Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
TEN DAYS AFTER (LATER THAT DAY)
There are secrets, and there are things I wouldn’t admit out loud, not even to myself.
Like WWRD—What would Rafael do? It’s a question I’ve asked myself more times than I care to count—whenever I’ve been stuck or stumped.
Because (for better or worse) Rafael always has a way out of situations.
A half-assed solution. A witty response.
Whatever it is, I’ve never seen Rafael fall apart under pressure.
I both hate and admire that about him. While I’d never, ever admit to using him as a way to motivate myself, it has often helped.
And now, with time pressing so crushingly against my spirit—literal and figurative—and a bucket list that might be my way back into my body, I ask myself: WWRD?
Would he hand his nemesis his deepest, most secret dreams and wishes?
Would he put himself out there if it meant getting back to his life?
I think yes. Hell yes.
So I blame WWRD for bringing us to my apartment. More specifically, my kitchen, where Rafael’s ordered himself a large deep-dish pizza and a bucket of wings. He’s halfway through his second slice when he asks, “So? Plan on telling me your why anytime soon?”
No! Yes!
My stomach knots the more I think about telling him about the bucket list. He’ll probably think it’s silly or stupid—likely both.
Or maybe that I’m wrong … because I don’t know for sure that the bucket list is my unfinished business.
It could have been the sun searing my brain cells and playing tricks on my mind, making me feel like I was onto something and …
“I can practically see the fumes coming out of your ears,” Rafael says, stopping midchew. “Whatever’s got you looking like you’re trying to solve an episode of Black Mirror, get it out, E.”
I think about chickening out, but he wouldn’t.
I take a deep breath.
Time to WWRD.
I start. “Before I get to the details, I was wondering if our roles were reversed and you hadn’t gotten to all the things you wanted to do and had a few days left to figure it out …”
Rafael goes still, making me wonder if the pizza has lodged itself in his throat.
“You don’t know that.” His hard tone makes my chest feel too tight again.
I press my hand to the place between my ribs, where the pressure is the strongest, and I’m wondering if it’s a heart issue and not a head issue I’ve suffered.
“Well, I don’t know anything for sure,” I clarify, “But what I want to know is—what would Rafael do? In my place?” It feels strange to speak WWRD aloud when it’s only been something I’ve kept to myself, but I can’t take it back, nor do I want to.
“If you were in my shoes, what would you be doing with the time you had left?”
Rafael sets the rest of the slice on a plate and leans forward, a faint smile playing on his lips. “If you must know what I’d be doing, I’d probably spend it at Abuela’s house. The backyard, food for days, and the family going about their day.” He shrugs. “Can’t ask for more.”
I can imagine it clearly, and I can’t think of anything more fitting than being surrounded by loved ones.
Like Gemma and Cristina. But if it comes to it, I don’t know if I’d want them there with me at the very end.
I remember what it was like to say goodbye to Annie.
The ache that follows feels old, yet still sharp.
“That’s how I’d do it because I’m completely lazy, and I can’t be bothered to do more than the bare minimum,” he adds, stretching his arms. “But you—you’re doing the right things. In no time, we’re going to figure this out so you can get to your planner and that list of things in the back.”
I blink, shocked. “You snooped in my planner?”
“You tricked me into giving up doughnuts for a month.”
Oh God. I don’t know which is worse—him going through my planner or him thinking the two are remotely on equal playing fields. I laugh, surprising Rafael. Surprising myself. “You’re …” I begin.
“Dashing?”
“Dastardly.”
“I take it that means charming.”
“If you’re the devil.”
“Which you’ve established when you insinuated you were in hell.”
“Well, this most certainly isn’t heaven,” I quip. Secrets would be sacred in heaven, as would hopes and dreams and several items on my bucket list. That he’s seen. Visit Skopelos, Greece. Sleep under the stars. Or #44, Join the mile-high club (one of two items added by Gemma).
And he’s seen them all. I groan into my palms, thinking of him leafing through my planner, reading through the last five pages of items.
