Chapter 3
Hand desperately gripping the dented and rusty roof handle, I pull again. The damn door doesn’t budge. Fuck. I’m drunk and locked on the roof of my spring break hotel. Stuck in a situation I’d rather be nowhere near.
Not the kissing or the girl; I want to be near both. But the incredible awkwardness of wanting to bone someone who is in obvious pain. The shame of wanting to screw her to help relieve my own pain and raging hard-on.
A tap on my shoulder has me lowering my hand and looking back and then down. Was she that short a minute ago when she reached for me, kissed me?
She holds out the quilted hotel blanket. “Sorry to tell you this, but we’re stuck here.”
“What?”
“After the storm… See the way the doorframe sags?” She points absently and the blanket slips from her fingers. “The storm and something to do with the condensation. It’ll release in the morning. I left it open. You must have closed it.”
Heat washes up my neck. Is she blaming me? I turn to her. “This is a hazard. How can you let your hotel trap guests on the roof? That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”
The full moon is so bright, I see my accusation strike home. See it as if we stood under the lights of an interrogation room. Her forehead creases. Her eyes widen. And when I’m sure she’s going to cry, she throws her head back and laughs.
She laughs so long and hard that she has to bend over to support herself, bracing hands against her thighs.
Nice thighs, round and firm and tan. I lick my lips. The distraction of her thighs in those tiny shorts, not to mention the impressive cleavage, keeps me from panic and situational annoyance.
She stops laughing, pulls herself to standing, and tugs her cami back into place. I instantly miss the view. She brushes tears from her eyes. Real tears. Oh, crap. When did her laughter turn to tears?
“I’m sorry.” Not sure why I’m apologizing. I’m not the owner of a shitty hotel that traps people on roofs. Nope, I’m just the shitty guy who ogled her so thoroughly I lost track of her as a person, missing her genuine pain. “I’m really, really sorry.”
She shakes her head. “It’s fine. Do you have your cell?”
“My cell?” Crap. I pitched it after that text from my aunt. “Nope. Threw it at my buddy, Stone, before I came up here. Guess you can say it’s a Stone’s throw away.”
Lame joke. Embarrassing.
A slow smile stretches her face. She pulls a phone from her pocket. “I’ll text my brother, Mateo. The hinges are on the inside, so maybe he can remove the door.”
She types a quick text. Waits, frowns, and then shrugs. “I can’t vouch for his timeliness. Last I saw him, he was headed out on a date.”
Seems a little soon to give up on rescue. “Can you try someone else at the hotel? Maybe ask to be connected to my room. Stone might still be there.”
Doubtful. He went out to meet a girl from that bioluminescent kayak tour. But Yolanda lives here. She has to have someone she can call.
“Ay, Dios,” she says, holding up her phone like the Statue of Liberty. “Why don’t I just send up a Bat signal? Porque, that’s what’ll happen if I use my phone to call anyone at this hotel. My whole family will show up.”
“And that’s a problem?”
Her jawline tightens. Anger flames so hot in her brown eyes I swear they turn red. Werewolf style.
I pat the air in a let’s keep calm gesture. “Look, I get wanting to stay away from your family. I really do. But we don’t have a lot of other options right now. The only number I know by heart is my aunt’s. She’s in New York. So…”
She spins on her heels and paces a few steps, before barreling back at me with a raised finger. “Fifteen minutes. Give me fifteen for Mateo to respond. That’s a compromise. A real one.” She drops her hand. “Everyone is acting like they’re compromising, but they aren’t. Mateo will continue with mechanical engineering, because that’s what he wants to do. Haydée will continue with fashion, because that’s what she wants to do.” She starts gesticulating emphatically with her hands. “The only one who is being asked to compromise and make everyone’s visions work with mine is me!”
Obviously, her night was shit long before I got here. And, hell, it’s only fifteen minutes. I step over the blanket and hold out my hand. “Let’s start again. Easton Blake. Moon-howler, yogi guru, and imminent exercise science and fitness administration graduate.”
Hesitation hangs in the air like a flag of truce. Finally, she reaches out. I wrap my big, calloused hand around her tiny, soft one and instantly feel like an ogre mauling a princess.
She shakes once before pulling away. “Yolanda Vasquez, resort owner, yogi novice, hotel management graduate, and an imminent health and lifestyle coach.”
