CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE DIEGO
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DIEGO
Me: Is this a booty call?
Pretty girl: No, but things can definitely escalate quickly
Me: Yes to that. Where are you taking me?
Pretty girl: It’s a surprise.
When I exit the house exactly fifteen minutes later, Alara is parked a few houses down, just in case Gaby’s in the mood to snoop around and is looking out the window.
The night is chilly, so I tuck my chin in the collar of my coat and jog toward the black car I know so well.
I’m curious about what she has in mind. We just left each other – not even two hours ago – but I’ve quickly realized that nothing matters when I’m with her, which is why I love spending so much time in her company.
After our skiing lesson, we went back to her place to shower, then fucked, then showered again before eating some leftovers she had kept from the night before.
Her smile knocks the breath out of my lungs when I open the passenger-side door and hop into the seat. “Can’t stop thinking about me, can you?”
“Trust me, if I could get you out of my head, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“I share the exact same sentiment about you,” I drawl out in amusement.
She carefully watches me as I make myself comfortable. “I was having a cozy night, reading my holiday romance, then I thought I’d take you somewhere.”
As soon as I’m buckled up, she drives off. “You’re going to ditch my body in the middle of nowhere, aren’t you?” I ask, unzipping my jacket.
“How did you know?” she jests dryly.
“I mean, after the way I threw a snowball at your ass this morning? You have every right to be mad at me.”
Alara’s laugh is better than any song I’ve ever heard. She shakes her head, focused on the road as she takes us to fuck knows where.
I put the thermos I brought with me in the cup holder. “I’m not sure how far we’re going, but I made you some hot chocolate. Figured you’d be cold. That said, it’s a fucking furnace in here already. But anyway. Oat milk with a dash of cinnamon.”
She quickly meets my gaze, earnest tenderness glimmering in hers. “Thank you. That’s so thoughtful. And we have a little half-hour drive ahead.”
I nod, reaching over to tuck some strands of hair behind her ear. “You’re welcome, baby.”
I swear I could stare at her for a lifetime.
“Take a picture,” she mumbles. I think I see her cheeks redden in the glow of the dashboard.
“Thanks for giving me your permission.”
She’d take me for a man obsessed if she saw my camera roll.
I have way too many pictures of her and, by the outward look of it, I don’t think anyone would consider our relationship – or whatever the fuck it is – casual.
I have pictures of her cooking, working in her office, trying on some of the gear that’s recently arrived in our stock.
Some shots are of her sleeping with her head on my lap, or of her teaching some kids how to ski, or basking under the golden sun’s rays during our break, with a breathtaking view in the background.
As I take my phone out of my pocket, my hand stills before moving to crank the volume of the music up. Coldplay’s “Yellow” blasts through the speakers, my chest constricting with a specific pain I don’t allow myself to feel often.
“This song reminds me of my dad,” I confess. It’s just so easy, so good, so liberating with her. She is my favorite person.
“Really?” She glances at me as she stops at the only red light in our town. “Tell me about him.”
The simple demand makes me smile.
People don’t ask me about him. They’re scared of opening a floodgate if they so much as mention him, but the thing is that I don’t fall apart in front of others. Ever. My sisters have never seen me cry, neither has my mom, except for when we learned Dad had passed away in his sleep.
Whenever I’m alone, though, confined within four walls where it’s just me and my spiraling thoughts, I sometimes allow myself to break. It’s a rare occurrence, but thoroughly needed when I feel like the pressure is too much.
Alara’s the only person who’s seen me in my most vulnerable state, and I’m not afraid of showing her more. I feel safe with her. Safer than I’ve ever been.
I reach for the thermos as she pushes on the gas pedal. She’s exiting town, which piques my curiosity.
“Dad was the greatest man ever,” I say, popping the lid open. “He was driven, loyal to a fault, and insanely funny. He was the pillar of our family. Always keeping us together. Always making sure we had everything we needed. Always pushing us to do better but checking if we were happy.”
“I love this,” she whispers. I reach for her right hand, because I need to touch her.
She’s my anchor. She keeps me grounded. Her touch unravels me as soon as our fingers entwine on the central console, the urge to pepper her skin with kisses becoming overwhelming.