“I’ve seen it already, and there’s no reason to work yourself up over it,” Rafael says. “There’s some good stuff in there. Get a tattoo? Volunteer at a theater? Date someone for longer than one year? You’ve covered lots of bases.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I growl, low in my throat.
He chews, swallows, then picks up a chicken wing and dips it into a container of ranch. “Speaking of which, how long has your longest relationship been?”
“Not sure how that’s any of your business,” I huff, pacing the floor of my dining room while he takes a bite of his wing. I hope he doesn’t choke on a bone. “And it’s off-topic.”
“You asked me ‘What would Rafael do?’ And what I would do is answer this question.” His eyes gleam with mischief, and it makes me wish I’d never had such an idiotic idea.
Note to self: WWRD works only in my head.
“How about this: You show me yours and I show you mine?” He waggles his dark brows, lips curled in a sly smile.
I level him with a look. “What—are we in high school?”
Rafael leans forward, his elbows braced on the marble countertop. “Is Evie Pope backing down from a challenge?” he goads, demonstrating what happens when someone has intimate knowledge of what makes you tick and go boom.
I shouldn’t play along, but part of me is curious and the other part is comatose. Also, WWRD?
“Six months,” I say, my words clipped.
Rafael’s eyes bulge. “Who? Chip?”
My jaw literally drops. “You know about Chip?”
He nods. “And Theo … and the athlete …” With each name, my mouth gapes, but Rafael? He’s in his zone. “Gotta love open-concept office space. And what kind of name is Chip?”
I’ve questioned it myself, but he doesn’t need to know.
I lean forward, brow arched. “All right then, Raffy Taffy, what about you? How long were you a one-woman man? Two days? A week?”
He presses a hand to his chest. “Shit. Do you really think I’m a playboy or something?” He pretend-pouts, then holds up three fingers.
“Three hours?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Three years. You can add that to your list of All Things Rafael, por favor.”
I’m almost speechless. “No.”
“Yes!”
“With a human woman?”
Rafael scowls, but his lips twitch with the effort. Whatever he’s about to say is going to be ridiculous. “Yes, a human woman. Phantom women weren’t yet in the picture.”
I roll my eyes, biting back a smile. “So, what happened?”
“There was an accident, and here you are.”
A growl crawls up my throat. “With the girlfriend!”
“Last I heard, she was married with twins and a doting husband.”
“Rafael.”
“Okay, okay!” He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “She broke up with me.”
“Let me guess—commitment issues?”
He scowls playfully, then sobers. “No—because I was distracted.”
“By work?”
There’s another shift in the muscles of his face, and I try to figure out what it means. His features smooth out too quickly for me to piece it together. “It was work related.”
I watch him for a second longer, trying to draw out the entire truth, but he doesn’t give me much more. “Intriguing.”
“Which part?” He reaches for another chicken wing.
“Three years is a long time.” I try to think back to when that would have been.
I don’t remember Rafael being in a long-term relationship while at Media Lab.
In fact—before the betrayal—he didn’t mention a girlfriend, and afterward, any morsel tied to his love life was a result of hearing it from others or having Gemma stalk his social media. For intel, of course.
“I was young and so was she. We grew apart.” He shrugs as if he hasn’t just offered me a glimpse into an entire chunk of his life during which he was involved with a woman—in a committed relationship. I have several hundred questions I want to ask and answers I want to tuck away for the futu—
A stab of panic pierces my interrogation bubble when I think about the future.
“What about you? What happened?” Rafael’s question draws my attention back to him.
I try to form a response. Late nights and work-laden weekends. Promotions to chase. A rival to keep at bay. I consider lying to keep him from seeing how pathetic I am, but he’s shown me his. I have no choice but to say, “Work.”
“They must not have been worth it, then,” he says casually.
I frown. “Explain.”
He rests an arm over the back of the chair. “Believe it or not, I know a thing or two about you, and you would have found a way to pencil in someone worth your time.”
My instinct when it comes to Rafael is to argue with everything he says.
