Chapter 27 A Thousand Reasons… #2
I smile and give a little yelp that makes everyone in the bathroom look over at me. “Blanqui, it’s all happening. He knows that he’s the one in my head and this… It’s moving forward, you know?”
She leans against the wall and smiles. “Ay, Coco…it’s just a matter of time.”
“A matter of time?”
“A matter of time, yeah. I’ve always thought Marín was in love with you even when he got together with Aroa, but”—she shrugs—“it was just easier.”
“And you’re telling me this now?” comes out in an unbearably high-pitched squeak.
“I don’t think he knew, to be honest. Now, it’s starting to sink in. But…go slow.”
“Slow,” I repeat.
“Yeah, slow. Dudes…get scared. They get scared”—she takes a breath—“easily and fast. And you have no idea how fast they are when they turn around to flee.”
* * *
When we get back to the site, they’ve just showed up.
Gus, dressed in a military-green T-shirt and black jeans, is brandishing a bottle of gin and chasing Loren around with it, shaking it like a maraca.
Aroa is watching Marín from her chair with the disjointed look of a broken doll as he slides a few boxes of amazing-smelling pizza onto the table.
And he’s…so hot. A loose-fitting black shirt and matching skinny jeans.
He must have combed his hair (just with his fingers, I know him), and his hair is slicked back from his face, although it still needs a good cut.
He turns toward me when I go over and checks me out pretty blatantly. He keeps his response measured and funnels it all into a smile that he hides by running his hand over his beard.
“Heels and everything, huh? You clean up nice.” He points to the sandals in my hand.
“Button-up and everything, huh?”
Aroa shifts in her seat, scraping it noisily against the gravel. I turn toward her, uncomfortable. “Aroa, glass of wine?”
“Of course.”
“Don’t move or anything, huh?” Loren gives her shit, in his black T-shirt and favorite jeans, already pulling out a cold bottle of white wine.
“What does it matter? We’re already standing. Do we need anything else?” Marín offers.
“Napkins and plastic plates.”
Blanca comes out with the corkscrew and glasses, but just as she’s about to turn to go back inside, Marín goes instead.
“Where are the napkins?” he asks.
“Wait, I’ll go. You could go to the ocean and not find water.”
Good excuse for us to look at each other without everyone else watching.
“Here they are.” I crouch down to the cupboard where there’s a stack of them.
He crouches down too. We look at each other, both kneeling.
“Your lips…” he murmurs.
“What?”
“Your lips.” He nods toward them as he pulls a handful of napkins out of the open package. “Red. You haven’t worn lipstick in forever.”
“Yeah.”
“Why today?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.” He stands up and holds out his hand to pull me to my feet. “You’re decking out our first kiss.”
It’s suddenly hard to swallow, but I smile. “Ah…am I going to give a first kiss tonight? I had no idea.”
He looks outside and makes a playful face. “What I don’t know is why we never said a word to each other.”
“We were friends.”
“Were?” He side-eyes me. “What are we now?”
“Marín and Coco.”
He points to the door, but before he goes out, in a blind spot shielded from the outside, he corners me again. His mouth is so close to mine…
“With that lipstick everyone’s gonna know,” he whispers very softly.
“It’s smudge proof.” I smile at him.
“Not enough, I promise,” he answers me with a smile. But before he lets me leave, he says, “Let’s be discreet.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
“Did you find the napkins or are you making them yourselves?” Gus asks from the doorway. “Oy, oy, oy…”
That last sound came when he saw how close we’re standing, whispering to each other. I pull away from Marín, giving him a slap, and I laugh and yell at Loren to deflect, while Marín gestures for Gus not to say a word.
“You’re a hemorrhoid! Didn’t you say you wanted ice? I was taking it out of the tray!” I shove it into Gus’s hand, and Marín and I look at each other gravely.
“Okay, okay, little couple…” he whispers. “Ay! Yes!” he yells exaggeratedly. “I always put ice in my wine!”
“Gus, shut up.” We hear from outside.
That was, of course, Blanca.
* * *
If looks could be translated into words, transcribing that dinner would take a five-hundred-page novel.
Marín looks at my mouth; I look at his. We both blush.
The triangle of skin his collar leaves in view is making me nervous.
