Chapter 1 #2
“Still counts.” He turns on his stool to face me more fully, and our knees bump. Instead of pulling away, though, he stays put, and the heat of him seeps through his jeans and my suit pants. “What made you confess?”
I shrug, feeling the weight of exhaustion settle over me.
“I don’t know, exactly. Dad called a meeting in his office yesterday for all the VPs, senior staff, and me so he could tell us about this cereal company he wants to woo as a client.
He’s all Embracor is amazing, Embracor is cutting-edge.
But I swear the CEO of Embracor is even more homophobic than the CEO of Rise Athletics, the client I, um… ”
“Turned into a Times Square dick joke because they were a bunch of family-values assholes?” Carlos supplies. “I heard Griffin’s story. Town gossip.”
“Yeah.” I run a hand over my face. “Anyway, all of a sudden, the words came tumbling out of my mouth in front of everyone, and I couldn’t stop it.
Like an intrusive thought come to life.” I lift my gaze, and suddenly, I’m drowning in deep, dark, bracing coffee.
He’s closer than I expected, close enough for me to see these little flecks of gold in his gaze.
I clear my throat. “I’m the king of impulsive decisions. ”
“Oooh, the king.” Carlos snorts. “Impressive.”
“Being ridiculously impulsive is hardly a flex,” I say defensively.
“Not when it means I do stuff without thinking it through. I’ve always been this way.
Drives my father crazy. Like, when I was twelve, I brought home a turtle I found in Central Park.
Did I know anything about turtles? No. Did I know what it needed to live?
Also no. I just… worried he’d die of exposure if I left him outside in October, so I put him in my pocket. That’s the kind of thing I mean.”
“Huh.” Carlos sips his beer, then turns back to me. “Do I wanna know what happened to the turtle?”
I pause because I’ve told this story before, many times, and it always gets me laughs, but I don’t think anyone’s ever asked a follow-up about my turtle.
“Frodo spent a lavish weekend in a Baccarat salad bowl I stole from my mom. Then I finally came clean to our housekeeper, and Maria helped me buy a proper terrarium and turtle food. He lived until I was in college.”
“Frodo.” Carlos’s lips tip up, and my body goes warm and liquid.
“Yeah. Small but brave,” I say, and it comes out a bit breathy because I made the mistake of falling into his eyes.
“Hm. Well, that’s a cute story and all… but I’m afraid I’m the rightful ruler of Impulsive Decisionland.” He shrugs, but his eyes hold mine, and they’re so freaking friendly I feel back-footed. “Sorry. You’ve been disposed.”
“Y-you mean deposed. And I highly doubt—”
“When I was fourteen, I lied and told a girl I was an amateur bull rider.”
“You…” My mouth shuts, and my eyes go wide. “No way.”
“So much way. Picture it… Fourteen-year-old me, still breathtakingly handsome but a little younger—” Carlos winks broadly, which makes me laugh.
It’s playful and a little flirty… and I have to remind myself that this guy’s not shown any overt interest and is, in fact, telling me a story about a girl he liked.
Chill the fuck out, Erick.
“—and I’m with my whole family—Mamá, my sister Crystal, her husband, my nieces, and me—all head to the Big E. That’s the Eastern States Exposition in Western Mass. Kind of a big county fair situation.”
“Okay?”
“And we’re checking out the livestock because my nieces love moo-cows, and what do you think I spot?”
“A… bull?” I guess.
He rolls his eyes. “No. A Marnie. Or was it Marley?” He shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, she was hot and brunette and… you know.” His hands move in the shape of enormous breasts.
I roll my eyes. “Gross.”
“Yeah, well, my fourteen-year-old self was hypnotized. Couldn’t even try to play it off or act cool. I went right up to her, and I was like…” He tilts his chin and purses his lips. “‘S’up, girl?’”
I laugh out loud again. “Oh, ew, noooo. If you’d given me that face, I’d have knocked you on your ass,” I lie.
“Well, she did. In a manner of speaking.” He looks a little ashamed and a little playful. “We’re chatting, and she says, ‘Bullriding is the coolest thing ever! I think bull riders are so hot!’ So, I…” He winces.
“You?” I prompt, nudging his arm. “You can’t leave me hanging.”
Carlos sighs. “I said, ‘Yeah. Totally. I mean…’” He sniffs off-handedly, in an impression of his fourteen-year-old self. “‘I do some bull riding. In my spare time.’”
“Oh, no.” I cover my eyes and shake my head, snort-laughing. I can see where this is going, and it’s not cute, but it is hilarious. When I peek through my fingers, I find Carlos watching me with a smile, like he’s really invested in my reaction. It feels… nice. Really nice.
“Color me shocked,” Carlos continues, “when we get to some, like, Dolly Parton section of the fair and there are a half-dozen mechanical bulls. And Marlene—”
“Marnie,” I correct. “Or Marley.”
