44. Tomas
44
TOMAS
T ime has an uncooperative way of speeding up when you want it to slow down. Before I know it, it’s time to fly to Valencia.
Antonio loans us his private plane. “How are you doing?” he asks me when I see him Thursday morning, his eyes searching my face. “You haven’t been back to Spain in a while.”
“I’ll be okay.” But even as I say it, a whirlwind of emotions churns inside me. I’ve been homesick for five years, but faced with heading back to Valencia, I realize something’s changed. Home is the tiny office where Alina and I work together; it’s the gym she spends all her waking hours in. It’s the octagon we fought in.
Home is wherever Alina is.
“You like this girl, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I have no idea how she feels about me, and I’m too afraid to tell her how I feel about her, but I’ve fallen in love with Ali. I was closed off from the world, drifting through existence like a zombie, and she brought me back to life. She makes me laugh every single day. Sparring with her, betting on her fights, drinking the café bombon she made—it’s a vision of a future that I want so badly it hurts.
I love her drive. Her passion. I love that even though her father is a piece of shit, she still searches for the good in him. I can be vulnerable with Ali and know that she’s there for me. I’ve always known, on a subconscious level, that she’s a kind, empathetic, loyal person. After all, I never hesitated to tell her about Estela, and I’ve kept that betrayal a secret from almost everyone I know. But with Ali? There was never any doubt that she’d have my back.
Antonio nods, unsurprised. “Be careful, Tomas. Laurenti is desperate, and Malinov is a wild card.”
“What have you heard?”
“Nothing concrete, just whispers. Gregori murdered his way to the top. His son Damir drinks hard, races Formula 1 cars, and pretends to be a rich, spoiled playboy. But underneath, he’s cut from the same cloth as his father. Valencia is neutral ground, and I trust Gabriel to enforce the rules. Even so, don’t get complacent.”
“I won’t.” Where Alina’s safety is concerned, complacency is the last thing I’d risk.
He has one final bit of parting advice. “Have you told your family that you’re going to be in Valencia?”
I shake my head. It’s a four-day trip. What are the chances I’ll run into them?
His eyebrows slant in a frown. “That’s a mistake,” he says. “I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice, Tomas. You have to close the door to the past in order to move toward the future. If you like Alina Zuccaro, don’t just tell her. Take her home, introduce her to your family. Show her that she matters.”
He’s not wrong. “I’ll think about it.”
“Good luck.”
Ali is too nervous to appreciate the private plane. She sits forward in her chair, her body taut with tension. She passes up the attendant’s offer of a drink and stares out of the window without saying a word until we’re in the air.
Then she turns to me. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ve been so wrapped up in my own stuff that I’ve completely forgotten. You haven’t been home in five years, have you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Are you looking forward to it? Have you told your family you’re going to be in town?”
“Not particularly,” I admit. “And yes, I texted my mother before we took off.”
“And what did she say?”
“I don’t know. I turned off my phone.”
She gives me a probing look. “This is a private plane, and nobody’s asked me to turn off my phone. You don’t think they’ll be happy to see you?”
“No.” I take a deep breath. “I’ve missed so much. My sister’s wedding and my nephew’s birth. My mother’s sixty-fifth birthday and my father’s seventieth. Every year, the Aguilar clan gathers to celebrate Christmas in my grandparents’ villa on the outskirts of the city. Not just my immediate family either. The entire extended clan. Aunts, uncles, cousins. Everyone. It’s a family tradition that dates back decades.”
Ali’s face softens. “And you haven’t been back because of Estela.”
“I thought she was the reason, but I think I’ve been lying to myself. It was a bad working environment, and I should have dealt with it head-on by quitting. Instead, I distracted myself with Estela.” I clench my hand into a fist. “I missed my only sister’s wedding. How do I come back from that? You just can’t. Too much time has passed, and the hurts have hardened. My family won’t be happy to see me back. They’re going to find it difficult to forgive me.”
