as I appreciated my uncle’s well-meaning advice and agreed with Maria’s apathetic insistence that I had choices, I wasn’t as ignorant of them as she made out. I could leave with the clothes on my back, lose my only parent, and sever contact with everything I knew.
Or choose the safe bet. The constant in my life.
Ma.
Safe and Ma shouldn’t exist in the same sentence. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so absurd. What was safe about struggling to distinguish the stitches in the fabric of my identity from hers? Of living every second of my life afraid and finding peace in stolen moments of calm?
Nothing.
Not a fucking thing.
“Did I get it wrong?” Felix asked, luring me out of my thoughts.
The fraught denial to his query hung heavy on my tongue, but I couldn’t set it free.
I shook my head.
The sweeping span of his warm smile chased the traces of his shame away, reaching the corners of his eyes while he surveyed me. “Good.” It wasn’t. “So…?”
I communicated so what? with a pensive look.
Felix chuckled, clarifying, “What do we do now?”
We ? My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, preventing the conjuring of words and supplying him with an explanation he would understand. Because even with my twisted sense of gratitude for everything Ma had done for me as my only active parent, a lingering objection in the back of my head endured, refusing to be silenced.
My conscience, maybe. Or the graveyard of all my desires.
At my core, I knew I was too old to allow her to dictate my life, to punish me under the guise of parenting me. Our dynamic and the iron-clad fist she used to rule me far exceeded the definition of normal or even healthy, no matter how hard I tried to rationalize her ‘why.’ My fear of her was so intense, so great, every second I’d spent dancing with Felix competed with the creeping worry winding around my neck like a noose because I knew what awaited me when—not if—she found out.
And I hated it.
I hated her.
Hated how she had done everything in her power to ensure I couldn’t leave. I could tell myself whatever story I wanted that her reasoning was rooted in love, but this wasn’t protecting me. She was killing me. Slowly but surely, bringing me closer to the edge, waiting to see what I did next.
“Bel?” Felix prompted.
Pitching my head back, I stared at him. He was beautiful. I’d never used that adjective to describe a man before, but he was. The strobe lights glinted off the natural lowlights of his hair, his warm eyes soft and hopeful.
The unexpected heaviness associated with loss formed a brick in my chest. “Absolutely nothing.”
“What?” he said, bewildered.
“We do nothing.” It was better if I established expectations with him out of the gate. Disappoint myself now like I inevitably would him because I never got what I wanted in life, and until tonight, I thought I’d made peace with that.
But in an hour, something had changed, and the echo chamber inside of me begged me to hold on, to find a way, no matter how great the cost, even though I knew better.
I couldn’t upend my life for some man I hardly knew.
No matter what my heart said. That useless organ had a tendency to steer me wrong.
Then again… Ma hadn’t charged over here yet. This was still a secret. An idea formed. I could hold on to him a little while longer, right? If I laid out the boundaries and set clear expectations, then maybe…
“I don’t want a boyfriend.” The bite of his fingers dug a little deeper against the hollow of my waist, and I wasn’t sure if the information irritated him or calmed him. “I’m not looking for anything serious.”
Felix let out a long, soft sigh, his body growing taut. “The bad relationship,” he surmised lowly.
Sure, we’d go with that. “The bad relationship.”
A determined glint burned in his eyes. “What do we have, then?”
“Tonight.”
His stare turned pensive, considering my final offer. “Can I tell you something?”
“I think you’re going to anyway,” I muttered.
Felix’s lips dusted across my ear, his husky words snatching the air from my lungs. “You’re killing me in that dress.”
That wasn’t what I’d expected him to say. Goosebumps broke out across my body. “I made it.” I wasn’t sure why I’d offered him the information, but the way his eyes lit up with what looked like pride made my insides flip. No one was ever proud of me. “ Now you’re making eyes at me,” I said.
“You got it right this time.” Those thick fingers shifted, teasing the discs of my spine, testing the curvature of each bone, sending a shiver along each vertebra. “And in case it needs to be said, I always will be.” His assessing gaze traced over me. “You’ll get used to it with time.”
Had he not heard what I said? Nothing serious. No boyfriend.
My jaw slackened a little. I was about to question whether he’d misunderstood, but I closed my mouth when it occurred to me he had understood and decided he didn’t like it. He didn’t care what I’d said, that I’d tried to scare him off, because he could smell the bullshit in it, too.
Or it was the byproduct of the unexplainable frisson between us. The pull. The way it crackled and sparked the closer we got to one another.
As hard as I fought to remain guarded, my eyes involuntarily floated to his mouth, a tingling spreading across my lips with interest I’d never act on.
Sighing through my nose, I met his stare dead-on. “Not a line, huh?”
He shook his head. “I don’t do lines.” For some reason, I believed him. “I know what I like when I see it.”
My cheeks burned. “You don’t know me.”
“Sure, I do,” he started, regarding me carefully. “I know you don’t like these things. You keep scanning the room, which tells me you feel outside of your element.”
“That was easy,” I mumbled under his profiling.
He conceded with a slight nod, slanting his head to the right, a flash of seriousness dimming his expression. “I know you liked Dougie.”
Liked . He’d made it past tense.
Had they turned up the heat in here? I guessed I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t appreciated the mental picture of the other with someone else. Glancing up at the chandeliers above us, I admired the strobe light catching against the dangling crystals. “Anything else?”
“You’re afraid of your ma.” I stiffened, bracing my hands on his arms. His brows crumpled as though that had been a trick statement, and I’d confirmed something for him. “Maria wasn’t exaggerating,” he said, though it came out closer to a question. “She’s that strict.”
Strict? “No, she’s not strict,” I said, lowering my voice. “She’s a hurricane.” A category five, at that.
“For what it’s worth...” Felix’s journeying stare fell over me, and I’d never felt more exposed in my life. “I’m not afraid of your ma.”
You really should be. I swallowed, my tongue feeling too big for my mouth.
I moved to pull out of his hold as the second song concluded. People began to part, some stopping when an upbeat number took over, drifting back toward the dance floor, shrouding us again. I twisted away, but he waylaid me, twining his fingers with mine. “You don’t want serious. That’s fine. But just talk to me a little while longer.”
I stepped in closer to him, avoiding a woman nearly colliding into me in the enthusiasm of her two-step with her dance partner. “Felix.”
“Belmira.” For someone whose Portuguese was awkward and clunky, the way he rolled the R in my name and enunciated the latter vowels made whatever remaining resolve I had vanish.
I was fucked.
“One drink,” he negotiated. “And if you can’t stand me,”—he took a weighted inhale—“then you can go.”
“I don’t drink.”
“I’ll get you a glass of water, then.”
“You don’t quit, do you?” I questioned, rocking my lips to trap the smile.
He fed his hands into his pocket. “Not when I find someone like you, no.”
Like me? The ease in his admittance disarmed me. I wasn’t ready to let him go. Not yet. My fear was, I might not ever. “Okay.”
The grin snatched the traces of uncertainty from his expression, eyes animated, smile almost boyish. Felix’s fingers slid over mine, scissoring ours together, my mind growing quiet, retreating into a calm I’d never known before.
Ma might kill me, but at least she couldn’t take away my memories.
Those? Those I’d hold on to forever.