9. Diaz
Diaz
There was almost nothing better after a long day than kicking back with a cold beer and one of my favorite comfort movies. Jon Favreau’s Chef, the criminally underrated Gwyneth Paltrow classic View from the Top, and Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro to name a few.
In fact, I wasn’t ashamed to admit that the titular, gray spirit had made it onto my “hear me out cake” during a social media trend last fall.
Sometimes, though, drinks with Totoro didn’t cut it.
Sometimes, a guy needed to throw a little ass.
“You’re a natural,” I told Mila, twirling her out before yanking her back into me. “Where’d you learn to move like this, mami?”
“Emiliano.”
“Dance teacher?”
She shook her head and grinned. “A soccer player I met during my semester abroad in Colombia. He was really good with his hips.”
Oh, I just bet he was.
As it turned out, the Velvet Kitty was less honky-tonk and more glitter-drenched fever dream.
Neon signs with sayings like “wear the hat, ride the cowboy” and “saddle up & beg” flickered across the Barbie pink walls in swirling cursive.
Pastel-colored animal stuffies had been mounted behind the bar like taxidermy pets.
And at the center of it all, a massive disco ball spun lazily from the ceiling, casting the entire dance floor in rainbow sparkles.
It was cowgirls and camp with a hint of the Care Bears, an aesthetic that should’ve been all wrong for salsa dancing, and yet we had been twisting up the dance floor for the past two hours.
In our sluttiest fits, per Mila’s request.
I had put on my tightest pair of charcoal slacks, the kind that were only meant for standing up in, and my designer, burgundy button-down that had been opened just enough to show a decent slice of chest.
Mila’s black satin romper rode up every time she lifted her arms, showing off her long, well-toned legs. Seriously, we were going to have to trade leg day routines. She had thighs made for squashing watermelons.
Unlike Mila, Nora had opted to show off her top assets.
Her tight corset top pushed everything up and paired perfectly with dark denim pants and knee-high laced boots, making her look like she’d walked straight out of an early- ‘90s music video.
Colt, on the other hand, was stumbling around like a baby giraffe fresh out of the womb.
“No, your other left!” Nora shouted above the music. She had been trying to teach him some basic footwork for at least three songs now.
“I only have one of those!” Colt yelled back.
Who would’ve guessed that the Grammy-nominated rock star would have zero rhythm on the dance floor?
I grinned. “Does your brother always dance like—”
“A haunted scarecrow?” Mila’s smile was all kinds of wicked. “It’s tragic, but true. The dancing gene skipped him entirely.”
“Such a shame. At least he’s hot.”
I spun her again, catching her to me as the song shifted into something slower and sultrier. Mila’s eyes scanned the room before landing somewhere over my shoulder. A mischievous grin spread across her face.
“Speaking of hot, the burly blond at two o’clock has been staring at your ass for the last three songs.”
“Can you blame him?”
She rolled her eyes. “Dude looks like he wants to bench-press a small truck. Or a smartass baseball player.”
I risked a quick glance. Sure enough, a thick blond guy built like John Cena was watching us with open interest. He was attractive in a musclehead himbo kind of way. Definitely someone that in another time and place, I would totally let bench-press me, up and down his cock.
But tonight? Nothing.
“Solid 8.5,” I admitted. “But I’m not interested.”
She arched a brow. “Does that have anything to do with a certain freckle-faced hottie at the bar?”
I blinked.
“What makes you say that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mila said, circling my back and dragging her fingers across my chest as she went. “Could be the fact that you’ve been eye-fucking him for the last hour. Or maybe the way that he tightens up and then immediately relaxes whenever you get within three feet of each other.”
My gaze drifted to the bar before I could stop myself and immediately landed on the freckle-faced hottie in question.
Matty Miller was about as un-slutty as it got, but that didn’t make him any less hot.
He was leaning against the scarred wood, nursing a whiskey while chatting with James Jarrett.
His simple heather-gray shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and clung to the cut of his biceps and pecs.
His hair was slightly mussed from the heat of the bar, and that faint flush on his cheeks made the freckles across his nose stand out even more.
It was effortlessly slutty. The rom-com hero who didn’t realize just how hot he was slutty.
Mila followed my stare and let out a low, delighted whistle. “And there it is. The real reason Mr. 8.5 doesn’t stand a chance.”
There was no point denying it.
“I’m suddenly feeling a little parched,” she added. “Feel like grabbing me a drink?”
Laughter shook my shoulders. “Sure.”
“One panty dropper, please.”
Then, she physically shooed me with both hands.
I laughed and headed toward the bar, weaving my way through the crowd. It took a few minutes, mostly because of the bachelorette party in matching “Future Mrs. Something” sashes taking up half the floor, but eventually, I broke through the throng.
Matty’s head was tipped back in laughter at something James said, a bright, genuine smile lighting up his whole face. My chest tightened with a warm rush of affection . . . followed immediately by a sharp stab of jealousy.
I wanted to be the one making him laugh like that.
“Two panty droppers, please,” I told the bartender, sliding onto the barstool between Matty and James. “Anybody else?”
James’s lips twisted in disgust. “I’m more of sex on the beach kind of guy.”
“Too sandy. Alabama?”
Matty grinned. “What’s in it?”
I shrugged. “Vodka, juice . . . desire?”
“Desire?” he deadpanned.
“Sí. Like love, but with lower standards.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
I nodded. “The best things usually are.”