I can’t stop picturing myself smudging lipstick and spit all over him, and I don’t know how to sit because something’s telling me tonight will be the night.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to sleep with someone this much even though it tracks when you consider that we’ve had a whole week of foreplay.
Doing it with Marín… Will we make love? Fuck like animals?
How the hell does Marín fuck? I always tried not to pay attention to the details Aroa always proudly spouted off, but right now they’d come in pretty handy.
Blanca sometimes looks out into the black night and sometimes at her phone, where I get the feeling she’s texting Ruben.
Maybe these days apart are doing her some good in helping her figure stuff out, see everything more clearly.
But, other times, Blanca is glancing at Loren.
They seem to be locked in some kind of silent conversation that I want to be part of, but I can’t understand it.
It doesn’t bother me. I assume they’re just stressed about Aroa, who hasn’t taken her eyes off Marín and me.
Gus, on the other hand, seems to be very focused on how many likes his latest post on Instagram is getting. To keep myself busy and make me stop looking over at Marín, I grab his phone and hold it up.
“Let me read it. I haven’t been checking my phone much today.”
“You must’ve been busy with other stuff,” he says with a sly smile.
“Shut up, idiot.”
He took a really pretty photo of the ocean, probably when I ran into him on the way back. On the photo, in typewriter font, he wrote “Silence” and the caption says:
I have a space in my chest for our embrace
One where I don’t let anyone else in;
One where I don’t even want the sun to come in.
I have a stomach full of the caresses of your skin,
A mouth wet with confused songs,
Eyes blind from going to sleep thinking
That I’ll get over this story.
So, let’s shut up,
Let’s confess the impossible,
Without words that give shape,
Without anything that can break, be erased, stop existing.
Let’s be,
Like that thing nobody has been able to explain,
Like the tingle that nobody could predict,
Like when we didn’t say a word.
Can’t we always be those people?
Those ones, little one,
Who make it hard or easy,
But in silence.
A WhatsApp pings on his phone right as I’m handing it back to him, and he tenses up. All I can glimpse is that it’s from a “Malasana.” That little motherfucker. He probably didn’t even remember her name so he saved her as the name of the place he met her.
“What the…”
He doesn’t answer. He reads it as close to his chest as possible, where no one can see anything.
Maybe Malasana wasn’t because he forgot—maybe it’s a code between the two of them, a wink, a memory, the promise to tread on those cobblestoned streets again or traipse down Pez Street looking for a bar where they can grab a drink.
It wouldn’t be anything new; he’s forever searching for that. Maybe Malasana is her.
I seize the moment, since Loren is asking Aroa if she has any gigs lined up for the summer.
It’s weird; the blondie is one of those people who perk up a little, no matter how they’re feeling, when the attention is on them.
I’ve never noticed before. But that’s not the important part; the important part is what I want to ask Gus. “Are you okay?”
“Me? Of course. Why?”
“I dunno.” I smile. “You’re not being obvious or anything, but I’m pretty sure there’s someone special.”
“No way. I’m talking to a girl, but that’s it.” He shrugs listlessly. “Nothing special.”
“Well, it’s kinda special that you’re only talking to one, isn’t it?”
He gives a half smile and slowly shakes his head.
“No way, Coco Puff. When you say it like that, it makes it sound like something it’s not.” He looks weirded out.
I pat his knee under the table and give him a complicit look.
“Gus, you’re leaving a lot unsaid…”
“That’s probably because I don’t want to say it.”
The reply sounds hard, but he says it with a wolfish smile, and I retort, “You will.”
I grab another slice of pizza, and a hand slides me a napkin. My old one, completely grease-soaked, is balled up on my plastic plate. I follow the hand to its owner, who’s smiling at me. It’s Marín, of course.
“Take it, you filthy little piglet.”
“The truth is I am a little filthy.”
I see his Adam’s apple bob up and down, and I can almost read his thoughts: Don’t do this to me right now.
“Oh, yeah. It’s true. I can vouch for it.” Gus grabs another piece of pizza too and a napkin.
“I always get covered in stains,” I add with a half smile.
“That’s because you don’t like cutlery. You like using your hands.”
“And my mouth.”
“What are you talking about?” asks Aroa, who must have caught a few words.
“How Coco is a total pig.” Gus smiles.