“Ah, see? We have something in common.” Other than the fact that we’re stuck on this roof and I recently sexually frustrated us both. “How long have you been into fitness?”
“I said lifestyle and health.”
I scratch the scruff on my chin. The alcohol is starting to burn off. Probably because I’m sweating on a roof during an eighty-degree night, and she’s making me use my brain. “There’s a difference?”
She bites her lower lips, crossing the roof with a shuffle of her sandals. She hoists herself onto the ledge, turning sideways to stare at the moon reflecting across a whispering ocean.
I follow, not because it’s obvious I’m supposed to, but because I want to. I sit beside her, one sneakered foot propped up on the edge, one on the ground. Neither of her feet touch the ground. Shorty.
She smells like shea butter.
Since she’s not looking at me looking at her, I take her all in. The black curls pinned back with a skeleton clasp. The three piercings on one ear and only one in the other. The tattoo that reads It matters to me around a blue, blue Earth on her right wrist.
“La diferencia esta,” she says, reminding me I’d asked a question, “the difference is in where I focus. I believe fitness should be a love of oneself, a kindness toward oneself, not a focus on what people look like, so I focus on how people feel. On simple and easy ways to create joy through movement and nutrition.”
The voice of one of my most favorite professors comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. “Got any specifics to go with your vague?”
She arches an eyebrow. So sexy, I swear a pulse starts thrumming in my balls.
That raised brow relaxes. “I invented a program rooted in lighter island fare and traditional bomba music. It’s called Bailarcise.”
“Dancing?”
She laughs. “You sound so negative. Dance and music rescue people. It rescued me.”
Before I can ask how, she is up and moving.
“The program I invented uses the easy energy of joy to fuel the harder movements that increase strength, flexibility, and functional fitness.”
In a hot second—emphasis on hot—she has her phone out. She scrolls, then taps her cell, and the rhythmic island bomba drum knocks through the speaker.
She rocks the one-two, three-four beat while alternating a double lift of hips for every fourth beat. The music unleashes her personality. Her smile places joy in my chest. Even the moon seems to watch her. I am captivated
Her arms and hips synchronize as she talks. “Think dancing and dropping into a squat or dancing and dropping into a pushup.” She demonstrates both in a graceful sequence. Beads of sweat kiss her forehead. A flush of warmth brightens her eyes.
I stand to try and copy her moves. Though she’s taking it slow, I’m not keeping up. “Harder than it looks.”
Smiling, she glides toward me. “It’s all in the hips,” she tells me, placing warm hands on both my hips.
Even through my cargo shorts, those hands burn.
She squeezes my right hip, which jerks reflexively. She continues squeezing, doubling every fourth squeeze, and I’m almost spastic in my reaction. And aroused.
“Perfecto, perfect,” she tells me, dropping her hands much to my regret. “If you have that down, the rest will follow.”
As we dance, our breaths match the distant sound of crashing waves rising and falling. It seems we are in perfect harmony with each other and the ocean.
This is so much freakin’ fun. “I’ve gone through an entire program on exercise science and never learned to use joy as a focus to get past the hard stuff. How’d you figure it out?”
She stops dancing, turns off her phone. “Yo soy Boricua. I’m Puerto Rican. The music and rhythms are in my soul.” She grins coyly. “To be honest, after my parents died, I lost myself.” She exhales and there is a wealth of remembered sadness in that sound. “I became depressed and developed an eating disorder. My therapist suggested I meditate.” She snort-laughs, low and self-deprecating. “Problema, I couldn’t sit still. Music and movement became my meditation. It transported me and made those times when I had to process my pain, grief, and anger more bearable.”
I am blown away by her, by her openness, her ability to share this kind of personal stuff with me, practically a stranger. “How do you open up like that?”
Confusion falls across her features. “I don’t usually, but somehow, it’s easier with you.” She tugs the edge of her shorts where they are bunched around lush thighs. “Anyway, what’s confessed on the roof of La Vida Buena stays on the roof of La Vida Buena. So, Easton, what secrets would you tell me?”
I open my mouth to play off her joke, to make it sexual and use the heat between us to get back to that kiss. “My workaholic dad is refusing treatment for his cancer. Not one of my pathetic attempts to beg him to reconsider life-saving options has moved his stubborn ass an inch. I guess you can say he is literally dying to get away from me.”
