Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EIGHT DAYS AFTER, PART II
Rafael is in my apartment.
I pump the brakes on my emotional tailspin and scuttle to the end of the hallway on all fours, ears perked toward the voices.
His voice is a low rumble.
I lean in a little more, curiosity replacing the ache in my chest, and peek around the corner.
He’s leaning against the counter, wearing another form-fitting tee (because he clearly shops at Muscles N’ More) and dark-wash jeans. Cristina, oblivious to the enemy in our midst, wipes down the windows, her back to him.
“Ah, we need to have faith,” Cristina says, her tone comforting. As if he needs to be comforted. “And pray. I always say Prayer is powerful.”
“So does my grandmother.”
“Grandmothers are smart like that,” she says. Rafael nods and casts his gaze around. I duck before he can spot me, my heart thumping in my chest.
I’m not entirely sure why I’m the one hiding like I’m here to rob the place when it’s Rafael who shouldn’t be here.
Unless he’s here to admit he’s somehow tied to my predicament and come to help put me back together.
If there’s some profuse apologizing in there, he’ll definitely be on the right track.
Feeling much better, I shoot to my feet, smooth out the dress, and tousle my hair.
Game time.
I step from around the corner and almost crash into him. Rafael stops short of walking through me. His hands dart out to steady me, but they slip right through me, like mist.
We both jerk back.
I scowl, rubbing at my arms. “What the hell!”
“Evie,” he says, like he’s learning my name for the first time.
“Evie?” Cristina repeats from the kitchen.
“What are you doing here?” I arch a brow in suspicion. Without my stilettos, the effect is diminished, but missing a few inches has never held me back.
Rafael shifts. “I was just …”
“Hoping to gather some intel?” I finish for him.
He inhales deeply. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m here to ask Cristina about types of cleaning supplies so I can use them for my nefarious means.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you. The job’s halfway done.” I poke the bear.
He grumbles. “You’re so …”
“Right?”
“Righteous.”
“Rafael?” Cristina appears behind Rafael, her brow crinkling in concern. “Are you all right?”
“No, he’s not,” I answer on his behalf, hating that she can’t hear me. “He hasn’t been all right for a moment in his entire life.” It’s a bit of a lie. There were brief, brief moments of Rafael being an all right human (so brief they don’t count).
“Yes,” he responds, shifting from one leg to the other, the way he does when he’s not all right. “Just … it’s like she’s here.”
I roll my eyes. Cristina sighs, planting a hand on her hip. “I feel her too.”
“You do?” Rafael and I ask at the same time.
Hope has me swooping around him and placing myself between them. I’m inches from her face, but she looks beyond me—through me—at Rafael.
“Yes, of course. I can still smell her perfume. Her books are the same way she left them. Some days I think I will hear her on the way to work. Always rushing to be on time but never leaving without saying good morning or asking about my girls.” Cristina sighs. “She is truly an angel.”
I stiffen at her choice of words.
“Yes,” he says, and I can almost hear him want to add and other things, but he’s smart—or scared—enough not to.
Cristina’s arm darts out, cutting through the air so fast I barely get out of the way. I flatten my body as close to the wall as possible without touching it. Her hand falls onto Rafael’s shoulder and squeezes.
“She will make it. I know it.” Cristina smiles warmly.
“I hope so,” he agrees.
“You shouldn’t lie to good people, Raffy Taffy.” I glare at him. Rafael tenses but doesn’t look away from Cristina, who’s wiping away a stray tear.
“I really should get back to work, Mr. Rafael. The vacuum that needs to be fixed is in the linen closet.” She sniffs once and returns to the kitchen.
“Why are you here?” I plant my hands on my hips. “To make another woman cry?”
“To fix the vacuum.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets. “And to help you.”
“Sure you are,” I snap, even though my breath catches. He’s lying, I know it. I saw him do it to sweet Cristina.
Rafael mumbles a curse. “We can either argue or figure out what’s happening with you,” he says.
“Why?”
A muscle tics in his jaw. “Let’s just say I’d prefer not to be haunted by Evie Pope’s spirit for the rest of my existence.”
“You’d throw in the towel before you’re thirty-five.”
“That’s this year,” he clarifies.
It’s my turn to smirk. “Exactly.”
Rafael throws a look up at the ceiling. “Dios! There will be no haunting, because I’m serious about helping you.”
I almost laugh. I’d bet there’s more than the promotion that’s made him come back. There has to be something else fueling this, something beyond just assurance of future ghost-free dates and hauntless nights, something he’s choosing to keep from me.
