33. Graciella
THIRTY-THREE
GRACIELLA
“DEFLECTION THROUGH HUMOR…BASICALLY MY FIRST LANGUAGE.”
The fireworks started the second I slipped out of the suite level.
Half the crowd had their faces tipped to the sky, which worked in my favor. I rushed down the corridor, pulse ticking higher the closer I got to the black and white sign.
The heavy stairwell door groaned when I pushed through it, the sound swallowed almost immediately by another crack overhead.
Butterflies erupted low in my stomach at the sight of Monroe, standing in the middle of a concrete stairwell.
For three hours it had killed me, watching him sitting next to Itzel, their heads tucked together as they talked, him looking every bit the devoted boyfriend the PR campaign needed him to be.
Just like I’d planned.
And I hated it.
Every single second of it.
Which made me an idiot, but that was a problem for later.
The metal door burned through the jersey’s thin material, my back pressed to it.
I dragged my eyes over him. “Aren’t you supposed to be with another woman right now?” I teased, hoping it’d hide the chaos pulsing through my body—the nerves.
He pushed off the wall, stalking me down. My stomach did a traitorous drop as cedar and something clean wrapped around me, tempting me to lean in and close the last few inches between us.
“I’m with exactly who I’m supposed to be with, Trouble,” he said, breath dancing across my cheek, trailing after the pad of his thumb as he tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear.
“Monroe.” I’d meant it to sound sharp, scolding, but it was soft, and a little unsteady.
“Graciella,” he mimicked, cupping my face and tilting it toward him. “She’s not the woman I want to be with.”
The air left my lungs in a rush I couldn’t control.
“We can’t—”
“No.” His voice was low. Certain. “You don’t get to look at me like that and then act confused now.”
My throat felt tight. “What look?”
“The one that makes me want to press you up against that damn door behind you and prove you’re the one I want right now.”
My lips parted.
I didn’t have a single thing to say to that, which was maybe a first.
Another firework detonated somewhere above us, close enough that the vibration moved through the metal door. I barely registered it…too busy cataloging every small detail—the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes hadn’t blinked, the slight rise and fall of his chest.
He dropped his forehead to mine. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Something cracked open in my chest at his whisper.
“Josh—”
He kissed me before I could figure out what came next.
Rough hands framed my face, the door aiding in keeping me standing on my weak knees as he took my breath away.
My fingers found the front of his jersey and curled in, gripping the fabric hard enough that the stitching bit into my palms.
God, I loved this.
I hadn’t let myself say it out loud, hadn’t even let myself think it, but standing there with his mouth moving against mine, the truth of it was impossible to keep tethered.
“Fuck,” he muttered against my lips.
I smiled. Couldn’t help it.
His hand slid to my waist and pulled me in. The full-length press against him had me moaning, and his grip tightened. Greedily, he consumed every little sound from my mouth, zeroing in on every small reaction.
I scraped my nails lightly through the hair at the back of his neck, reveling in the shudder that moved through him at my touch.
“You have any idea,” he said roughly, dragging his mouth along my jaw, “how hard it’s been sitting next to another woman while wanting you the entire fucking time?”
My grip tightened on his jersey.
“You think this has been easy for me?” The words came out more honest than I’d planned. I felt him still, pulling back enough to study my face. “I’ve thought about how I want to be with you this entire time, too.”
I watched something move through his expression. Something that made my chest tighten.
“Come home with me.”
The quiet plea landed low in my stomach. It sat there, warm yet heavy.
“What about Goldie?” I asked, scrambling to buy myself time to process what he’d asked. What saying yes would mean…
He chuckled. “She’s at my mom’s house having a sleepover. It’s just me at home tonight…”
The mood in the confined space shifted, charged with a new tension. Pressing in around us and filling every inch of the stairwell until there was nowhere left to look except directly at him. At the patient, steady way he watched me—waiting me out.
I pulled my lip between my teeth.
None of this was supposed to happen. An attraction to the man I represented wasn’t in the plan—wasn’t even in the margins of the plan—and yet here I was, in a concrete stairwell with my heart thrashing in my chest every time he looked at me like that.
Like he wanted me.
I swallowed, willing some moisture back into my mouth.
“So, I’m sleeping in the princess bed for our sleepover?”
Deflection through humor…basically my first language.
A muscle in his jaw ticked. His spicy, clean scent enveloped me. It had started to feel dangerously familiar.
Dangerously comforting.
Goosebumps erupted where Monroe’s hand dropped to my neck, the pad of his thumb stroking the sensitive spot behind my ear as he gripped me. Soft but unyielding, like he wanted to be sure my attention stayed locked on him.
I couldn’t think past the feel of his hand. Past the way his eyes hadn’t moved from mine.
“No, Trouble. You’ll be sleepin’ in my bed. If you want it.”
I blinked up at him, surprised by the emotion coating his words. The vulnerability underneath those last four words hit me with a force I wasn’t prepared for.
“That’s probably not a good idea.” A flake of red polish flicked off my thumb.
“Don’t care.” He dislodged my lip from my teeth but didn’t push for a response. Just let me stand there and slip into a spiral.
This would be different from the hotel room. This was a choice. One he was giving to me, knowing full well the decision would shift everything between us. Fireworks cracked overhead again, a low, rolling boom, but I barely heard it over the pumping in my ears.
Monroe would be fine if I said no, wouldn’t push it, wouldn’t bring it up again. We could walk out of this stairwell and slide back into our corners. Building the walls back up, brick by brick, until tonight—this moment, this thing between us—became something we’d forgotten.
We’d never acknowledge.
Knowing that somehow made the decision harder.
My body tingled, nerves coiling tight beneath my skin.
His blue eyes moved over my face, patient and searching, the harsh line of his mouth softer than I was used to.
The pull to lean up and press my lips to the corner of it had been building for weeks.
And, standing here, I couldn’t pretend anymore that it had anything to do with how attractive he was.
That was the part that scared me most.
Surface-level attraction, I knew how to handle. I’d been handling it for years. Keeping things easy and uncomplicated, keeping people at exactly the distance where they couldn’t do any real damage. But everything that pulled me toward Monroe lived somewhere underneath that.
Tempting me to get within heartbreak range.
There were so many things I loved.
The way he showed up for Goldie without a second thought. The way he cared for the few he let in. The way he was looking at me right now…
I licked my lips.
No. Keep things easy, Graciella. Safe.
I could feel what I used to think was the smarter version of myself standing outside this stairwell, arms crossed, already composing the lecture.
His thumb still moved in a slow, steady arc behind my ear. His eyes hadn’t left mine.
No kept disappearing somewhere between my brain and my mouth, never making it all the way out.
Probably because my heart knew the real answer.