“Sure. She’s like, ‘Carl, can you show me how you ride?’ So, I mean, I had to brazen it out, right?”
I wipe my eyes, but I nod. “You truly had no choice. And I guess you survived, so it couldn’t have gone that bad?”
“It was amazing,” he confirms. “Best three-point-seven seconds of my life. Then I landed.” Carlos pulls up his sleeve to show me a pale pink scar running along his forearm, and his fingers brush mine accidentally.
I feel that two-second touch in my soul.
“Broken in two places. Missed a whole football season.”
“Ohhhhh.” I clench my fists against the need to trace that scar with my fingers. Straight boy probably wouldn’t enjoy that. “Did Marnie comfort you?”
He smiles ruefully. “She didn’t even stick around to see me land.
Whomp whomp. But!” He leans closer, and I get another whiff of his cologne.
It makes my stomach do a complicated gymnastic vaulting maneuver before finally sticking the landing.
“Though I didn’t know it at the time, all that pain and suffering was for a reason. ”
“It was?” I croak.
“Yep.” He smiles triumphantly. “Because now I can tell you with no hesitation that I am the king of impulsive decisions.”
I laugh loud and long, which is not a thing I think I’ve ever done with a semi before. Life’s just full of new experiences, isn’t it?
“You can be, like, the duke of the land,” he informs me. He waves a hand. “Or the earl. Or whatever they are in that Bridgerton show.”
“Oh.” I blink. “You watched Bridgerton?”
Immediately, I’m aware of how judgy I sound, and I want to kick myself, but Carlos just grins wider, and it does things to me I should not be allowing it to do. Not when he’s just here to be nice to me. Not when he appears to be straight. Not when I’m in public, for fuck’s sake.
I squirm in my seat.
“I do. My niece is fourteen and lives for that shit. And since Esme has her Tio Oso wrapped around her finger—”
“Tio Oso?”
“Tio, as in uncle.” He rubs the back of his neck. “And Oso is Spanish for, um, bear.”
I remember this from the Spanish classes I took in high school, but damn, he looks cute as he explains it. And it fits. Carlos is stocky and protective, giving off definite bear vibes. I would be his Goldilocks any day.
Bad Erick. Stop. No more impulsive decisions.
Carlos’s cheeks turn pink, like maybe he caught something in my expression. “Anyway. I stand by my statement. You’re a duke at best, which means you should, you know, bow before me and whatever.”
The way he says bow before me gives Bad Erick the encouragement he didn’t need, but I try to laugh it off anyway. Carlos and I are facing each other fully now, all four of our knees pressed together, and I laugh that off too.
“Oh, honey,” I say sympathetically. “Me impulsively deciding to fuck with a homophobic client by fucking up my dad’s company’s biggest ad campaign ever, and then also impulsively deciding to come clean, and then rounding that out by impulsively declaring that I want to follow my heart and be a preschool teacher…
that was just the tip of the impulse iceberg. I’ve got more.”
“Yeah? Hit me with ’em.” He makes a gimme motion with his fingers.
“Okay. One time… maybe four years ago now?… I impulsively took a guy I’d been dating on a helicopter ride over Manhattan to ask him to be my boyfriend.
I’d mentioned going on a helicopter ride in Alaska once, and he said he loved helicopters.
So I thought it was perfect. I actually called it Operation Shock and Awwww. I mean, only in my own head, obviously. ”
“Obviously,” Carlos agrees. “But dude, that’s not impulsive! That’s cool as shit. I’d be putty in your hands if you surprised me with a big gesture like that. Don’t tell me this asshole didn’t appreciate it.”
I bite my lip. “Brett vomited in my lap. He was afraid of heights, and he’d made up the helicopter thing. When we landed, he told me he couldn’t ‘keep up’ with me, and he thought we were better off as friends.” I shrug, although even now, the memory hurts.
“Ouch.” Carlos’s voice is gentle. “That sucks. But he wasn’t honest with you. You were his mechanical bull.”
“Oh. Damn. I never thought of it that way, I guess.” I take a sip of my drink because I’m feeling all kinds of feelings, and it’s dangerous and worrisome.
He gives me a long look, then says, “I can still top that, though. Back in August, I broke up with the woman I’d been dating for a year.”
My face falls. “Oh. Fuck. Just… impulsively? Do you regret it?”
He tilts his hand from side to side. “Not just impulse. Mamá fell back in July and broke her hip. She needs a lot of help getting around, with groceries and appointments and all that. My sister, Crystal, has two teenagers, a husband, and a big-ass German shepherd, so it made sense for our mother to move in with me so I could take care of her. But Rosie—that’s the ex—she felt like I was abandoning her.
Like all I cared about was work and my mom, and I wasn’t even trying to put our relationship first.”