8. Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Vi
Lina and I had gotten in the habit of going out for coffee, just the two of us, a couple of times per month. I waited for her in our favorite café, scrolling on my phone, and procrastinating on sending Jake a link to the karaoke place.
I went as far as to paste it to a text message draft, but my thumb hovered over the send button. Our text conversation was sparse; no more than a few texts every several months for a perfectly practical reason or another. Nothing personal.
Sending him the link to the karaoke place felt personal, especially after our chat in the car.
I lifted my eyes to the coffee shop. No sign of Lina yet, but it was okay; I had arrived early. My eyes gazed among the crowd; the café was popular with office folk and people stopped by after work hours just like Lina and I. We were close to the Sotomayor offices, and I recognized a few people.
It was a newer place, cosmopolitan but unique enough to draw in their target market. I sat by the big window that overlooked the street; behind me, a brick wall and a small shelf full of coffee grounds, branded mugs, and other coffee accessories. Plants occupied strategic places and, while the rest of the walls were white, the furniture was charcoal gray. All the fixtures were bronze, including the food display. The baristas moved fast to fill out orders. I knew Lina's already and had gotten drinks for us; we wouldn't have to waste time in line.
I sighed. It had been two days since Claire had thought we wanted to rent the Remington Estate for our wedding, and Jake and I would have to text about the other venue options soon. A personal text would get lost in the chaos of planning the party, if I sent it now.
Lina entered the café. I sent the text before I could change my mind again.
Lina gave me a kiss on the cheek and sat in front of me. "I know we have the rule that we don't talk about work, but let me vent for a second?"
"Only for one second." I smiled and gave her her coffee.
"Tío Miguel. He's an ass." She frowned, then laughed. "I guess I'm done. That's all I needed to say."
I laughed with her as well. "Good to know! I know he's always contradicting you and making things harder than they need to be."
"Yeah, and I don't actually want to give him more room in my life than I have to. I already deal with him a lot at work. So let's change topics— I've been meaning to ask. The flowers you got last week were from Andrew, right?"
I'd vented to Lina about my ex enough that she must have been surprised to see he'd sent me flowers.
I shrugged. "Yep. Andrew has been trying to convince me that we can still make it work. He texted me a few times even if I haven't responded. So unclassy. Get a clue, right?"
"What?" She sipped her coffee. "You didn't tell him that you know what he did?"
My stomach twisted. Andrew had lied to my assistant, Stephanie. He called her and said I wanted her to book a meeting for him with Max to discuss a business deal. Stephanie, the rockstar that she was, checked in with me. She had rightly suspected that I had never given such a thing the green light.
"I did." I scowled. "Both when I broke up with him and right before I blocked his number."
Lina chuckled. "Good riddance. I had hope for him at one point, but he had to go and ruin things. At least you're not too heartbroken?"
"I liked him well enough, but I think he felt more than I did— or really wanted to secure access to my network. Who knows? Before the break up, I could see that maybe, with time, I could feel more. At the time this all went down, though? No, I was hurt, but not heartbroken."
Sometimes I wondered if I could feel deeply enough to be heartbroken. Every time an ex had made a mistake— or I had— it had caused little more than a shrug from me. It didn't feel like more than a bump on my romance journey.
The thought that maybe I couldn't love the way I wanted settled like a stone in my stomach. I wanted to love that deeply, and to be loved as fiercely back. But maybe things didn't work quite right inside. There was a reason why my relationships failed so fast… and it terrified me to think that reason could be me. That scared me even more than the fact there were always mistakes being made.
If I believed in love it was because of seeing people like my parents make it through decades together, not because I trusted what I felt.
Like I could sense the way the air moved around him, the waves of Jake's presence registered in my brain. I sought him around me; I locked eyes with his big form on the sidewalk, striding past the café. He frowned and walked fast, not noticing Lina and I.
"That's Jake," I whispered, his name a spell on my lips.
I followed him with my eyes until I couldn't see him anymore.
When I returned my attention to Lina, I had to confront the suspicious look she gave me.