It unravels me, but, at the same time, it pieces all the fragmented bits of my heart back together.
“He’s the one who got you into snowboarding? ”
I take a small sip of the hot cocoa. This beverage will always remind me of our first kiss.
Of the way it had felt as though I was floating the moment her soft lips touched mine.
“Yeah. It was his dream to see me compete at a professional level. For a little while, I thought going pro was his dream and not mine, so I stopped riding for, like, a couple months until I realized it was my dream too. I was practically born wearing gear and with a board strapped to my feet” – that earns me a heartfelt laugh – “so this sport is injected in my veins. You know I love it, and it’s all thanks to Dad. ”
She doesn’t say anything, and I don’t expect her to. Having her listen to me is more than enough, though she squeezes my hand as a form of encouragement to keep going.
When I bring the thermos to her mouth, the drink spills on her chin. We laugh together and I thumb the droplets away before she takes another careful sip. She hums, the appreciation clear on her face.
“He was such a good man. He refused to let us go to bed if we were mad, whether it was with him or Mom, or with each other. If it took all night to mediate a fight between the girls, then he would stay up all night to make sure they sorted everything out. My favorite thing about him was the way he loved Mom. He loved her like she was the only one in the universe. They danced every night before going to bed, even if they were fighting. I also went through that phase at fourteen years old where I wanted to stop speaking Spanish. Don’t ask me why.
I was a dumb kid. And Dad would scold me in a gentle way that still sticks with me, and he said I’m so lucky to be bilingual and shouldn’t take my Mexican roots for granted.
He was right. I love everything he passed down to me and the girls. ”
She smiles at that.
“He passed away a few weeks before my nineteenth birthday. Losing him fucked me up, Alara. It truly did.” My voice cracks, and I clear my throat as my vision starts getting blurry.
It feels good to speak about him, but with Coldplay playing in the background?
I’m going to start fucking crying. But, with Alara, I’m learning that being vulnerable doesn’t make me weak. That it doesn’t take away my strength.
Alara already knows about all this, but she doesn’t interrupt me. She’s the first person I’ve ever talked to about Dad – and I don’t want to stop now.
She brings our hands to her mouth, gently kissing the back of mine. “I’m so sorry, my love. It must have been hard.”
My love. Those two words feel like a shot of happiness through the storm brewing inside my chest.
“It was. Cancer sucks so bad. He was only forty-seven when he passed, and seeing his light go out day by day was really fucking hard to see. He saw me compete several times before he left us, and I’m happy that he did.
I remember the day I told him that Coach Wilson came up to me – we celebrated and I had my first sip of champagne that evening.
Mom made tamales and my sisters screamed with excitement. ”
I feel the first tear roll down my cheek. Then the second one. A third one. I don’t linger on the fact that it’s so easy to give Alara my broken pieces, because I’m too busy focusing on not entirely falling apart. I know I can, but I don’t want to.
“Luis would be so proud of you.” Her words are whispered, but I can hear the emotion through them. She kisses the back of my hand again.
“Would he? Even after the reckless stunt I pulled a few months ago?”
“You’re only human, Diego. Making mistakes happens to everyone. Do you think he’d be really mad at you for that?”
I lean my head back against the headrest and stare at the dark road ahead. “Nah. Actually, I think he’d try to teach me a lesson. Say something like everything happens for a reason, and I was brought back here for some reason too.”
I see her smile from the corner of my eye.
“I wish I could have been more present for Mom and my sisters,” I continue weakly. “A week after his funeral, I had to leave for Austria for a tournament. Didn’t even come back for Christmas because I had another competition in Switzerland a couple days after.”
“I remember Gaby telling me about it. She was sad that you weren’t there, but she’s never blamed you for living your dream. She never will. You can’t change the past, but you can definitely work to make your future different.”
“Trust me, I am.” The pad of my thumb starts brushing the back of her hand.
“I miss him. I miss him a lot. I’ve always been a wild child, but he kept me on my toes, you know?
After losing him, I was convinced that every good thing would go away, and that’s why I’ve had a hard time letting people in.
I’ve never spoken about him to anyone else but you.
And coming back reminds me of him in so many ways.
The pain doesn’t seem to lessen, even after all this time. ”