Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ELEVEN DAYS (AND AN ALMOST-KISS) AFTER
A drum solo is taking place inside my head—and I need it to stop.
I blink my eyes open, groaning as a ringing phone wakes me.
The pounding intensifies.
Nausea pushes into my throat.
I might be dead.
“You’re here.” Rafael’s warm voice anchors me.
I blink past the fogginess.
His face solidifies in my line of vision, his brows creasing with concern. “Thank fuck you’re here,” I think he says, but I can’t be sure because I can’t hear past thump, thump, thump in my head.
Grinding my teeth, I push up and force myself to sit, resting my elbows on my knees and trying really hard not to be sick. The world blurs and tilts around me until finally it settles into place.
Good news is I’m not dead.
Bad news is I’m not alive either.
I’m back in Rafael’s loft, my dress and shoes disappointingly the same as the first morning I woke up here, although it’s evening, judging by the waning light. Desperation—tears and all—crawls into my throat, and I bury my face in my palms, attempting to push it back and get a hold of myself.
The couch dips beneath Rafael’s weight. “Are you okay, E? What happened?” His voice is cautious. I’d meet his gaze if I weren’t one blink away from emotional combustion—and possibly passing out again.
I shrug, swallowing tears. “I’m not sure.
Everything went dark and hot,” I say, throat burning with the sting of disappointment.
As everything faded to black, I thought perhaps I’d get my second chance.
That the prayers had worked. That our efforts were paying off.
That I was being sucked back into my body so I could get back to my life.
Wishful thinking.
Rafael’s hands are in my periphery. He stretches his fingers, then balls his hands.
“You … just disappeared for an hour,” he says, his voice tired.
“I called the hospital, thinking that maybe you …” He trails off, and I’m still too much of a coward to look at him.
“But they said everything was the same. A slight spike in temperature but nothing to worry about. All normal.” I feel his eyes on me. “Is it?”
The concern on his face might be enough to knock me out again. “Is it what?”
“Normal? Do you feel the same?” He scans me, his eyes roaming over my body like a torch that burns wherever it touches. Probably why my temperature spiked. “Evie?”
His question.
“Do I feel the same?” I repeat, pressing a shaking hand to the base of my head. The throbbing, the pain, the dizziness. The symptoms are more intense than a few days ago—I definitely don’t feel normal, or anywhere in the vicinity.
“I feel … fine.” I’m not sure why I lie. Maybe it’s the concern in his eyes—or the flicker of vulnerability. For once, I’m not lying to win at work or bring him down. I’m lying to make him feel better.
The realization makes me bolt from the sofa, too fast.
The room spins.
I blink it away, focusing on the poster of us. It feels like years ago that we took that photo … that I hated him.
Hated. Past tense. Not present.
Oh God.
“Evie?” Rafael is beside me, so close his breath would feather my hair and caress my skin if I were physically here. The desire to figure all this out is so all-consuming I may pass out again.
“Yes?” I whisper, retreating a step, needing a moment to collect myself.
Rafael’s gaze scans me with concern. “Are you sure you’re okay? Because we can put this all on hold if it’s making it worse.”
I’m not sure what “this” is for him, but for me it’s becoming the inability to stop the inevitable, to slow time so I can separate my daydreams of Rafael and his hands from the ones where I should be doing everything possible to get my spirit back into my body—before I’m moved to the care facility, before it’s too late to do anything, before I can’t go back to my life.
And I need to get it together, because something is happening. The pain. The dizziness. The incessant pounding in my head. It’s worsening by the day, and it scares me.
“I’m fine, I promise.” I force a small smile with the lie.
“Fine enough you can tackle more of the bucket list?”
I nod, because the bucket list means taking action, trying to figure this out.
“If you’re up for it, I’ve always wanted to learn how to cook but haven’t had time for it.
I physically can’t do many things on the list, but I think …
I think that would be fun,” I say, a little uncertain about admitting another weakness.
Most adults know how to cook … or rather, most adults who haven’t spent their time chasing clients and promotions would have found the time to learn.
Rafael grins like it’s Christmas. “Cooking?”
“Yes.”
“Anything specific in mind?”
“Anything you’re really good at?”
His grin turns wicked. “No Vela would speak this out loud, but we all know that my cooking is second only to Abuela’s.”
I feign surprise, because I knew this already. “You don’t say.”
He rubs the back of his neck, his shirt lifting, revealing a strip of tanned skin beneath.
