Chapter 29
Charlie
There’s a very large something resting rock fucking solid against my inner thigh.
I tilt my head over my shoulder, and Mateo buries his deeper into the crook of my neck as I move around. His CPAP mask is pressed against my skin, and the tubing runs along my spine. His arm slings over my hip, curling around my stomach to drag me closer.
Before this trip, I had never woken up beside someone else—Amy excluded—and I would have sworn on Charles Darwin’s grave that I was okay with that; it was my choice. No sleepovers. Rule number one to keep things physical, and damn, it was a good rule, because right now everything is emotional.
Volatile, consuming emotions.
It’s incredibly unsettling, but I want to crawl inside Mateo’s skin just so I can feel a bit closer to him.
I want to feel his hand in mine and inhale the soft, clean scent of his cologne.
When he’s on the other side of the room, he’s too far away, and when he’s beside me, my head grows light and bubbly .
I’m not really sure what to do with those emotions. It’s like figuring out what to do with my hands during a presentation so I don’t look like an idiot.
Right now, I’m a relationship idiot.
I have no idea what I’m doing, or if I’m doing it right, but now I understand what a relationship feels like—how wonderfully consuming life can be with another person—and I want it. More and more everyday.
There has to be a cooling-off period, right? Where my hormones rebalance and I stop feeling like a goblin obsessed with Mateo and his every movement.
He makes a soft sound, and warmth blooms in my chest, spreading to the tips of my fingers.
Is staring at him while he sleeps creepy? It feels like something a creep would do.
Amy would know if it’s socially appropriate or not. Do the rules change if you sleep together? Like if the person you’re watching is your boyfriend, does it make it okay?
When Mateo rolls, I slip out from his grip and run into the bathroom.
I perch on the toilet as the phone rings. Amy’s head pops onto the screen, only the top of her forehead and eyebrows visible. Her eyebrow piercing jiggles, her brows raising.
“Hi, Charles,” she cheers. “I miss you.”
“Is it normal to watch someone while they sleep?” I blurt out.
Whew. That question was eating me alive.
“Uh…good morning?” She stares at me incredulously. “Why are you whispering?”
“I’m hiding in the bathroom and don’t want Mateo to wake up and hear me.”
“And the person you want to watch is Mateo?”
I grimace. When she says it, it sounds creepy.
“My initial response is that watching people sleep is a no-no. ”
“Once I asked, it became pretty obvious.” She nods in agreement. “Wait,” I scream a bit louder than I intend, and nerves flutter in my chest. “I had sex with Mateo.” She gasps. “With the lights on.” An even louder gasp. “In missionary.”
“What the fuck ?” Amy screams, and I slam the phone against my chest to muffle the sound. Mateo doesn’t need to know I’m talking about him to my best friend. I’m sure he knows it’s happening, but I would like him to stay ignorant. “Charles, that breaks all of your rules.”
“And I think we’re boyfriend and girlfriend,” I whisper into the microphone.
I can’t let her see the massive blush on my cheeks. I almost threw up yesterday when I called it a relationship. It feels too fast to call it that, and though I know little about being one half of a couple, it feels like that’s what Mateo and I are—two halves of a whole.
“Rewind and tell me everything ,” Amy demands.
I give her the CliffNotes version of the last few days, and she responds with the appropriate ooh s and aah s as I tell the story. When I finish, she’s quiet, her brow furrowed in thought.
Every time Amy goes mute, I know I’m in for a hard-hitting, emotionally devastating question that will force me to reevaluate my life. I hate it. She doesn’t do it often, but when she decides to impart her infinite wisdom or ask a probing question, I’m left reeling.
“Do you think you’re falling in love with him?” she asks.
The air whooshes from my lungs. Case in point . She just shoved me over the cliff with no parachute, tumbling toward collision with emotions I’m not ready to address yet.
I can’t look at Amy in fear she will see what’s written on my face, so I scan the bathroom.
His toothbrush sits beside mine, next to both of our contact cases.
A pair of my underwear hangs on the towel rack, like Mateo picked them off the floor and left them where I could find them.
His glasses sit on the edge of the sink, ready for him to put on after he stumbles to the bathroom when he wakes up in the morning.
The space is an ode to two regular people whose lives have merged, even for a short time.
She’s going to let me stay silent, but she’s not fooled. Not for a moment.
“When you admit it, I am the first person who gets to know.” I raise a brow. “ Fine. You can tell him first, but then I get to know.”
“Deal.” There’s a long pause before I add, “I love you, Ames.”
