Chapter 12
chapter twelve
New York City, Two Weeks Later
juan pablo
“Did you call her?” I didn’t have to ask who because my mother had been asking me the same question every hour on the hour for the last two days.
She was throwing a surprise party for my dad’s sixty-fifth birthday in a few days and she’d decided the party couldn’t happen without Priscilla.
Meanwhile I was still smarting for the way she’d ghosted me after that night at the beach.
Not because she hadn’t been jumping at the chance to pick up where we’d left off—or maybe just a little bit.
But because I’d hoped that, like me, she’d felt like we were worth another try.
I looked up from my overthinking to find my mother glaring at me, obviously over my bullshit. “Ma. She’s busy. I don’t know if she’s going to have time to come. Besides, she’s not in the Bronx anymore.”
The reality was that even as I told myself that I was willing to be patient, deep down I’d hoped she would be as eager as I was.
But as soon as I tried to push for a little more contact, for the possibility of seeing each other once we were Stateside, she’d literally walked out on me.
The morning after our sex on the beach, when I’d asked Easton where she was, he said she’d left for Santo Domingo.
Without saying goodbye to me. I hadn’t heard from her since.
It seemed like she’d finally gotten over whatever it was that we’d been doing all these years after all. But my mother was obviously on a whole other timeline.
“Juan Pablo, I will tell Camilo to call her.”
Oh hell, no. That little prick was such a terror, my parents still used him to scare me into doing shit.
“Damn, Ma. Chill. Let me just get something to eat and I’ll call her.”
That got me an eye roll and a big shake of her head.
“No, Caro. Call her now. I’ve been on you for days.
You know how much Rafa loves her, and she might not be in the Bronx, but she’s still close.
” She stretched out the last part, too. Yeah, Pris was in Yonkers now and so was I.
Except she wanted nothing to do with my ass, so it didn’t really matter.
My mother put down the iPad she was using to inventory some coats and boots we’d gotten for the kids in the neighborhood, and walked around to where I was. “I loved seeing all of you back together for Milo’s wedding. Like the old days.”
She sighed with a forlorn look in her eyes. Probably remembering the years when we’d all be at our house after school. My mom, being a teacher, would come home with us and most days, Milo, Patrice, and Nesto would end up at our place until their moms got them after work. Pris, too.
I knew it wasn’t my mother trying to meddle—at least not intentionally—but it nettled. I didn’t like people in my business. After years of dating my best friend’s cousin and the daughter of my own father’s best friend, we both got tired of having everyone we knew all up in our business.
“Juan, son.”
I sighed and turned to her with my phone in my hand.
“I’ll call her, Ma, but aren’t Tonin and Maritza coming down?
Why can’t they ask her?” I knew pointing out that Priscilla’s parents could let her know about the party was not going to dissuade my mother in the slightest. No, because she had an agenda.
She’d been walking by every ten minutes while I worked with one of my PT clients at my dad’s center.
“We’re the hosts and we should confirm.” There was no dissuading her when she got like this.
I didn’t know why we were suddenly going by the Ina Garten party etiquette rules, but this was not an argument I was winning. So I sighed and walked back to the PT room to call Priscilla.
There were a few people there working with the weights and other equipment under the supervision of the other physical therapist and two of the interns we had working for us this semester. Too crowded. I wasn’t talking to Priscilla with this many people around.
I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me.
I was practically coming out of my skin at the prospect of calling her and getting ignored.
I knew that it wouldn’t be easy for us to become friends again and the cabana sex was probably not the best idea, but I really didn’t think I’d get shut out like that.
I knew I hadn’t been the only one that night at the beach who’d been blown away by how easy, how all-consuming it was when we were together.
I’d always been up for sex and had been with enough people to know that when it came to feeling good, I did not discriminate.
Pleasure was pleasure and chemistry was chemistry.
But I didn’t believe in soulmates. Not really.
There were a lot of people out there I could be with that could make me happy.
That I could make happy, but there wasn’t another person on this planet who knew me like Priscilla Gutierrez did.
We’d talked like we hadn’t in years. Hell, that whole week we’d been tight.
Almost like the old days—well, not quite.
In the old days I wouldn’t have had to ask her how work was.
I would’ve known that. I would’ve been the first to know.
But then again, maybe not. Her job had always been a contentious issue for us.
So maybe even if we had been together, she would’ve kept her uncertainty about staying in the force to herself.
I wasn’t one to give up easily, but at times like these, it did seem like it might be too late for us.
Like I should let go of the idea that Priscilla could be in my life again.
But it wasn’t like she seemed happy. No, she’d sounded disillusioned and tired.
And I hadn’t been able to get out of my head that she seemed lonely, too.
Like she didn’t trust anyone could understand why she was tired, why she didn’t just move on or do something different.
I’d always wondered if eventually Priscilla would outgrow her job.
Or if like my dad, it would take her being forced out of it to realize there was more out there that could fulfill her.
Other jobs that could make her feel like she was doing something with purpose.
Because I knew ultimately that is what she’d always wanted—to feel useful, to help.
And from the way she spoke that night, I was sure her job wasn’t fulfilling that need like it used to.
That I also knew to be true. And I knew her—even when she didn’t want me to see too much, I knew her.
But Priscilla did not take kindly to people getting all up in her business.
She hated feeling talked down to, especially when she was feeling unsure.
Just like me, when she needed an opinion, she asked for it.
And unless you asked her for it, she did not put her nose into anyone’s business. Not even when she saw you trifling.
Growing up as the only child of two very overprotective Dominican immigrants, Pris craved her space more than she craved anything else.
The way she set boundaries for herself was by not ever giving her parents any reason to believe she didn’t know what she was doing.
Pris’s boundaries were non-negotiable. So my blowing up her phone with a shady ass excuse, when she’d let me know in no uncertain terms that I didn’t need to be calling her, was probably going to get me an ass chewing.
But nobody else needed to know that I’d been looking for an excuse to call her again and my mother had finally given me one.
I leaned against the brick wall next to the door of the center and called, with my head pounding more than it should have over a call to a woman whom I’d known my entire life.
And yet here I was with drops of sweat beading at the small of my back.
It rang three times, then four, and finally it went to her voicemail.
I considered not leaving a message and just calling back. Then thought better of it and decided it would look even thirstier for me to call and not say anything like I was some creepy asshole. I got my shit together just as the beep for the message blasted in my ear.
“Hey. So, hope you’re good. My mom told me to hit you up and remind you that my dad’s sixty-fifth is this weekend. It’s a surprise party on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. here at the center.”
I took a breath and sweated some more, knowing I was acting a fool on this damn call. “Anyways, we hope to see you there. We miss you. I miss you.”
I tapped on the screen and exhaled, thinking that last part was probably going to send her running in the other direction.
I knew that Priscilla had left that night because the power of our connection, the way we fell into each other again like barely a day had passed, was scary as fuck.
Because even though neither of us could deny the highs that being together brought, the lows always wiped us both out.