Matty snorted softly, shaking his head, but not before a faint flush crept across his cheeks. It started high on his cheekbones and disappeared beneath the freckles scattered across his nose.
Ah, there he is.
God, I loved making him blush.
“Jesus Christ.” James groaned, pointing toward the dance floor. We all turned just in time to see Colt nearly clothesline the bride-to-be. “How does someone have that little control over their own limbs?”
“He moves like a newborn horse,” Matty suggested.
I slapped his shoulder. “Hence the name Colt.”
Matty huffed into his whiskey, shoulders shaking.
There it was again—that laugh. Fuck. I wanted to bottle it and save it for a rainy day. And there were plenty of those in Rose City.
“Two panty droppers,” the bartender announced, setting the aggressively pink drinks garnished with cherries down on the bar. They looked radioactive.
I took a quick sip of one through the cow-print straw.
Hmm, tastes radioactive, too.
“You know . . . ,” James said, already reaching for the second glass. “I’ll take this to Mila.”
“You sure?”
He shrugged, a small, knowing smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Trust me, if I don’t dance with her, we won’t hear the end of it for the rest of the week. I have a movie coming out this year. I can’t risk getting canceled.”
He gave us both a quick, almost fatherly nod, the kind that said he’d seen more than he was letting on, before heading toward the dance floor.
And just like that, it was Matty and me.
I turned toward him, resting my elbow on the bar. “You having fun over here hiding with the old man?”
“Not hiding. Just . . . observing.” His eyes flicked down to my open shirt, then back up again. Not quick enough, tesoro. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself out there.”
“Jealous?” I asked.
“Of Mila grinding on you?” His attention shifted down toward the ice in his now empty glass. “Maybe a little.”
The admission sent a spark straight through me.
“Good.”
We fell into comfortable silence for a moment, the thump of the music and glittery chaos of the bar wrapping around us. Then, Matty cleared his throat.
“Soren texted earlier,” he said. “Pink’s starting in tomorrow’s game.”
I let out a low whistle. “About damn time. Maybe that’s what the team needs to finally break the curse.”
Matty snorted. “You and that damn curse.”
“Denying it doesn’t make it go away, tesoro.”
“It’s just a slump. Slumps happen.”
“Curses happen, too,” I countered.
Matty turned the empty glass in his hands. “We’re not cursed. We’ve just . . . only got one oar in the water.”
A smile ghosted across my lips. “Is that your professional diagnosis?”
“What I mean is everybody keeps trying to fix the wrong thing.”
I frowned. “Explain.”
“People see a losing streak and immediately start looking for one big reason. Bad luck, an unfortunate injury. A curse, apparently.”
He glanced out at the dance floor, where Mila and Nora were now dancing circles around a reluctant James and Colt was chatting up . . . Mr. 8.5?
Well, damn.
“I don’t know.” I paused to drain the last of my panty dropper. “I maintain that curses are a valid scientific possibility.”
“Peter.”
“Matty.”
He rolled his eyes, but there was a smile tugging at his lips.
“You know perfectly well that baseball’s not really like that.
Usually, it’s a bunch of little things.” He traced a finger through the condensation left behind on the bar.
“A lack of leadership, somebody trying to carry more than they should. One guy overthinking while another stops trusting their instincts.”
My smile faded a little.
I was pretty sure we weren’t talking about baseball anymore.
“Then, everybody notices things are off, so they start trying harder.” He exhaled softly. “And somehow that just makes it worse.”
Hm, sounds familiar.
“So, what’s the fix, Coach Miller?”
Matty went still. His fingers tightened briefly around the glass.
“I don’t know. I think maybe . . .” He swallowed and fixed me with a pointed glare. “We should stop trying to force everything back to normal and figure out whether things were actually broken in the first place.”
Toto, we definitely aren’t talking about baseball anymore.
My throat tightened.
This was about a lot more than a slump. This was about us.
I had spent months chasing the version of us we had been before the wedding, the one where I got to be the charming, carefree guy who made Matty laugh without consequences.
But that version was gone.
We’d broken it. Or maybe just outgrown it.
Now we were here, on the edge of something different, something better, and I had no idea what the right move was. Push too hard and I might scare him off. Hold back and we might be stuck in this weird limbo forever.
I chanced a look in his direction. Matty was watching the dance floor now, but his shoulder was still angled toward me, like some unconscious part of him was still reaching in my direction.
Fuck it.
I set my glass down and turned fully toward him, voice low enough that only he could hear it over the music.
“So, what do we do about it?” I asked him. “The slump.”
The heat in his eyes nearly made me leap off my barstool. He knew exactly what I meant.
“I don’t know,” he admitted after a beat. “But I know we can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.”
I nodded slowly, heart thudding harder than the bass line. “Then maybe it's time to try something new.”
“Like what?”
I slid off my barstool and held out my hand.
“Dancing.”
Matty stared at my outstretched hand, then up at me. “Peter . . .”
“Come on, Alabama. One dance.” I wiggled my fingers. “Abuelita always says, ‘When you get the saddies, drop it like a baddie.’”
His lips twitched. “Abuelita does not say that.”
“She does so.”
He arched a brow. “In English?”
“It doesn’t sound as good in Spanish!”
Matty let out a soft laugh, shaking his head. For a moment, I thought he might actually turn me down. Then he exhaled, resigned but smiling, and placed his hand in mine.
“One dance,” he muttered.
My grin came instantly. I grabbed him before he could change his mind and tugged him toward the dance floor.
“Peter, wait—”
Not tonight. I was done waiting.