Chapter 28 #2
“Don’t freak out.” The look on her face tells me that’s the wrong response, but I tell her everything, and she’s known about Charlie since the day we met and I spent the entire dinner talking about her.
My abuela has pestered me relentlessly to tell her how I feel. She was obviously my first call post-confession.
“It’s fine,” I continue, “she’s known about you for a long time. We talk about you a lot.” Her face pales, and I scramble to backtrack. “Because I like you!”
“Oh, well, okay.” The apples of her cheeks blossom into a cherry shade, giving away her feelings on the matter. “She’s probably cooler than you, anyway.”
Her cockiness falls away when I steal it with a kiss. She melts into me, her arms dragging me closer and legs wrapping around my thighs like a boa constrictor. The energy in the air heats, crackling with electricity as Charlie’s tongue drags along the seam of my lips.
A request.
I give in to her immediately.
Should we be making out in the middle of the lab? Absolutely not.
It goes against probably a million safety protocols, but I would be a liar if I said I never imagined this .
Her hands drag up my back, beneath my shirt, and I hiss from her cold fingers. Jesus, that is not normal. I release my grip from her hips to peel her hands off my body.
“Your fingers are ice cubes,” I mumble between the kiss. She presses them into my skin, huffing a laugh when I jerk away.
She suppresses a yawn, but another quickly follows.
“What time did you wake up this morning?” I ask, lifting her from the benchtop.
My hands linger after she’s on solid ground, my palm resting against her lower back.
“Around six,” she boasts as I guide her out of the lab before anyone catches us in an unbecoming situation.
“I snuck out, and you didn’t even move.” She pauses to stick her tongue out of her mouth and roll her eyes to the back of her head.
“You were dead. If your CPAP machine wasn’t making noise, I would have been concerned. ”
She yawns again, and I change course toward the room.
It’s time for bed or else waking her up tomorrow will be a battle.
She makes no protest about skipping the movie as we slip into the cabin and wordlessly settle into our nightly routine.
As she occupies the bathroom, I move all of her trinkets half an inch to the left, snickering to myself.
We may be in a relationship—saying that feels like a fever dream—but I’m not going to waste an opportunity to mess with her a little.
Charlie steps into the room, and I refuse to look at her because I’ll give myself away, so I slip into the bathroom and wait by the door. I hear a quiet “God damnit, Mateo,” followed by a louder “Stop messing with my shit, carino!”
I peek my head out of the door. “You called me carino,” I sing.
“In this case, its translation is annoying asshole.”
She huffs, dropping onto the bed, but a smirk breaks through when I wink .
I undress, and Charlie’s gaze scorches my skin as I move around the cabin. Her adorable strawberry pajamas bunch up as she pulls her legs to her chest and rests her cheek on her knees.
“Are you ever going to tell me what it means?” she asks, gesturing at the phrase tattooed on my thigh.
I’ve stopped wearing anything but my boxer briefs to bed, so my tattoos are on full display. There’s no reason for me to sweat to death at night in the name of chivalry any longer, and Charlie did say clothing is optional, so I’m cashing in on her offer.
Plus, I love when her eyes linger. And they do—a lot.
“It’s a line from a poem I read in a college Spanish course.
” She raises a brow in silent question. “I thought the class would be easy,” I grumble, “but we were reading thirteenth century literature, which is barely Spanish. I’m still pissed about the course grade I received. Only bad mark on my record.”
Charlie giggles, burrowing into my side and resting her head in the crook of my neck after I settle in beside her. The scent of her joint balm wafts through the air. I could spend a lifetime of moments like this with her. Quiet whispers exchanged between two people choosing each other every day.
“What’s the poem called?”
“ Canción de Pirata .”
“Oh, that was hot. Say it again.”
I repeat it for her, laying the accent on thicker than necessary. I am only a man—a weak one when it comes to Charlie—and if she finds my slight accent sexy, I am going to lean into it.
“I was struggling with the idea of going to graduate school. My family couldn’t understand adding another five years of school with little pay for marine science. But one verse of the poem stuck with me. Helped me prove to myself I could chase my dream.”
“Your family doesn’t…” She trails of f.
“They came around when they realized it’s what I love. It was hard for them to wrap their heads around five years of work with a very small stipend.”
“That’s fair.” She intertwines our fingers, placing our hands in her lap. “What’s the verse?”
“Que es mi barco mi tesoro, que es mi dios la libertad, mi ley, la fuerza y el viento, mi única patria la mar.”
“Can you translate that for us non-Spanish speakers?”
“My ship is my treasure, my god is freedom, my law, strength and the wind, my only homeland is the sea.”
My only homeland is the sea.
The line that stuck with me, reverberating through my chest when I first heard the words.
I was born in a town hundreds of miles from the sea; I had never seen the ocean until I was fifteen. But it spoke to me nonetheless. As a child, I was enthralled by documentaries of ocean exploration, fascinated by the creatures that inhabit the depths.
The ocean always called to me, a beacon guiding my life, but as Charlie rests her head on the crook of my neck, I recognize that everything has shifted; my homeland is no longer the sea.
My homeland is Charlie.