This time, I think about it first. Would I have made time for someone worth it?
I think of Theo and his passion for cooking.
Trevor and his dream to be in the NBA Hall of Fame.
Chip and his ambition to one day be a published writer.
And then it hits me: I chose men who were just as distracted as I was.
Who wanted something more than we wanted each other.
I think Rafael is right.
He smiles knowingly.
I scowl. He knows too much, more than I give him credit for.
“So, are you going to tell me your unfinished business now?” he asks. The change is abrupt … and I know I can’t put this off forever, not if we want time to test my theory.
“I think my bucket list—the one you already know about—might be tied to why I’m here,” I say, needing to get through this part before I start thinking about all the items on there and chickening out.
“There are things on there I never got to do …” Like all of them except five or so.
“And maybe that’s the why I’m here. I had planned to get to it, immediately after the … ” Promotion. “OhLaLove stuff.”
I’ve revealed more than I intended, and I feel the sudden urge to take it back and hide.
“What’s first?” The earnestness in his tone matches the warmth in his gaze—heat that somehow travels the space between us and sets up camp in my cheeks and chest.
“Um.” I yank my thoughts back to the bucket list. “Try caviar. Take professional dance lessons. Swim in the Pacific.” I’m going through the easier items on the list, but the more I run through it, the less of it I realize I can do in this form. Like, almost none.
Panic severs upward, making me feel hot and cold. I clench my hands into fists and swallow.
“Hey—” Rafael’s beside me. In front of me. His eyes scan me. “Whatever is going on in that head of yours, don’t listen to it.”
I nod, unable to talk.
“We’ll tackle the list together. We’ll get creative, whatever it takes to make it happen,” he says, like he has front-row tickets to my deepest thoughts. I imagine Rafael doing things from the list. The number of water-related items he wouldn’t attempt with a ten-foot pole.
“You might be afraid of half of the things on there,” I say, some of the sharpness dulling at the thought of Rafael doing item #86: Jet Skiing.
“All the more reason for you to want to do them,” he says, grinning in a way that makes me want to believe we can make this work.
“There will be water, and there will be dancing,” I warn.
Rafael swallows, then pastes a courageous smile on his face. “As long as they’re not happening at the same time, I might survive.”
“And if you don’t, I’m keeping things warm on this side,” I say, patting the seat beside mine.
Despite the levity in my voice, he sobers a little.
“You’re not staying on that side, because someone is going to pray so hard you’re going to wake up before they say amen, and if that doesn’t work, I think you have skydiving on your list—maybe that’ll pop your spirit immediately back into your body.
” He slaps his hands together and mimics an explosion. “Boom!”
I grin, some of his enthusiasm rubbing off on me despite one last thing I didn’t yet ask. Because most things come at a price. “Okay … so what’s this going to cost me?”
He leans forward, hands splayed against the table, his face suddenly so serious my breath catches.
His intensity paralyzes me, especially when it settles on my lips. “A kiss.”
A breath puffs out of me as I die a little more. “A kiss?”
Rafael’s dark eyes meet mine. “Yes.” Heat burns through the synapses that ensure I’m breathing. “In the rain, of course.”
I open my mouth to say something. Anything. He wants to kiss, in the rain. He’s gone mad.
“In case you need someone to help you with the bucket list after we figure this out.” There’s a dare in his eyes.
And it clicks. Number 38. Kiss in the rain.
I can’t tell if he’s joking or serious, but I know I’m dangerously close to passing out.
He’s toying with me.
Evie vs. Rafael.
I force a laugh that sounds like I’m choking. “I don’t think I’ll need help with that,” I say, playing along. “But it’s nice of you to offer, Raffy Taffy. I’m sure there’s a fan club on standby.”
His grin doesn’t slip, but something in his eyes shifts. Like maybe it isn’t a joke. Like maybe I’m missing something. “Well, then, I’m happy to help you with the Spanish lessons,” he says.
I swallow, hating that I don’t know if I turned down the promise of a future kiss.