21. Cassandra
Diego ranhis hand along a shelf of tchotchkes, his fingers brushing over a stuffed duck and a plate embossed with a head of state. He stopped, grasping a snow globe and pulling it from the shelf, his eyes fixed on where it’d been.
“What?” I asked, eagerly sidling up beside him, ignoring the faint beat of pain against my skull. Diego had played sixty minutes of football and came out without complaint. I could work through a hangover.
We paid for our admission and walked into the antique shop. Around us, other visitors milled around, picking up t-shirts and cups as if they’d been placed directly in the gift shop rather than an art installation.
“Do I press it?”
I craned my neck to get a better view of the hole in the shelf, my shoulder bumping into Diego’s. Under the snow globe was an enticingly big red button. “Absolutely.”
Diego grinned and smacked the button. We jumped back as the shelf swung away from the wall. Diego’s eyes darted between the snow globe in his hand and the now-open trap door. “So, this is art?”
“It’s not naked juggling, but it’s pretty good, right?”
“Definitely better than naked juggling.” He placed the globe back on the shelf and held the door open while I ducked inside.
“Are you going to fit?” I teased, walking crouched to the ground through a small hallway until I reached a ladder.
“Barely.”
Behind me, Diego filled the hallway, his shoulders pressed to the walls and body curled into a ball as he shuffled closer. I stood up, grasping the rungs and pulling myself up. “You okay back there?”
“Never better. This place has a great view.”
I choked back a laugh before sending him a withering glance from the top of the ladder. He winked, and the heat in my stomach traveled up to my cheeks. I turned away. “Well, keep enjoying that view. I’m forging ahead.”
I pushed against the door at the top of the ladder. When it didn’t immediately give, I shoved against it with my shoulder, stumbling out into a control room.
My eyes adjusted from the bright fluorescent light that lined the hallway to the dimly lit control room.
“What the hell is this?” Diego asked as emerged from the ladder. He closed the door absently, eyes scanning the room.
“That’s part of the mystery.” I ran my hand along a control panel until I found a button I could press. “Don’t you love mysteries?”
His tanned face tinted pink. “Unless Jessica Fletcher pops out of a filing cabinet, this wasn’t the kind of mystery I was talking about.”
“Shockingly, I couldn’t find a single murder mystery dinner theater. So, let’s figure out why that weird antique store needs a control center.”
We picked through the building, unearthing little crumbs of a storyline that stretched from a dystopic shopping mall to an ancient colony to a psychedelic room with a mime.
Diego had been to Las Vegas dozens of times, hundreds maybe. Between games and travel, I imagined there wasn’t much of the strip he hadn’t mined. So, picking something new to him had been a challenge. Judging by Diego’s enthralled expression and near-constant hypothesizing about what story he had stumbled on, I’d picked right.
We walked down the stairs, Diego stopping every few feet to check under a picture frame or run his fingers under a shelf.
“I think you’ve found every secret hiding spot in this place,” I said, feigning exasperation. Despite my propensity for weird stuff, I’d lost interest in everything except Diego’s reaction to unearthing the mystery hours ago.
“I bet there are loads of stuff we missed. I think we’re heading back to the shopping mall. We should make another pass.”
I suppressed a groan. This had been my idea, after all.
“New room!” Diego crowed, pumping a fist. “I bet it’ll explain why there’s a wormhole in the flower shop.”
My eyes slid over the “new room,” past the tables and patrons to the wall of liquor. “Oh! It’s a bar!”
Diego frowned. “So, not part of the story?”
“We don’t know.” I linked my arm with his. “We need to go investigate.”
My stomach rumbled and a bit of liquor sounded like the perfect medicine for my lingering hangover. Two empty bar stools sat at the far side of the room. I took the one closest to the wall and Diego sat beside me, picking up the menu with a frown. “I’m not sure this is part of the story.”
“We won’t know until we have a drink. What if the bartenders are actually from the future and they have a message for us?” I teased.