"I know," she said. "I've met him a few times."
"Oh. Pfft." I waved the involuntary reaction away, like it didn't matter. "It just surprised me."
Lina arched an eyebrow. "Right, right. That was just it."
I pursed my lips and glanced at my future sister in law. Her eyes glinted with mischief. Like she could see my heart beating faster than usual, or the years I'd been pining for her boyfriend's best friend.
It probably wasn't a good idea to spill my heart. To blabber about her boyfriend's best friend, and the one guy I had actually felt big things for.
"I've known him for a long time." I shrugged and shook my foot. "That's all."
"I don't know, I just think it's interesting how he reacted when he saw the flowers on your desk. And I thought there was a little dance between the two of you, figuring out if you might bring someone else to the anniversary party."
I wrinkled my nose and gazed out the window. People continued to walk by, but I didn't pay attention to them. This was the closest anyone had ever been to asking me what was between Jake and I, and my instinct was to hide it. Say nothing, and pretend there was nothing there. I didn't trust myself to make sense of it all, not after years and years of trying on my own, only to be stuck in the same place.
Yet words built in my throat, desperate to come out and be finally heard.
"We don't need to talk about it if you don't want to," Lina said. "But you lit up when you saw him."
I bit my lip. A universe of quieted thoughts and unfinished moments expanded in my chest, begging to be let out for once. If there was someone I could talk about this with, it was Lina. And yet…
"He's Gabe's best friend." I shook my head. "My parents see him like a son."
Lina leaned forward, her eyes peering closely at me. "What are you telling me? The reasons why you've kept your feelings to yourself… or the reasons why you don't want to feel the way you do?"
A spark burst between my lungs, my own personal supernova, but I boxed it with mirrors. It was my best hope at keeping the light contained. Yet some of it escaped, demanding the barest of acknowledgements.
I slumped, and had to hold my head in my hands not to fully collapse on the table.
I peeked through my fingers. "How long have you suspected?"
"Since the time I met everyone at the lake house. The way you look at each other sometimes…"
I groaned. "That was more than a year ago!"
"It's okay. I didn't know what to make of it. You spend more time barely acknowledging each other than like you want to jump each other, and I think he dated someone earlier last year? And you dated even more."
"I don't think we have much of a future together." I shrugged and sipped from my coffee. "He's below me in the company hierarchy—"
"But that's changing in like, a month!"
"— and he feels it's a risk to be together, because of how my family might react to us being romantically involved… and how they could react if we break up."
"Oh." Lina rested on the back of her chair, and studied me with pursed lips. "As in, Gabe's reaction? Or your parents'?"
"Everyone's, I guess."
"It doesn't make sense. I don't think anyone would shun him if you two broke up. Sure, it would be awkward for a while…"
"Yeah, and that alone could make us awkward and kill the chemistry between us. Even just by being watched like that at the start. It could doom us before we give it a fair try, and we'd last as long as any of my previous attempts." I flicked my nail on the paper sleeve around my cup. "Worst of all, I don't think he trusts himself enough to not fuck it up, and that's the risk he doesn't want to take. And I'm not going to beg him to give us a chance. That's not what love's supposed to be. None of that is."
Lina's eyes narrowed. "You sound quite certain of this. Like maybe… he told you this?"
"Is that really the important part?" I tried.
She didn't let it go. She walked her fingers on the table, like her hand approaching me was Lina reaching conclusions.
"Something happened, didn't it? Now that's something I didn't expect!"
"It was just a kiss! And he regretted it right away. It happened right before I became VP, too, so we had that going for us," I added for the sake of sarcasm.
"Was the kiss good?"
"I— Was the— What?"
It had made me aware of every inch of my skin, and his cologne had enveloped me with his arms around me and his jacket keeping me warm. The kiss had marked a before and after and, to my chagrin, I couldn't stop comparing every kiss after to the way Jake's lips had made me feel.
She smirked. "I'm going to take that as a yes."
I gazed out the window again; the evening had almost turned to night. The amount of people had started to lessen, as everyone made it to their destination. I nodded.