Catching on fire, I snap my attention to his face—his stupidly handsome face that doesn’t lessen the temperature.
“I mean, my primo Jorge Luis thinks he’s really the best chef in the family, but that’s because he hasn’t tried my pozole rojo,” Rafael says.
“Pozole rojo?”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t had it.”
“I haven’t even heard of it.”
Rafael’s eyes bulge dramatically. “Damn, E. You’ve sat beside me for years and haven’t realized it’s only one of my favorite Mexican dishes?” He shakes his head. “Slacking.”
I snort. “I actually worked. I wasn’t only planning your demise.”
Now he snorts. “Tell yourself that.”
“You’re delusional.”
“I think you mean delectable.”
The denial catches in my throat.
He’s not wrong.
“Tell yourself that,” I say, already walking toward the door and outside (really hoping I’ll find my senses along the way). “Also, you might want to get that.” I gesture toward his phone, which has buzzed and dinged for as long as I’ve been awake.
“Like with most dishes, making good pozole rojo is all about the ingredients,” Rafael says, pushing a shopping cart down the aisle of Mexico Lindo Supermercado, a quaint Latin produce store a few blocks from his apartment.
“Hominy and pork are the main characters, but I like to focus on the side characters.”
“Hmmm. Tell me more, oh master chef.” I walk beside him, abandoning my self-imposed task of trying to decipher the contents of containers lining the walls only to discover Rafael’s attention is entirely elsewhere.
“The trick to making it delectable is in the chilis.” His eyes scan a dried- and pickled-veggie-laden shelf as his finger runs along the packages of dried peppers.
Muttering beneath his breath, he slows over a package and holds it up to me.
“Ancho chilis.” He tosses it into the cart.
We move along the aisle. “Guajillo chilis … and …” He holds up another package of peppers.
“Since I know you like a little extra kick: chiles de arbol.”
I shouldn’t be surprised he knows this other thing about me, but not many people know I love it when my food fights back. “Looks like I wasn’t the only one spying …”
Rafael shrugs casually. “Needed to know what I was up against.”
His words spark an image—me, pinned to the shelves, his mouth trailing fire down my skin, my fingers tangled in his hair, legs locked around him like live wire.
I forget to breathe.
“What’s wrong?” Rafael stalls in the aisle, watching me with panicked concern, the humor gone.
“Erm. Nothing.” I press a hand to my cheek.
“Are you sure?”
“Tell me more about the peppers,” I say, a little too breathlessly, and gesture at the cart for him to move.
His all-knowing eyes linger.
Feeling like I’ve just downed a bag of chilis, I turn away, hiding my face. I pretend to be consumed by the containers of dried and pickled vegetables, even though soup making is the farthest thing from my mind.
Seconds later, Rafael is pushing the cart again and explaining the magic of fresh produce and perfect ingredients as we wind our way through the market, which isn’t very busy so late in the day, which makes it easier for Rafael to talk to his invisible friend (me).
We arrive at the cash register, where Rafael speaks to the middle-aged cashier in Spanish.
I don’t need to understand what she’s saying to know she’s being Vela’d.
While her hands pick up and scan the produce, her eyes never stray from Rafael.
It’s fascinating to see him in his element, making people feel seen and important regardless of who they are.
Meeting them at their level. Smiling without reserve.
If he were an ingredient, Rafael would most certainly be a hot pepper. The Vela chili.
“Thinking about me again?” He casts me a devilish grin as the doors slide open. An older couple eye him curiously.
I scoff, marching out the door and straight for his truck. “You’re very full of yourself, Rafael. It can’t be healthy.”
The shopping cart squeals behind me. “So you’re not going to tell me?”
“I was not thinking about you!” I throw my hands up in feigned frustration.
“Right.” He opens the truck’s trunk and begins to load in the groceries. I purposely avoid his curious gaze. “You think you’re a good liar.”
“I can be when it serves my purpose,” I say, crossing my arms.
“Is that so?” He tosses in the last bag and closes the space between us, scanning my face for the truth with such intensity I’m surprised I don’t melt onto the pavement. He’s like a furnace … or maybe I am.
“Yes.”
“Then tell me what you were thinking …”
Your hands gripping my thighs. “Peppers.”
His brow shoots up, a dare sparking in his eyes. “Really?”
“Holy shit, if it ain’t Raf Vela!” The voice bellows from our right, and any bit of me that’s been burning is doused in cold, cold water. Freezing, in fact.