Chapter 10
Charlie
“We need to establish some ground rules,” I say, discarding my clothes into a corner and slipping on a sweatshirt and sweatpants while Mateo uses the bathroom.
The pajamas I brought are far too revealing, and I would rather sweat to death than wear those around him, especially after what happened at the bar.
His words were so authentic, so genuine, and my skin tingles at the memory of his touch, the way his fingers danced across my skin, caressing the scars.
They felt like something beautiful, something to be revered, rather than the ugly reminder of the lowest points of my life. For a split second, it was as though my scars didn’t subtract from my value but made me remarkable.
I haven’t been able to compartmentalize how badly I want to believe in that feeling, to take Mateo’s words as truth, and allow myself to believe he might find me desirable.
“Ground rules?” Mateo’s voice is muffled by the bathroom door, but I hear his confusion .
“Yeah. You sleep on the ground. I sleep on the bed. Those are the rules.”
The bathroom door flies open, a toothbrush hanging out of Mateo’s mouth and minty foam dribbling down his chin as he shakes his head.
“No,” he mumbles, and I lean back in the small desk chair, waiting while he frantically finishes brushing his teeth. “I have a bad back.”
“And I don’t sleep beside men I’m not having sex with.”
The words escape before I can stop them, and the silence in the room is a living thing.
Mateo gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and my eyelids fall shut as I take a deep, calming breath.
Why do I say the things that I do? What part of my brain believes that mentioning the word sex after dildo-gate is a good idea?
It’s not even the truth.
When I do sleep with someone, which hasn’t occurred in a painfully long time—my vagina has cobwebs—I force them to leave immediately after. It’s one of my rules. No lights. No sleepovers. No missionary.
All three of those things allow emotions to creep into the action, and that’s not what I want. I want the release, not someone to see the scars covering my body or how uncomfortable I am in my own skin.
“Charlie, I can’t sleep on the floor for three weeks.”
His voice is dangerously close, and my eyes snap open to find him hovering over me, a pair of sleep pants hanging dangerously low on his hips.
When the fuck did he lose his shirt?
He needs to find it, stat.
The expanse of bronze skin, and the way his muscles ripple as he leans down to grab his glasses from the table, consumes my sight.
His crisp citrus-and-salt scent fills my nostrils, and I can’t breathe.
I cannot fucking breathe with him this close to me, shirtless and putting on tortoise shell glasses.
Someone get this man a freaking shirt before I combust.
He moves around the room, comfy and ready for bed, and this image, this moment right here, should be illegal for all others to witness. His perfect hair is now unruly, and his beard is growing in, adding to the scruffiness of his appearance.
Not once since I met Mateo have I denied how handsome he is; I would be a liar if I did. But I was never affected by it. I was too busy with serious things—like establishing my academic dominance over him and hunting for my Willy Wonka.
But now, as Mateo tugs a shirt over his head and his back muscles undulate, I am wildly affected by him. I need a cold shower. My thighs tighten in a desperate attempt to release the pressure building at my core.
This would be a perfect time to use my vibrator if he wasn’t in the room.
I’m reciting the protocol for DNA extractions to cool myself down when Mateo crouches, his back facing me, to slide a small briefcase from his duffel bag.
Utter disbelief replaces my overwhelming horniness at the sight of slate-gray cotton and stripes of blue. I creep closer to Mateo until I’m hovering over him, a demented smile on my face. This is akin to Darwin discovering his finches.
Fucking groundbreaking.
“Mateo?”
He hums, focused on his task.
“Is that a CPAP machine?” A giggle bubbles out past my lips. “Oh, Neptune, this may be the greatest day of my life.”
This totally tops the dildo debacle.
Mateo’s glare could slice glass, but the exuberance thrumming in my body counteracts his scowl.
He has a flaw. It’s a victory until I realize the small thing makes Mateo more desirable.
Since I met him, he’s always been put together, but knowing he’s not flawless, that maybe he dislikes this part of himself… oh, shit.
No .
A thread weaves around my heart, squeezing, until I’m fighting for breath.
“The right side has a nightstand,” I grumble, disappearing into the bathroom.
I’m not fond of the tightness in my chest at the idea of sharing a bed with someone else. Everything is morphing, shifting into new, dangerous territory, and I don’t know what to do with myself.
I splash cold water over my face before reentering the cabin.
Mateo perches off the side of the bed, placing his glasses on the nightstand and popping a retainer into his mouth.
“There will be a wall,” I declare, shoving each ornate cushion to the middle of the bed, fluffing them to increase their surface area. “Consider it impenetrable.”
I’m nearly through building the Great Wall of Pillow when I hear Mateo’s muffled laughter and realize my mistake. So many words in the English language and I chose the one word that contains penetrate . How I survived this long is a wonder to us all.
“Impenetrable, huh?”
Mateo’s eyebrows waggle, and I chuck a pillow at his face.
“Shut it, Darth Vader.”
“Are you crying?” Mateo’s voice is muffled by the CPAP mask, and a small click echoes through the room, followed by the whooshing sound of air before he turns off the machine.