A cheery blond with a handlebar mustache and suspenders set a pair of drinks in front of the couple beside us and greeted us.
“Diego Salazar?” he asked incredulously, his eyes scanning the bar as if he was being pranked.
“See, they even know your name!” I slid the drink menu from Diego and read through it quickly.
“I’ll take a Snow Globe Climb.” I batted Diego on the shoulder. “Code! Check the drinks.”
Diego rolled his eyes, an indulgent smile on his lips. I bit back a wave of attraction. “Are you having fun?”
He set his arm on the back of my bar chair, legs splayed, trapping me between him and the wall. “I’m having a blast. This is the perfect post-game date.”
No. I wouldn’t melt at the word. I wouldn’t go gooey at an offhand comment that meant nothing except Diego was having fun. And that’s exactly what I wanted. Nothing more.
Until the indulgent glittering in his eyes disappeared, replaced with something more serious. His jaw tightened and his dark brown eyes raked down my face, settling on my lips.
“This is a pretty perfect date,” I agreed. No caveats. No monikers. No hedging words like fake or contract or NDA.
His Adam’s apple bobbed along his throat as he took a sip of his drink, eyes still affixed on me.
“So.” I leaned closer, pressing my palm onto the smooth bar top to leverage myself close enough to smell the faint scent of sun and turf. “If we continued to have a perfect date, what would happen next?”
Diego’s brown eyes glittered as the edge of his lip jerked up.
“We’d have drinks and something to eat.” His hand fell from the bar stool, fingers whisking my back in soothing circles. “Then I’d take you back to the hotel room.”
“This is sounding awful biographical right now,” I said flatly, even as my stomach flip-flopped at Diego’s bedroom voice.
“It could be.” His fingers twisted into my hair, the gentle pull angling my lips closer to his. “But I wasn’t done. We’d get back to the room and I’d order a bottle of wine or champagne.”
“Arbor Mist?”
“The good stuff?” Diego hitched up his lips, his words a soft murmur. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
I inhaled a shuddering breath, fighting back the urge to kiss him. That’s exactly what he wanted. Hell, it was what I wanted, too. But backing down? Now? His next line would be something pithy and lame, and he’d drop his hand from my hair and leave me breathless but unscathed.
“And then I’d strip you naked and I’d fuck you up against the window so I could prove to everyone that nothing about what I feel for you is fake.”
I blinked, stunned and way more turned on that I had any right being in a crowded art museum, bar or not. We’d been toeing a line of flirtation for weeks, and now Diego had launched straight over that line.
“Here’s your Snow Globe Climb and a Rowdy Mime. Your food should be out in just a minute.” The bartender slid our drinks across the bar, oblivious to the tension between us.
The hungry look in Diego’s eyes fell away in an instant. He turned to the bartender with a smile, his hand dropping from my hair. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
I reeled back in my seat, squeezing my thighs together even though it did nothing for the ache. I swallowed, pushing back the sudden lust that ripped through my body. “Damn it, Diego. You’re good.”
He grinned. “You make it easy.”
His grin faltered as he lifted his drink. I wanted to read into that falter. Instead, I slowed my breathing and steadied my hands before taking my drink. “Well, bad news, this is the entirety of our date. I planned to take you axe-throwing, but I didn’t expect you to spend four hours here.”
“Has it really been four hours?” Diego turned back to the bar entrance. “We still have so much more to see.”
“I thought you didn’t like art.”
“I don’t like exhibitions. This isn’t an exhibition. It’s a mystery.” He wavered his voice with an impish grin on his face. “And you knew I loved mysteries.”
“I knew you loved mystery shows. One mystery show.” Becca had never divulged much about her players, but she’d taken a special interest in Diego when he played college ball and let a few details slip over the years.
“Never mind, I’ve changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“The perfect date.”
My cheeks burned. I wasn’t a prude, but the visual of Diego stripping me naked, my body pressed against cold glass? Well, it’d left me more than flustered.
