Chapter 15
Trey
He had a single second to catch the absolute fear lacing his wife’s features before he lost his footing and plunged into the empanada filling, losing his grip on her hand.
It was like falling into a children’s ball pit, but this one was deeper, denser, and wetter.
His intense love affair with the empanada came to a quick end.
Despite this, considering everything that had happened to them in the first part of the day and the many ways they could have died, drowning in deliciously spiced meat was probably the best way to go.
Although he wasn’t looking forward to the experience of sliding down a seagull’s gullet.
Even after being willing to accept his fate of death-by-giant-empanada, he wasn’t happy at the thought of his wife being separated from him and afraid.
Using all of his physical strength, he tore his way upward, climbing over slippery meat clumps until he burst through and found Catalina trapped like a cartoon character who had fallen ass-first into a hole, her limbs sticking straight out and her bag locked in the center of her chest like a reverse turtle.
He pulled on her limbs and hands, but because they were covered in grease, the grip he had on her was slippery.
His progress was a hard battle to win, if not impossible.
“Trey,” she cried when her face finally emerged from the filling. “We’re flying! The seagull has us!”
He was about to reassure her that things would be fine, but would they?
There was a good chance they were about to be digested, and his wife was smart enough to put this information together herself.
Before he could say a word, the atmosphere around them was surrounded by additional seagull sounds, the same ones he’d most likely hear in future nightmares.
The pastry jerked in a sudden movement. He lost his footing again, and Catalina slid back into the filling with a sob.
Then they were dropping.
His breath was stolen from his lungs at the sensation of a zero-gravity plunge while Catalina’s screams rang in his ears.
This wasn’t flying. It was falling! He was once again being suffocated by filling until their ride came to an abrupt stop, knocking him around within the soft surroundings of cooked ground beef and peas, which acted like bubble wrap and kept his bones from shattering within his body.
With the distant sound of seagulls haunting him, he scrambled to the surface, slipping again and again before emerging.
He’d found Catalina when the birds’ cries got closer.
“Come on!” he said, yanking both her arms with all his strength and grabbing the bag before pulling her toward the empanada opening.
Thankfully, they were on the ground again.
Falling to their knees when they hit the sand didn’t faze Trey at all.
In a flash he was back up, tugging his wife into action and running as if their lives depended on it.
All they could do was race away in order to escape the swooping shadows of the gulls, moving until his legs turned to mush and breaths burned inside his lungs.
One glance over his shoulder revealed the birds were indeed snapping and fighting over the partially eaten empanada, turning the delicious pastry into shredded bits as each gull attempted to snatch and carry it away from the others.
He stopped running when he lost his hold on Catalina’s hand, the same moment she stumbled and collapsed to the ground. Trey dropped along with her, still hugging the bag to his chest as his body fought for normal breath again.
For the first time since emerging from the empanada, he took stock of Catalina, trying to see if she was hurt.
Besides having difficulty breathing, she didn’t appear to be injured.
Although it was hard to tell if there were any wounds caused by their empanada adventure.
Her clothes and skin were coated in shades of brown and red from being fully immersed in the warm meat filling.
Her cover-up dress stuck to her skin, becoming mostly translucent and revealing an equally dirty bikini underneath.
“You got a little something…” he said in between pants and loosely indicated a spot on his cheek with an index finger.
Trey gave her a small grin, knowing his appearance couldn’t have been much better.
They both looked as though they’d been involved in a bout of mud wrestling but in a pool filled with grease.
But—holy shit! They had made it. They were both alive despite being a disgusting mess.
Rather than finding his comment amusing, she observed her present condition, rubbing a palm across her skin and into her hair before bursting into tears.
“I got goop in my hair, on my skin, and I lost my last hair tie.” Her hands were shaky as she tore off her filthy cover-up dress and tossed it aside.
The formerly white bikini had become an image of survival instead of seduction.
Trey knew it wasn’t being dirty that upset Catalina.
She’d never been a prissy sort of person.
Instead, it was one thing after another and being terrified.
Her tears tracking across her dirty face killed him.
He held her cheeks between his palms, brushing his own greasy thumb across her skin to wipe away the tears. “You’ve never looked so sexy and delicious to me.”
This resulted in her spouting more tears, but at least there was a watery laugh to go along with them.
“What do you need? You got anything in this magical bag that can help us out here?” he asked.
“Um…” She hiccuped between crying. “I might have a package of wet wipes in there. Can you get them?”
A request like this usually sent him handing the bag over and letting her get whatever she needed for herself.
Except she was shaky and emotional and—for God’s sake!
He’d just faced an onslaught of ravenous gulls and survived a free fall drop from who knows what height while inside an empanada.
If he could do that, then searching the dark abyss of his wife’s bag should be nothing.
This is what she needed from him, and he wasn’t about to screw it up.