“No. ”
I sniffle again, giving away my lie. Amy sent me precisely forty-seven videos, and I’ve been diligently working through each one, offering my reaction. I didn’t expect to watch a dog adoption video.
“Look at me,” Mateo demands.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s going to look like I’ve been crying, and I don’t know how to spin the lie.”
Mateo laughs, shifting on the bed and destroying the fortress I worked hard to build. The space between us shrinks, and the air crackles with an energy I can’t identify. It sets me on edge.
“Why were you crying?”
Instead of trying to explain that watching the dog morph from distrustful to a happy-go-lucky canine pulled at my heartstrings, I pull out my earbuds and hold my phone up for him to watch.
The small dog sits in a kennel, cowering as someone offers him a treat. A melancholy tune plays in the background, before the song and video switches to the dog running through a park, its tongue out as it chases a ball.
Its tail wags aggressively, and like the first time, I completely lose it, tears trailing down my cheeks. There’s only so much one girl can handle, and I draw the line at receiving comments on my manuscript and videos about dogs. If either happens, I’m a mess.
The video ends, and sniffling fills the room, only it’s not my own.
“Are you crying?”
“Yes. That was very sad.” He scoots closer, the light from my phone illuminating his features. “Do you have more of these videos?”
His head leans closer on the pillow, and if I shifted my position, our mouths would be inches apart. My attention falls to his lips and the soft, supple shape of them. The perfect slope of the upper one and the thickness of the bottom.
Objectively speaking, his features are very kissable.
His brow furrows, so I explain, “It’s TikTok.” Neptune, why is my voice like gravel? “Amy sent me these videos.”
“I don’t have one of those.”
Of course he doesn’t. Mateo is an old man at heart. He wears an analog watch and prefers paper and pen to record his lab work instead of the electronic software other PhD students use.
I watched from my desk as he cursed the “cloud” for deleting his downloaded papers and witnessed him googling “how to post a story on Instagram.”
He is an old twenty-six.
We watch the videos Amy sent in silence, and after about ten, my favorite true-crime page pops up, and the woman jumps into explaining a murder, leaving no gory stone left unturned.
She’s midway through a detailed breakdown of a beheading when a large finger flies in front of the screen, swiping the video away.
“Nunca más,” Mateo declares, his shoulders twisting as a shiver slithers down his spine. “I’ll never sleep.”
“Not a fan of true crime?”
I laugh at the horrified look on his face but switch it to my For You page, and we lie, side by side, watching videos.
Periodically, he laughs or huffs, and right now, in the comfortable darkness of the small cabin, there’s something different between us. Here, I’m just Charlie and he’s just Mateo—two overworked, underpaid, chronically tired PhD students.
Mateo readjusts, and I steal the opportunity to catalog his features. Stray pieces of thick brown hair fall in front of his viridescent irises before he drags his fingers through the strands, pushing them away .
I’m not sure I’ve ever looked at him for no reason other than to admire him, but right now, beneath the glow of my phone, I find myself wanting to map every freckle on his face.
I don’t know what to do with the urge, so instead, I flick to another video and pour my focus into the ten-minute date recap.
Mateo and I are seven minutes in when Amy’s name pops onto the top of my screen, followed by:
Amy: How’s it going on the ship? See anything cool yet?
I release a shuddered breath. She could have said anything, and she isn’t known for her filter. I let my guard down, but then she messages again.
Amy: Perhaps discovered what hides inside Mateo’s pants?
I choke, the air in my lungs seizing as her words register. Mateo makes an odd sound, and I stare up at the ceiling.
Telling Amy we have to share a room was a colossal mistake. The world pauses on its axis and the tides cease their push and pull when another message appears, this one far worse than the last.
Amy: May I suggest an exploratory mission to the southern hemisphere of Mateo’s body with your tongue ?
Undiluted panic takes over the function of my limbs, and I pitch my phone across the bed. It bounces at the edge of the mattress and lands with a thud on the floor.
“I am going to kill her,” I whisper.
Why the hell is she awake? It’s two a.m. on the East Coast. Doesn’t she have better things to do than suggest I give Mateo a blowjob?
This is a work trip. Amy should exude some semblance of class. There will be no blowjobs. Zero. Zilch. Nada, as Mateo would say.
The man himself slides out of bed, a wry grin on his face as he retrieves my phone.
“You dropped this,” he says, then pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. He extends the phone, and his shoulders quiver from suppressed laughter.
“Don’t.”
He holds up his palms in surrender, and the hem of his shirt lifts, offering a sliver of golden skin and taut muscle. My cheeks flame, and thank Neptune and his big blue sea that it’s dark in here, or Mateo would witness the effect the fragment of skin has on my nervous system.
The bed dips as he gets comfortable, strapping the CPAP mask back onto his face. As the machine turns on, I hear him mumble, “Don’t forget to text Amy. She’s patiently waiting to hear about your scientific exploration.”
I whack him with one of the throw pillows.
Cocky asshole .