Chapter 17
Tatiana has her culinary staff prepare us a lovely meal for dinner.
Earlier, she gave me the grand tour of her palatial home while Fallon disappeared to who knows where.
I quickly learn that while here, I will have to make sure to eat a little snack around early afternoon since dinner is regularly served late at night.
Dinner consists of small plates, called tapas I think, of various local foods and dishes that my unrefined Southern self would call sampler platters back home.
I am introduced to another Spanish favorite, the after-dinner drink, carajillo, which is a hot coffee with a shot of liquor in it—in this case, anisette.
Honestly, I don’t care for it, but I enjoy the experience of trying something new.
As the night is still mild for the time of year, we eat dinner outside in the central courtyard gardens.
“I knew that getting you two together was a bad idea,” Fallon complains good-humoredly.
It’s almost midnight, and while Fallon and I enjoy our carajillos, Tatiana has been telling me stories about Fallon as a kid that have me snorting with laughter.
“I can’t wait to tell Ryder that one,” I hiccup, trying to catch my breath. My stomach is sore from laughing so hard and eating so much.
“Try it and be prepared to suffer the consequences,” Fallon threatens, but he’s not able to hide the partial smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
I stick my tongue out at him and he leans over to tickle my sides. I squeal and wiggle off my chair, landing unceremoniously on my butt. Thankfully, I’m wearing jeans and not a dress.
Tatiana giggles at my predicament and I glare up at her. “How much anisette did you put in my coffee?”
“Not enough,” she concludes and pours more liquor into my almost empty cup. I notice she isn’t drinking any of the coffee and has stuck to water the entire evening.
Over the past couple of weeks of travelling through Europe, I’ve learned just how different European attitudes are about certain things that many Americans consider to be taboo or socially unacceptable for under eighteen-year-olds.
For instance, alcohol. The legal drinking age in England is eighteen, but if you were sixteen or seventeen, you could drink beer or wine as long as you were with someone eighteen or older.
If you were fourteen or fifteen, you still could have a beer with your meals at a restaurant as long as your parents were with you.
Fallon comes over to help me up, that smug smirk of his making an appearance. When he offers me his hand, I tug hard and pull him down with me. Instead of landing on his derriere as I had hoped, he lands in a push-up position, hovering over me.
“Hi,” I giggle up at him and flick his nose with my finger.
“So gorgeous,” he says back, looking down at me, my hair fanned out on the courtyard bricks around my head.
“I’m sitting right here,” Tatiana loudly announces.
My eyes widen and I push Fallon away from me. This time he does fall over onto his butt with an umph.
“Are you sure the two of you are not together? You act like—what’s the Spanish phrase? Una pareja enamorada.”
I mentally choke when my brain finally translates what she just said. “NoNoNo. Fallon and I are just friends. I’m in love with—” I start to blurt out before I catch my almost word vomit from leaving my mouth.
“Not even friends with benefits?” Tatiana grins mischievously at her brother
“No one says that anymore, Tati. You’re getting to be a little cheugy,” Fallon tells her.
“What does ‘cheugy’ mean?” Tatiana and I both ask at the same time, then burst into giggles.
“Look it up.” He pulls me between his legs, much like we were earlier at the piano bench, and winks at his sister.
“Are you sure—” she starts to say but I interrupt her.
“Just friends,” I repeat, jabbing Fallon in the side with my elbow because he’s not saying anything to contradict her earlier presumption.
“Mmhmm,” Tatiana murmurs.
“Fallon,” I hiss, my face flaming hot with embarrassment.
Tatiana’s nose crinkles. “Seriously, Fallon. What’s a ‘cheugy?’” she asks her brother again.
He barks out a laugh. “You have a phone. Find it on TikTok, sis.”
While she grabs her phone off the table and searches for the meaning of cheugy, I poke him again with my elbow and he pokes me back under my ribs. That sets us off in another round of tickle wrestling.
Tatiana makes a fake gasping sound. “I am not. You are mean, little brother,” she tells Fallon with a glare. Turning her phone screen toward me she says, “It means outdated and trying too hard. I’m not that much older than you.”
“Says the domesticated, old married woman,” he returns.
Tatiana looks at me, an evil, mischievous gleam in her eye. “Hold him down,” is all the warning I get before she’s grabbing the back of his shirt and dumping ice water down it
Fallon tries to buck me off him as he curses his sister.
Pleased with her efforts of retaliation, Tatiana claps her hands together.
“It’s late and I want to be fresh and beautiful for my husband’s return tomorrow.
I’ll leave you two to roll around on the floor like piglets.