“What changed your mind?” I ask, watching him closely.
“Gemma.”
I gape, hopeful and surprised. “You told her about me?”
“Nope, but she confirmed some things.”
“Like?”
Rafael’s lips twitch in a way that makes me nervous. “The location of a birthmark, among other things.”
Oh.
I scan his face for the lie.
I consider pushing, but to what end? To loop back to square one?
So I let it drop.
“Okay, then, what’s the catch?” I ask, playing along. Maybe it’s not just about the promotion. Maybe there’s more. The truth is, he’s here, and he’s the only one who can help. But whatever his reasons, in my experience there’s always fine print. A hidden trap. A shoe waiting to drop.
“No catch,” he says. “Only conditions.”
“So, condition number one,” Rafael says, leaning against the door of my guest bathroom.
We’re crammed inside, barely two feet between us and the shower at my back.
“You don’t disrupt when I’m interacting with other people.
If I’m having a conversation and you chime in, it’s going to look questionable—make me seem crazy—and I’d rather not have to explain myself. ”
I have to bite my tongue to keep from reminding Rafael that he is, in several ways, a little crazy. He buys the same socks so he doesn’t have to sort them. He sits at least ten feet away from bodies of water, kiddie pools included. And he prefers pineapple on his pizza. I shudder at the thought.
“So, when we go back out there and I have to help Cristina fix the vacuum, not a peep. No back seat repairing,” Rafael clarifies, his voice barely above a whisper. It’s hard not to roll my eyes at the insinuation that I’d instruct him how to do it the correct way. I know nothing about vacuums.
“Okay,” I agree. “Easy.”
Rafael eyes me like he doesn’t quite trust me before he digs his hands into his pockets, which tugs down his waistband, revealing a sliver of tanned waistline that says Hello—remember me from this morning?
A volcano of mortification erupts, making me wish we weren’t packed together, separated by only a few feet of space. We haven’t been this smushed together since The Elevator Incident one year ago, and the memory of those forty-five minutes is seared into my DNA forever.
It was the Mondayest Monday—a full twelve months into freezing him out—and I was ready to call it a day earlier than normal.
As luck would have it, Rafael was the sole passenger on the North Elevator, and with no other choice (taking the stairs in stilettos wasn’t an option), I got on, eager to get home before seven.
Two floors into the ride, the elevator stalled. Two minutes later, disaster struck.
A small space, no AC, and mild claustrophobia were all it took to break me down.
It started with pacing the elevator, moved to profuse sweating, and ended with me throwing up—all with him watching.
It was one of the most mortifying days of my existence, and that has nothing to do with puking and everything to do with him lending me his backpack to do it in.
The memory makes my cheeks flush.
We’re not in an elevator, and I’m not on the verge of puking. But we are packed together, and his nearness does things I can’t rationalize.
“Okay—what else?” I ask, my tone impatient and annoyed.
“Condition number two—you stop insinuating I put you in a coma.”
“Did you?”
Rafael groans, rubbing the back of his neck. “Would I be trying to help you if I had?”
“Maybe your Catholic guilt got to you?”
He mutters to himself, a mix of Spanish and frustration.
“About done?” I level a questioning look at him.
“Are you?” he parrots, his brows crinkling.
I answer with a shrug, but we both know I need him, which means I need to save my theories on his involvement for another day. One when I can pick them apart and analyze them.
“I won’t make further accusations.” I hold up three fingers, like he did yesterday, and try hard not to feel pleased with myself when he mumbles to himself again. “Anything else? My parking spot in front of Media Lab? Lifetime supply of free lunches? My firstborn?”
“Oh, have you penciled children into your five-year plan?”
I try not to react to his tone. “Nothing you should worry your twisted mind with,” I say, feeling increasingly convinced that working together might not work at all. “And it’s a ten-year plan, Rafael. It’s—”
Two knocks rattle the door. We both startle.
“Mr. Rafael, are you okay in there?” Cristina’s voice is muffled.
Rafael clears his throat, but his eyes never stray from mine. “Yes, all is good. Just … some indigestion. From breakfast.”
“Indigestion?” Cristina repeats. “Oh no.”
“Yes. Too much …”
“Alcohol,” I provide when he delays too long.
“Gluten,” he answers instead. The amount of pizza and burgers he eats would disagree.
Cristina is quiet for a moment, likely because she’s probably also seen him tear into her desserts right after saying, “Come to Papa”.
“Okay, Mr. Rafael. Can I get you something to help?”
“Um. No, no. I’ll be right out.” Rafael leans into the door and groans for dramatic effect. “As soon as it passes.”