Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ELEVEN DAYS (AND A MAJOR REVELATION) AFTER
By the time we’re back in Rafael’s apartment, his phone has buzzed four more times, but he’s answered none of the calls.
I’ve processed a thousand thoughts, but I’ve voiced none of them.
It’s hard to chat when everything I thought to be real—the entire foundation of our rivalry—was shattered in the span of a few minutes and nothing looks the same.
I sense him wanting to say something, but he doesn’t fill the silence either.
He simply watches me in a way that makes me question everything I know all over again, but mostly it makes me want to forgive him.
It makes me want to admit that it was me who was an oblivious idiot, who should have been sharp enough to see Art Betton for who he was: a sleazy, entitled weasel.
It’s not that I didn’t notice his lingering gazes or too-lengthy handshakes.
Sure, I wanted to shake it off and shower for hours afterward, but I let it go because I was naive and didn’t want to jeopardize a client who would bring Media Lab a good chunk of change …
and me a commission that could help me put a down payment on an apartment.
I also didn’t want to disappoint Rafael after we’d worked so hard researching the account and preparing our pitch.
There were countless reasons I excused Art’s inappropriate-adjacent behaviors when I should have known to question them or talk to Dana about it.
In the end, we both messed up.
Rafael had me removed from the account, and I didn’t bother to question how it didn’t match up with the person who’d become my friend.
Instead, I invited him to a one-on-one meeting, during which I called him a “backstabbing asshole with no moral compass or humanity” who would “perish alone and miserable like he deserved,” after which I swore to him that he would pay one day.
It wasn’t one of my finer moments. I was in an emotional and vulnerable place, because my plans fell apart right after, and I’d barely pieced myself together after losing Annie, running away from home, and trying to survive on my own.
Every day those first couple of years I’d been in survival mode, trying to make ends meet, and Rafael had jeopardized that by taking the account from me and a huge chunk of my cut—and he didn’t even know if Media Lab was for him. It was unfathomable and unforgivable.
I held it against him for so long, and he let me.
I’m not sure which has been worse.
I haven’t been able to figure it out the entire ride back to his place, and he hasn’t spoken a word either.
Rafael is quietly unpacking the groceries from their paper bags and putting them into the fridge, stopping every now and then to throw furtive glances in my direction, across the kitchen, where I’ve paced an invisible track into his floor and gnawed on another fingernail (but fortunately for me, one of the very tiny, very few perks of my predicament is waking up with a new manicure each day).
We’ve let silence do the talking too many times—and look where a got us. So I break it. “Why are you putting the groceries away?”
His eyes snap to me, the fridge door partly closed. “I assumed you weren’t going to be in the mood for cooking lessons,” he says, somewhat sheepishly.
I’ve given him no reason to believe otherwise—and the way he looks like a pup getting the feel for his legs is enough to make me tell him I’ve forgiven him.
Almost. I step from the dining space into the kitchen, allowing the island to remain a much-needed buffer between us.
“I think that a lot could have been different if you didn’t assume what it was that I wanted or needed,” I say quietly.
He nods, letting the fridge door close, and tucks his hands beneath his elbows as he leans against the fridge. When he sighs, his shoulders sag. “I know.”
In all these years, I’ve never seen Rafael so … defeated—and I experience none of the joy I always imagined. Which only reaffirms what I’ve been wanting to say.
“I don’t think you should have made a decision about Art and his account for me.”
Rafael sags further, but he doesn’t look away.
“But I get why you did it, and I’m not mad …
not that I haven’t spent the last two or so years being furious.
” I huff out a mirthless chuckle, glancing down at my hands as if I can find the fortification I need there.
“Only I am mad at you for letting me believe that you were a backstabber all this time.” I lift my gaze back up to his, knowing I’m holding nothing back, and say the last part in an almost-whisper. “For letting me hate you for so long.”
Rafael looks at me, shocked. He silences his buzzing phone. “Mierda.”
“Shit is all you have to say?” I aim for levity, but it comes out flat, almost angry, and his features contort in alarm.
“No! It’s just this damn—it doesn’t matter,” he says, tucking the phone into his pocket.