Fallon, breakfast is at seven. Elizabeth, it has been lovely spending time with you.
” She bends down, “You are good for my brother,” she whispers to me and then walks away through the open archway and inside the house.
Fallon suddenly strips off his sodden shirt and my eyes widen before I dart them away from his naked chest. Give a girl a warning next time.
He twists the fabric in his hands and flicks it at my legs. I’m quick enough to jump away before it lashes me, and I grab his shirt out of his hands. I used to play that game with Hailey, and she was never merciful with her lashings.
I throw the wet material at his face. “You are such a little turd,” I declare and pinch Fallon’s forearm. “She totally thinks we’re sleeping together.”
“Technically, we are.” Hello, cocky a-hole. Welcome back, I think to myself. “Speaking of which,” he announces and lifts me up in his arms. “Time for bed.”
“You are not sleeping in the same bed as me again tonight, Fallon Montgomery. No more slumber parties. We aren’t five years old.”
“Wanna bet?” As he walks inside the house, Fallon hauls me over his shoulder.
“What is it with you guys carrying me caveman-style?” Jayson and Ryder used to do this to me all the time.
“I get a nice side view of your backside.”
“You stare at my backside all day long.”
“True.” At least he hasn’t smacked my butt, so I’ll give him props for that alone.
Once we reach the Rosa room where I’m staying, he tosses me onto the high, four-poster bed.
I bounce a few times on the soft mattress and decide that it’s fun.
I stand up and start springing up and down a few times on it like a trampoline before I remember this is not my house and I am being an irresponsible guest.
“What are you doing?” Fallon’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
I plop down on the bed, my legs outstretched in a V. “You never jumped on your bed when you were a kid?”
He shakes his head no.
“Pillow fights?”
Again, he answers no.
“Did you have any fun growing up doing stupid kid stuff?”
“You may want to ask Ryder that question. He was my partner in crime for a lot of the stupid stuff I did.”
“Like what?”
“Like none of your business.”
“Come here,” I motion to him to get on the bed with me.
“Kitten, jumping on top of a bed is not my kind of bed acrobatics.”
It takes me a second to get his innuendo, but when I do, I erupt in a fit of giggles. Only Fallon could turn something as innocent as jumping on a bed into something sexual.
“Think that’s funny?”
“Yep!” I reply, popping that ‘p’ with emphasis and collapsing back on the bedspread.
Reaching over, Fallon tugs at my ankles until my body slides across the duvet cover to where he’s standing at the foot of the bed. My arms are splayed above my head, my cheeks are red from jumping around, and I have a silly grin plastered across my face
Fallon looks down at me. “I want to kiss you, Elizabeth.”
My grin evaporates. He said almost the exact same thing to me in Nordurljosavegur.
God, it would be so easy to go there. To let him kiss me and not care about the consequences.
Over the past two weeks, Fallon has infused himself in my heart in a way that will remain lodged there forever.
He has been my savior, my friend, my comfort, my confidant, and my lifeline when I was drowning.
A piece of me has fallen in love with Fallon, just like I fell in love with Jayson, Ryder, and Julien when I was a child.
But Fallon is not my heart’s deepest love.
Only one person owns my heart in that way, and that’s the person I’m in love with.
Fallon studies my face and releases his hold on my legs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” He exhales, scrunching his brow.
Sitting up, I touch his forearm. “Fallon, I wish I could tell you that things were different. I really do. It would be so easy to let go with you. Forget everything, forget my life, forget my responsibilities, and be with you. But I can’t and I won’t.
I’m in love with someone else. I’ve made my choice.
The light that had been blazing so brightly in his crystal blue eyes dims.
“Come on,” I say, pulling myself off the bed so we can brush our teeth and I can wash my face.
Fallon and I have become quite comfortable around one another’s personal routines.
For example, on a few mornings over the past couple of weeks, I have sat on the lip of the tub to watch him shave.
I loved doing that with Ryder whenever he would sleep over at the house.
Fallon finishes brushing his teeth and leans a shoulder against the doorframe, watching me rub lotion on my face.
“The way you’re staring at me right now is a bit unnerving.” I can feel the intensity of his eyes boring holes into me.
Fallon shakes his head and breathes out a loud exhale. “No reason. Just thinking.”
I don’t ask him to explain, knowing he wouldn’t tell me anyway.
I push him out of the doorway so I can close the door and change into my pajamas.
Once done, I open it again and walk past him to get under the bed covers.
He turns off the lights and lies down beside me.
I know I told him we wouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed together again tonight, but the lost and lonely expression on his face has me relenting.
And just like last night, he snuggles me in next to him, and I promptly fall asleep.