“Okay, no problem. Let me just clean my hands a little.” He tried to wipe his hands on the pebbled sand, doing his best to clean them, but mostly smeared the grease further into his skin.
He carefully unzipped the bag and sifted around the contents.
It actually wasn’t bad, kind of like going on a treasure hunt, as he pushed away bruised bananas, water bottles, a paperback book, a random toothbrush, and a pair of sunglasses.
Oh, breath mints! Who didn't feel better after a refreshing mint? He popped a few into his mouth and offered the container to his wife.
“Hey, look what I found!” Trey paused for dramatic effect. “It’s another hair tie.” He presented it to her as though it was an amazing gift.
She frowned while taking it. “That’s not a hair tie. It’s a rubber band.”
“What’s the difference?”
“This is probably garbage I threw in there from work. It’s going to pull on my hair and rip it out.”
“Ah, okay, garbage. Let’s just toss it then. No reason to lug around garbage when this bag already weighs a ton.” As though a single rubber band would make all the difference.
“No!” Catalina slipped it onto her wrist. “It might come in handy. You never know.”
“Sure, I can use it as part of a projectile to shoot at gulls who come after our food the next time. Maybe make a slingshot or something.” They might need to eventually fashion some kind of weapon.
“Right? We were there first! That food was ours.”
He smiled at the return of his wife’s feisty spark, the tears mostly gone by this point. “Hey, here we go. And for my next trick… Ta-da!” He removed a new package of hand wipes like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.
“Yay,” his wife responded with as much enthusiasm as she had the energy for, holding out her hand.
Rather than hand them over, he broke the seal, opening the package while scooting closer.
Taking one of the cool sheets in hand, he tipped her chin with a finger in order to get better access as he gently wiped the mess from his wife’s skin.
He was surprised when she stole her own sheet and began to wipe his face, returning the favor.
It was all very soft and sweet and made his heart expand.
“Look at you,” he said lightly when both of their faces were mostly cleared from grease. “A little less delicious looking but still just as sexy.”
“Really? Even if my hair is completely disgusting?”
“Mm-hmm.” He brushed his lips across a brow and then along one of her eyelids as they shuttered closed. “Reason number sixteen on why you should love me. I find you sexy even when you have bits of meat in your hair.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right, sure. Besides, I think you went from fourteen to sixteen. You forgot reason number fifteen.”
“I didn’t forget. I’m saving that one because it’s special.”
“Are you sure that’s wise? You almost won me over with the sunblock and then lost me with ratatouille-ing people by riding their feet.”
He kissed her nose, feeling encouraged she wasn’t pushing him away.
“I’m not worried. I have a lot more reasons to give you.
Let’s see if you can figure out reason number seventeen.
” With this, he dropped his head, pressing his lips to hers, softly at first until she sighed against him, her lips trembling open and kissing him in return.
This was the gift he was waiting for, but he realized it was a small gesture and didn’t mean he won everything.
Still, he deepened the kiss, stroking her tongue with his until he got a tiny moan from her and felt himself about to slip into the deep waters of lust. With great restraint, he pulled back, separating his lips from hers.
Leaving her wanting was probably better than extending over the line just for her to smack him down.
She almost fell into him, as though their separation was enough to throw off her equilibrium and she hadn’t expected the kissing to stop.
Catalina first appeared embarrassed at her reaction before narrowing her eyes at him.
“I suppose you’re telling me that reason number seventeen is because you’re such a good kisser. ”
“Aw, babe, thank you for the compliment!”
She rolled her eyes but there was a small smile attached. “You’re such an arrogant ass. I wasn’t trying to compli—”
She stopped when he placed a finger on her lips. “Reason number seventeen, Cat. I know when you need kissing.”
“Well, that’s definitely not true,” she replied.
He raised his brows, surprised. She was fighting against everything so hard.
He could see it. And it hit him. Maybe Catalina was right.
Perhaps there were times, back in their life in LA, when she came home, shoulders heavy and a crease between her brow, when she needed kissing…
or time spent cuddled while reading a book or watching a mindless TV show.
When she wanted a moment of peace, he had wanted something different—to have some part of her focus on him.
Then she got mad, which in turn made him annoyed.
Damn. She was right. He’d gotten lucky she’d given him the time of day when they first met, and he mistakenly thought this made him lucky all the time.
There were times when she asked for help and he could have done more than just hand over her purse, making her do everything herself.
If this moment demonstrated anything, it was that when he took some of the burden on himself, like helping to clean her face with a hand wipe, she not only returned the favor, she would bend a little, soften, and then there’d be kissing.
She’d give him a piece of herself. Something he wanted all along.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Her forehead knitted in confusion, probably because the words came out of nowhere.
He removed another wet wipe and she didn’t fight him as he took one of her hands in his and began swiping the cloth across her outstretched arm.
“Maybe knowing when you need to be kissed is something I want to work on.”