She puts her hand on top of mine. My grandmother’s ring is on her finger, the sapphire glowing softly under the cabin light. “I don’t know your family,” she says, lacing her fingers in mine. “But they sound great. If you love them and they love you, you have to try. My mother died young, and toward the end, she didn’t even remember me. You never know how long you have with your loved ones. You have to make every moment count.”
This feels like a very weighty topic. “You say that now,” I quip. “You’ll change your mind when you meet them. They’re loud, opinionated, and nosy.”
Her expression is wistful. “It was just me and my mom growing up,” she murmurs. “I’ve always wanted a loud, meddlesome, opinionated family. I’d have loved a sister. Are you the older one or the younger? Do you have any other siblings?”
“No. It’s just Carlota and me. She’s two years older than me.”
“An older sister.” She smiles. “I was such a lonely kid that I used to make up siblings. Sometimes, it was an older sister, Paola. Paola had great clothes, and she’d lend them to me and teach me how to apply makeup. Then there was my brother Christian. He’d punch anyone who made fun of me.”
“Why would anyone make fun of you?”
“I was the odd one out at school,” she replies. “I didn’t know who my father was, and my mother kept to herself. When the other parents invited her to their parties, she declined. She didn’t even like me attending my classmates’ birthdays.” She shrugs as if it doesn’t bother her. “After a while, the invitations stopped coming.”
That’s why she’s going to Valencia. That’s why she’s burying her head in the sand about what kind of man her father is. I can relate. God, can I relate. There were plenty of warning signs that Estela Villegas was not who I built her up to be. That she was superficial, selfish, and materialistic. But I needed a reason to feel hopeful, and I latched upon Estela as the answer to all my problems. Who am I to judge Ali for ignoring the truth? After all, I did exactly the same thing.
Two hours later, the plane touches down in Valencia. We have a brief tussle over Ali’s duffel bag—she insists she can carry it herself, and I’m just as adamant that she isn’t going to. I win the fight. I’m laughing at the death glare she gives me as we turn the corner…
Loud, excited shrieks fill the air.
I freeze in shock.
My mother is holding one end of a huge banner that says, “Welcome home, Tomas!” and is jumping up and down in glee. My father holds the other end, beaming from ear to ear. Carlota has Adan in her arms, and at her side, her sheepdog Biel is busy barking her head off, just adding to the general commotion.
My brother-in-law Ramon grins at the look of utter shock on my face. “Did you really think we wouldn’t make a fuss?”
Then, my father starts forward. “Cómo estás, Papá?” I have time to ask before I’m enveloped in his arms.
“It’s so good to see you, mijo,” he says, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m so glad you’re home.” My mother hugs me tight, her eyes wet with tears, and Carlota thrusts her son into my arms. “Look, Adan,” she says. “This your tío Tomas.”
I genuinely didn’t know what kind of reception I was going to get from my family, but here they are. With less than three hours of notice, they’ve all shown up at the airport. They’re hugging me in their arms and talking at the top of their voices, and it feels like I’ve never been away.
I swallow the lump in my throat. I’m happy in Venice, but there’s always been a raw spot in my heart when I think about Valencia. It’s not the parks I miss, and it’s not the long afternoons in the sun drinking ca?a after ca?a, debating the fortunes of Valencia CF in La Liga and cursing its foreign owner for chronic underinvestment in the club. It’s not the café bombon, and it’s not the paella. No, it’s this. It’s the absence of my family that has scraped my heart.
But as I hug my mother tight, I finally feel that wound heal. I finally feel whole.
The padrino was right. I needed to face the past first, and now I can look to the future. A future that hopefully has Ali in it.
She’s standing off to the side, looking a little dazed at the commotion. I laugh and grab her hand, tugging her closer. “Meet my family, Ali.” I can’t stop smiling. “What did I say about them? Loud, opinionated, and nosy.”
And I love them.