I show her my greasy napkin and smile, but I can’t hide the fact that it was a different tone.
“Maybe it’s the copious amount of wine you’ve been drinking?” Marín asks slyly.
“Nuh-uh,” Gus says. “It’s just because you don’t drink at all, so anything seems like a lot to you. Another little glass?”
“Thanks.” I put my glass in his reach so Gus can pour more wine in. “Tonight I want to do it all.”
Once I’m served, I glance discreetly at Marín over my cup, and I watch him smile as my foot snakes up onto his chair, between his legs. He raises his eyebrows, bites his lip.
I guess nobody except us understands where the hell that came from.
Mandala seems to be the hot place. We get there early, and there’s already a line.
And it’s worth pointing out that it doesn’t give a great first impression: It’s one of those clubs where the women get two drink tickets for the price of entry and the guys one.
I don’t know which of the genders that’s more discriminatory to. Of course, I can’t keep my mouth shut.
“Quite the anachronism, bro.”
“If you don’t like it, go somewhere else.”
“Relaaaaaax,” I retort as Loren yanks me inside.
“Do you always have to fight with bouncers like that?”
“If they’re idiots, then yeah.”
Music is booming out of the speakers, and I’m surprised barely anyone is dancing. There are groups of people talking and flirting, and bartenders are slammed at the bars with so many people ordering.
We stake out a corner in the garden as our command center.
There are a couple of members of the group who look like they want to abandon ship, but we didn’t pay fifteen euros a head just to head straight back home.
Loren and Blanca are both delighted by the music choices.
Blanquita has many layers: She likes a night at some club just as much as one at a dingy patio where they only play Pachanga.
I can get down to anything, and Marín says all music is respectable and has its place, so we have no problem either. But Aroa and Gus…
“If they play ‘Despacito,’ I swear I’ll throw myself in that pool!” he screams.
“You just wanna see everyone get their tits out,” Blanca mutters mischievously but loudly enough so he hears her.
“I didn’t even notice them, you clown.”
“You’re the clown.”
“Hey! I’m declaring a truce!” I yell. “Come on…let’s divide and conquer. You”—I point to Blanca, Aroa, and Gus—“stay here and hold down the fort. We’ll go get supplies.”
“I don’t drink,” Marín says into my ear.
“Do you have two hands?” I turn to look at him with a smile.
“You know where I want to put them, right?” And he leans down to say it into my ear.
OMG, OMG, OMG. Marín wants to put his hands on you. Good thing I put on cute underwear tonight.
Loren pinches us discreetly and then drags us over to the bar.
“Reel it in a little,” Loren says with a serious face. “Aroa’s on the edge.”
“We’re not doing anything wrong.”
“No, nothing wrong, but you’re falling in love right under his ex’s nose.”
“What?” Marín yells, trying to hear over the blaring music.
“Do you want a bottle of water?” Loren yells back.
“No. Then it’ll look like I’m on pills.”
I can’t help laughing as I lean against the bar.
“He’s so cute…”
“Listen, how are we doing it tonight?”
“Doing what?” I see Marín trying to get the bartender’s attention a little farther down from us, right at the end of the bar.
“Look…give Gus the car keys and twenty euros for his silence and you two go to the hotel. I’ll make something up to tell Aroa.”
I stare at him, surprised. It’s like he knows more about what’s going to happen than we do. “Blanca filled you in, I guess.”
“No. But she didn’t need to. I’m practically sprouting tits from all the hormones you two are giving off. If you can’t wait until you get back to Madrid, fine, but don’t touch each other right in Aroa’s face anymore.”
“I don’t know why we need to be so scared of her,” I whine.
“What are you two talking about?” Marín manages to squeeze into a gap next to us.
“Aroa.” And Loren’s look back at him is sharp and a little pointed. “I was telling Coco that if she explodes, we’re all going to be in deep shit.”
The look they exchange seems to be loaded with much more information than I have right now. Marín suddenly seems worried, and I get anxious for a second.
“What’s going on?” I grab his arm.
“Nothing.” He smiles at me suddenly. “But we don’t want Aroa to vomit fire, right?”
“No. We don’t want that. Or to explode so we’re all in deep shit. Right, Marín?”
I’m in love, but I’m not stupid. I missed a chapter. I’m sure of it.