Holy shit.
Why did I say that?
Exposed, I take gulping breaths, terrified to look in her eyes, to see them accusing me of being selfish and childish when my dad is the one in pain.
She’s so quiet.
Heat rises up my neck. I can feel a blush stain my entire face.
Long minutes pass and finally, I do it. I look.
Her eyes are wide and open and inviting. “You came to Puerto Rico so you could get away from reality for a little while.”
She says this without a hint of judgment. Instead, I see… understanding?
“Yes. And to spend my dad’s money on an insanely expensive hotel room as payback. I’m fucked up.”
A tsk passes through her lips as quiet as a feather, but I hear it.
“You’re incredibly hard on yourself, East.”
Am I? Because she’s so understanding and supportive, I tell her something I haven’t told anyone. “I don’t want to watch that. Him giving up.” My throat grows tight. I whisper, “Watch his body saying what Dad’s been saying to me since he sent me to boarding school and avoided my every game, from wrestling to lacrosse to rugby, and missed my high school graduation—’You don’t matter. You’ve never mattered.’”
Fuck. I shouldn’t have said all of that. “You probably think I’m an asshole.”
“No. I think you’re a human being dealing with heartbreak. Is your father… Does he have some time?”
“The doctor said about a year without treatment.”
“What does your mother think?”
“No idea. My mom ran off with our pool guy and moved to Hawaii when I was four. Cliché before cliché was cliché.”
Her eyes widen.
Yep, basically, I have two parents who wanted dick to do with me.
“I’m so sorry, Easton.” She grasps my hand with those tragically soft fingers. “Do you have no other family?”
“My aunt, Nancy. She’s a saint. She’s taking care of my dad until I get back. She texted me earlier and asked when I’d be home. That’s why I threw my phone. I’m… not ready. Stone—he’s my best friend—told me to walk it off before I text her back. That’s why I came up here.”
“I saw him today, at the bar. How’d you meet?”
“In boarding school.” The two loneliest kids in boarding school. “He was there because his mom wanted him to experience the best his father’s wealth had to offer. I was there so dad didn’t feel guilty leaving me alone all the time. Stone’s basically getting me through this, refusing to head back until I do.”
Another reason I need to head home sooner rather than later. Should’ve texted Aunt Nancy so she doesn’t worry.
Yolanda’s so silent for so long, I wait for her to pull away and begin pounding for rescue on the roof door.
Instead, she says, “Music and dance saved me, but everyone on this planet must find things that bring us joy or relief, so that we can continue to take those many painful steps forward. People say you are what you eat. The bigger truth is: you are what you think. What lightens your heart, Easton?”
Is she kidding? She believes I can exist with this intense pain by being delusional? “Nothing.” It hurts too fucking badly for that.
“So, you intend to party your way through the pain?”
Ouch. Her point hits like a beer bottle to the head. Still, it feels wrong. Like, reality is the pain and I don’t deserve to focus on anything but that hurt. I sure shouldn’t think about my ideas for the future, not when Dad has no future.
She waits, almost hopefully, so I shrug and whisper, “Fit for the World.”
Her entire attention focuses on me, and it feels brighter and fuller than the moon. “Qué es esto? What is this Fit for the World?”
“It’s an idea I’ve been working on in college. That’s the name for it. My company—future company. It’s based on what you said. I mean, it centers on supporting a person’s life and the lives of others, not on what size waist someone has.”
Buzz. Zap. Cha-ching. I’d found it—the spark of interest that melts everything else from her face. I know it, because it’s in me, too.
She hoists herself back onto the ledge of the roof. Resting her palms on either side of her legs, she begins swinging her feet. “How does it work?”
“It’s called Fit for the World because members literally work out to help the world. By going to the gym, they earn points they can use to donate part of their monthly fees to charities.”
“Me gusta. That’s a great idea! Tell me more.”
“Well, I imagine that, one day, sponsors of fitness gear will join in providing points as a way to market their products at my gyms.”
“I see it,” she says. “I love that it will inspire people to keep going to the gym, helping them stay healthy as they help others. How will the point system work?”
I start to explain, silently praying that her brother never checks his text messages because it feels like we’re creating the future. Right here. Right now. And it is brilliant.