Lina put a hand on my forearm. "Did you regret the kiss?"
Her voice had been soft, and all I could do in response was lower my eyes to my coffee and shake my head.
Lina and I had both left our phones between us on the table, and the devices lit up with an incoming text at the same time.
Jake : would you go to karaoke with me next Friday?
"That was Jake," Lina said. "You too?"
I quickly checked; he had sent the message to Lina, Gabe, and I.
I nodded. "With the anniversary party, the transition, the karaoke… we're going to be spending a lot of time together. What am I supposed to do? Technically, after Jake becomes VP, all bets are off. Except the one we'd have to make for how it would end."
"Everyone makes that bet when they start a relationship, Vi. If you really want to give it a try, I'm sure there's a way to make it happen."
"If he still feels the same." I sighed. "We'll see. Maybe I'll be the one taking a risk again."
Jake
I closed the door to my condo and let out a big sigh. Even after years of therapy, there were still sessions that left me exhausted.
My condo and Gabe's shared the top floor of a skyscraper, and I often ended up spending time with him, and sometimes Lina, in the evening. Even so, they needed their alone time and so did I. So when I encountered Lina in the elevator and she invited me for dinner, I declined. Especially because she looked at me with a glint in her eyes, and that meant trouble. I didn't have the energy for trouble.
I flicked the hall light on and went into my studio, keeping everything else dark and ignoring the living room, the view of the city, and dinner. Sating my hunger could wait, especially when, through the fog of tiredness, a few bars repeated themselves in my head.
It was all I could think of as I turned on the mellow, warm light of the space I'd converted into a music room. The start of a melody, faint and hazy in my mind.
I dropped my suit jacket on the small sofa to one side, and sat on the working chair by the desk. The latter was decked out with a full keyboard, a state-of-the-art computer, audio interfaces and mixers, and studio monitors. Two microphones hung from the ceiling, supported by articulated, metal arms.
With several taps on the space bar, I woke up the computer. It was open already on the digital audio workstation software I preferred. I started a new file, made sure everything was working as desired, and posed my fingers on the keyboard. I closed my eyes, and let the music come to me.
My fingers moved slowly at first, hesitating as I found the rhythm and the first few notes. Translating feelings into sound was the hardest, yet most satisfying part of the process. Solving the puzzle of the right note, the right instrument, the right lyrics to express the inexplicable, it drove me. It nourished me. Even if it always left me a little unsatisfied, and craving more. Better. Closer.
But then, some time would go by and I would play a song again, and feel like I did the moment I wrote it.
It was magical.
So I kept working on the song, and writing down a first draft. I added beats and layers, testing out the rhythm and melody. It seemed it would turn out to be a slow song, so it didn't surprise me to hear the first hint of lyrics in my head.
My heart's still learning to count In a world of giants But as years go by and I look at you I still see the dreams I hoped to forget When I woke up to reality
Fuck. It shouldn't surprise me that my therapy session made it through into my music. Everything I created ended up being autobiographical and, after an hour of exploring my soul, I was primed to pour it into a melody.
I had talked about my fears for the future; how I continued to worry about making mistakes and losing the people I loved. It linked to my childhood, of course, and that's where the first couple of lines began.
Still, as usual, Vi made an appearance. Since I'd ended up talking about those feelings, too, the ghost of her would end up in this song. Like in so many others I'd written about her.
Another love song for the collection, it seemed.
I didn't fight it and worked on it for a couple of hours, until hunger wouldn't let me forget I was a mere mortal in need of a meal.
As I fell asleep more music threaded itself through my awareness, and I hummed it as I got ready the next morning. The song didn't leave me at work, either, even if no one would know it to look at me.
Not even Vi, when we crossed paths on the hallway, and she gave me a tremulous smile.
With a small smile of my own, I took my phone out and wrote another verse.
I'm not Darcy loving you despite my own judgment But I love you ardently anyway Yet you deserve a love that's whole And I'm not, I'm not You own all the parts of me that I'd give you So I'm not, I'm not