“Murder, She Wrote. An episode. No, wait, a season. Season three, I think.”
“God, you have a favorite season of the show? What a nerd.” I rolled my eyes as I downed the drink along with any thoughts of Diego and sex. “Why Murder, She Wrote, anyway? Did you spend a lot of time with your grandma or something?”
He took a slow sip of his drink, tongue running over his lips as he set the glass back down. “No. Sort of. My mom works at a nursing home. She worked third shift when I was in grade school so I’d sleep in the common area. They kept a TV on all night for the residents that couldn’t sleep.”
I flinched slightly, surprised. His charm, even when I’d met him back in college, had been effortless, the type of assured self-confidence of a kid used to luxury. The type of kids who went to boarding school and spent summers abroad.
“What about your dad?”
Diego shook his head. “He took off after I was born. Divorced my mom and only showed up when I signed a college scholarship to play at Alabama. I haven’t heard from him since.”
I waited for a breath, but he didn’t elaborate. “So, it was just you and your mom? Why didn’t she follow you to Norwalk?”
Our conversations had been teasing and fun, not deep. Conversations guaranteed to keep the lines of our relationship clear, even if we physically flirted with that line. A mistake that I’d started and maybe shouldn’t have encouraged.
“We’ve talked about it before, but there’s always a good excuse not to. I might get transferred. The nursing home was short staffed. Her husband doesn’t want to leave.” His lips flattened and he shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I try to make it down to see her at least once a month. It’s harder during the season, though.”
“She doesn’t come to your games?”
The bartender interrupted our conversation with food. Diego asked for a second round of drinks, and I picked at the plate of loaded fries, no longer hungry.
“Rarely.” He shrugged. “She won’t let me buy her tickets or fly her out unless it’s a division championship or something. Even then, she tries to pay me back. She’s stubborn.”
“I wonder where she gets that from.”
Diego laughed, a low rolling chuckle that made me smile. “No idea. When I signed my first contract, I tried to buy her a house. She wasn’t having it. She’s a tough lady.”
Diego grabbed the two small plates placed on the bar and loaded one up with food, passing it to me with the fork. “I try to visit whenever I have a chance, but it’s hard to get away during the season. And I hate asking her to come, knowing it’s just going to turn into a fight.”
“I get that.” I paused. “Not the money part, obviously, but the tension.”
“Tension,” Diego agreed, taking a sip of his drink. “That’s probably a better way to describe it. I just hate that she won’t let me take care of her.”
His face crumpled, and I slid my hand over the bar top onto his. He sighed, eyes sliding to my hand as he turned over his palm, interlacing our fingers. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be a downer.”
I squeezed his hand. “You’re not. Not even a little. It’s nice talking to you about something other than disc golf and video games.”
“Is that the bulk of our conversation?” His eyes stayed locked on our hands, his thumb rubbing over mine, the light sensation sending tickles down my arm and through my body.
“I like when you tell me more about you.” I cleaved off the second thought. I like you. Although “like” felt a little too tame given our earlier conversation.
“Enough talking about me. Tell me something about you.” The edge of his lip pulled up, brown eyes flitting to mine with a mischievous glint. “A deep, dark Cassandra secret.”
“You’re jumping straight to deep, dark secret territory? After telling me your relationship with your mom is tense? Yeesh, that’s a leap, Salazar.”
His fingers grazed my back, and I leaned back into it. “I don’t have any secrets.”
“Liar.”
“I’ve never lied in my life.” I slanted my eyes at him with a wince. “Alright, never lied in a way that wasn’t backed by a stack of legal documents.”
He ran a finger over the top of his glass, tilting his square jaw as his brown eyes raked over me. “Okay. Then tell me a truth.”
His fingertips walked up my back and he leaned close, watching me with a hunger that put my body on edge. “Come on, Cassandra. Your turn.”
His breath was hot on my ear and his voice low and rumbly and inviting.
“I think we should head back to the hotel now.”