Rafael pushes from the fridge, lays his palms flat on the counter, and levels a serious gaze at me.
I try not to stare at the way his muscles bunch as he leans on his forearms. “Trust me, I regret letting you believe that, more than a lot of things. When I realized how much my decision hurt you, I wanted to fix it, but there was no going back, not without you thinking I was making up another lie.”
“You mean I wouldn’t listen when you wanted to talk?”
“That, and—”
“I wanted to sabotage you at every turn?”
The corner of his mouth lifts slightly. “I hadn’t noticed.”
I mirror his half smile. “I guess I didn’t try hard enough.”
“Could have fooled me.” He holds up his hand, the one with a pale scar across his pointer finger. I wince at the memory of locking him in a janitorial closet before a meeting with the executive team. He cut his finger trying to get out using paper clips and scissors.
“You could have waited.” I attempt to defend the outcome of that day.
“And miss the meeting?” He stares at me with incredulity. “Or your reaction?”
Guilt sends a rush of blood up my neck and into my face at the memory.
He walked into the meeting, half out of breath and sheets of paper towel around his bleeding finger.
It wasn’t long until the blood seeped through, the sight of it making me faint atop the conference room table.
Rafael and I spent the next couple of hours at urgent care. Together.
We both missed the meeting.
“Like I said, it could have all been avoided if you had told me the truth,” I say, going back to Rafael’s (nonexistent) betrayal.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” His gaze is so open and honest it draws me toward him like a rope, a tug-of-war I’m losing. I take slow steps around the counter, stopping shy of touching him. “Just don’t do it again.”
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay.” The momentary silence thickens as our gazes remain locked, each second liquifying any sort of wall I’ve ever built to keep him out.
I find myself inexplicably drawn to him, like a moth to a flame, a flower to the sun, a bewitched human to a vampire.
It makes me want to forgive him for just about anything when his eyes devour me like I’m his favorite meal.
“How about that pozole rojo?” I croak as the yawning crevice in the ground between us begins to close. And when it does—when we’re no longer rivals—what will we be?
You’ll still be a ghost, Evie.
It takes a few hours for Rafael to walk me through his pozole rojo recipe.
And if I thought I’d seen Rafael at his best—charming and disarming—I simply hadn’t seen him in a kitchen.
His movements are confident and smooth as he navigates pans and bowls, knives and blenders.
He tastes as he goes, humming and muttering beneath his breath, explaining each step of the process.
I ask questions, but mostly I watch … and admire.
The way his forearms flex as he maneuvers his way around the kitchen. The way his brow crinkles with focus, his lips moving as he measures ingredients aloud.
When it’s finally ready, I’ve never despised not being a living, breathing human more. I want to inhale what I imagine is its decadent scent. I want to taste its rich flavor, chilis and all.
Steam rises from the Instagram-worthy bowl of soup—of which I’ve made him take several photos as proof I was part of making it, even if purely in an observational, ghost-mode role.
“Aren’t you going to try it already?” I prod, admiring his handiwork from my perch on a stool.
Rafael’s gaze connects with mine as he tosses the kitchen towel over his left shoulder and picks up a spoon from the counter, holding it in the air like he’s toasting with it. “I’m trying this for both of us.”
“You could always take some to the hospital.” I struggle to keep a straight face. “Hook up a bowl of it to the feeding tube.”
The spoon halts halfway to his lips, which twitch with displeasure. “You’re a very disturbed person, E.”
I suck on the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling and offer a one-shoulder shrug. “Perhaps the chilis will shock me back to life.”
He shakes his head. “I stand by my statement,” he mumbles, downing the first bite of soup and holding the spoon between his lips as he savors his concoction. I’ve never been more jealous of a spoon.
Oh God.
I am a disturbed person.
“How is it?” I ignore the spoon and his lips as he takes another bite.
Rafael smacks his lips. “Picante, but good. Cousin Jorge Luis couldn’t deny it if he wanted to.” He takes a few more bites of the soup, and I could be content watching him cook and eat for the rest of what could possibly be a very short existence.
I blink away the inception of a Rafael-and-food fantasy and clear my throat. “Are you two close?”