My voice cracks with emotion, and Amy sniffles. “I love you, too, and I’m so, so proud of you.”
“Proud?”
Here come the tears. Amy’s opinion holds weight, and so do her words. But I don’t know why she’s proud.
“You’ve grown so much since we met. I can see your shine.
” Her voice quiets. “You’ve always had this…
armor to protect yourself—a solid shield to hide your emotions.
There’s something softer about you now. He brings it out in you, I think.
He lets you shine, Charlie.” A tear falls down her cheek, and matching those streaming down my own. “I think he understands your soul.”
“I hate when you make me cry,” I wail, swiping away the pesky moisture.
Her words linger, though. An arrow piercing what little is left of my shield.
“So…you have a boyfriend?” she screams through the phone, ending the emotional moment—for my sake.
“I-I think so…”
My face heats, the warmth creeping out to my ears and down my neck.
Before Amy can answer, the door to the bathroom cracks open, and I yelp. Mateo’s head pops in the room, his hair unruly and sticking up at a million different angles .
“She does,” he says confidently before he winces and slams his eyes shut. Amy squeals, wolf whistling, and the grating sounds echo through the small bathroom. “Hi, Amy.”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for my whole life.” She sighs. “Greatest day ever!”
Amy rattles on about how she knew we would work together, but her words fade away when the pinched expression on Mateo’s face worsens.
“We have to get to work,” I say quickly, “I’ll talk to you later.”
I hang up and open the door wide to take a closer look at Mateo. Something is wrong. A tight, twisting sensation settles below my diaphragm. His eyelids are pinched shut as he leans against the doorframe for support.
“What’s wrong?” I grab his cheeks between my palms, moving his head around. He groans and I stop. “Are you hurt? Did you fall? Are you going to vomit?”
Please don’t vomit.
I don’t know if I can handle that. I babysat once, and the child threw up all over me. I’ve never been able to shake the trauma of that experience.
“It’s just a headache,” he says, but he groans again.
“Sit,” I demand, guiding him to the edge of the bed.
He falls unceremoniously, his lashes still fanning his cheeks.
“My CPAP didn’t seal properly,” he mumbles as I sit beside him, dropping my survival kit between us.
I massage the nape of his neck to relieve some of the tension. He sighs, leaning into the touch, and something inside me cracks before mending back together.
I’ve never taken care of somebody before. I was always the person needing the care. Weeks in the hospital. Trips to physical therapy. Years of struggling with arthritis. Someone has always offered support, even when I was too embarrassed or stubborn to want to accept .
My mother spent weeks helping me complete simple tasks after my hip surgery. Showering, moving around, existing , wasn’t possible without someone else. The total dependence on another person morphed into hyper-independence.
I was capable of doing everything on my own. I didn’t need someone to take care of me or coddle me. Amy was the first person I let help me with anything, and even now I hate asking her—I hate burdening her with my problems.
“Take this.” I hand him a pain reliever and my water bottle and watch to make sure he swallows. When I’m happy he’s ingested the medicine, I pull out the essential oils I use when I’m overwhelmed or have a headache from staring at my computer for too long.
I perch on my knees behind him and dab the essential oil on my fingers before pressing them to his skin behind his ears, gently massaging the oil into his skin. His head lulls to the side as a small mewl falls from his lips.
This is the first time someone has let me take care of them, and I’m not going to screw it up.
It’s hard for me to verbally express how I feel about Mateo. It’s there, banging around my chest, but putting words to the feeling makes it real, and I’m not ready for that. So, for now, I’m going to take care of him, the way he’s taken care of me.
Adding more oil, I work the muscles in his neck and at the base of his shoulders, working out the stiff knots where the two meet. His sighs are the only sound in the room, and his muscles loosen until he becomes dead weight, shedding all the stress he carries.
The whole time, I am shoving down my giddiness.
I like taking care of Mateo , I realize as I finish. It’s fulfilling, like it’s something I’m meant to do. The same way I’m meant to publish a paper in Nature and discover a new species.
I lean down and kiss him on the temple as I wrap my arms around his shoulders like I’m a backpack. He grabs my hands and squeezes .
“Thank you, bruja,” he whispers, swiping his thumb against the top of my hand. “I’m feeling a bit better.”
“Yeah?” The elation in my voice is unmistakable.
He feels better because of me .
Fireworks erupt in my chest, and I could live off the feeling for the rest of my life—knowing that instead of being the burden, I was able to help shoulder someone else’s.