Chapter 14
Dressed in the outrageous outfit Haydée designed, practice heels in my hands and flip-flops on my feet, I follow Mateo through La Vida’s lobby, out the front door, into the hot afternoon sun, and past Ramon, the valet. His eyes open wide before giving me a double thumbs-up.
I mumble, “Hello,” and pull on the sides of the hot pink unitard. Head down, I race toward my assigned parking spot. Grr. Haydée’s design is out of control. Not only is the color too bold, it has side cutouts and material that sticks to me like paint. Worse, it has this scrunched seam along my butt-crack that puts an emphasis on my ass which I am not comfortable with.
Gracias a Díos my car is close. One of the perks of the job—VIP parking.
Even with his bomba weighing him down, Mateo’s long legs carry him four strides ahead. How are we twins?
“Co?o.” He bends down to my front tire.
I squat beside him, causing my unitard to tighten against my thighs and ass. I run a finger against the slice stabbed in my front tire. “How did that happen?”
“The back one, too. You have two punctured tires on the passenger side.” He waves a frustrated hand toward the rear of the car.
I stare at the back tire, biting my lip anxiously. This is bad. I take my cell out to check the time. “Let’s take your car.”
Hoisting his bomba on his hip, we make our way two spots down to his car.
“Mierda,” he curses again, and kicks the punctured wheel on his tire. “They hit this one, too.”
“Vandals. We’re going to have to look through security footage.”
His face pinches with anger. He puts his drum down, clicks open his trunk, and points around the parking lot. “You see any other cars with flat tires?”
I take a quick walk around, checking the other cars, as he gets his spare. “No. But we’re the ones in the VIP spots, and you know how that attracts attention.”
A few years ago, we had someone spray paint Go home, English on our cars. It was during a time when someone from England was buying up a lot of the resorts. Obviously, not our case, but the vandal was not only angry but ill-informed.
Mateo rolls the spare over. “And what of your car not starting the other morning when it had been serviced a few days before?”
That was weird. I’d had to have it towed, and it’d turned out the problem was that it hadn’t had any gas, but I was certain it’d had a half tank. “What are you getting at?”
“I think this show has too high an award. I think people will do a lot for that kind of money. The risk is not worth it, hermana.” He jacks up the back of his car.
“It is worth it. That money is life-changing for me. For us.”
“It’s not just the money that isn’t worth it.” He puts on the spare, then grabs the tire iron. “I knew he looked familiar, but it wasn’t until your interaction on that first show that I remembered him. You were sad after he left. Are you sure you want to put yourself through this?”
Dios, of course he remembers Easton and that night, despite being buzzed from his date and it having been six a.m. Mateo has some kind of super memory. He can tell me what I wore during dinner five years ago—and what I’d had for dinner. And what I’d said.
Most people would kill for that kind of brain, but Mateo calls it his curse.
“Through what? He means nada. Long forgotten.”
He stops mid-spin of the tire iron and gives me a considered look. “Long forgotten? Let me remind you. I caught you naked, on the roof, wrapped up in that hermano’s arms.”
“Cállate,” I hiss at him, heat swamping my face. “I made my choices that night and today. I entered this thing knowing my own history and being totally okay with it. So, grow up.”
Mateo stands beside the raised car and stares at me with open hurt. “I’m never going to be so mature that I don’t give a shit when some rich college pendejo takes advantage of my sister,” he points at me, “on the same night as an emotional shitshow with her family.”
Wow. His memory is a curse—for me!
“Well, I’m not dropping out, so you’ll have to deal with all your feelings. Now, do you need help with that tire or what?”
He grunts as if insulted. “I can change a tire like a pit crew.”
“Anyone can change a tire, but if you can drive to the conference center like a NASCAR driver, then I’ll consider myself lucky.”
Already tightening the nuts, he says, “Consider me Daniel Suárez.”
* * *
“Set up the cameras…”
Parker stops talking as Mateo and I enter Ballroom A. It’s a large room, but the center of it has been made into a dance studio with wood flooring and a wheeled-in wall of glass that has a ballet bar across it. There are two camera operators setting up their operations.
“You’re late,” Parker says. She looks down at the face of her sleek rose-gold Rolex. “I wanted more time with you. Now we’ll only have a few minutes before I have to go.”
“Perdóname,” Mateo says. “It was my fault.”
Parker’s eyes open widen then swoop up and down Mateo’s body. Her cheeks flush.
Ay. I don’t know why I’m surprised Parker reacts to Mateo the way so many other women do, but I am.
Parker bites her lower lip. “You’re the brother?”
“Sí,” I say. “He’s my special musical request.”
She’s silent a moment. Silent and staring at Mateo, who is, likewise, staring at her.
I clear my throat. “I put in the necessary forms. Is this not okay?”
She blinks rapidly. “It’s fine.” A languid smile spreads across her face. “Welcome to the show, Mateo.”
His returning smile is one I’ve seen turn women to mush.
“Gracias, Parker. Let me know if you have any special musical requests.”
She laughs softly. “Will do.”
Ay. No. I grab Mateo’s arm and pull him away.
Parker turns back to the camera operators.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
He looks me dead in the eyes and swallows. “I’m going to marry that woman.”
My mouth opens and closes, but all that comes out is a choking sound. Sure, my twin can be a bit of a flower child. He left a premier engineering job to play drums and help Tío maintain the mechanics of the hotel. He also swears the sun is the best medicine for any ills. But this? “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not going to marry her.”
He scowls at me, puts his hand inside his shirt, and mimics a heartbeat, moving his hand back and forth, while making a thumping noise through his teeth. “Destino.”
I roll my eyes. Destiny? Ay. Dios. This is the last thing I need right now.
I snap my fingers in front of his eyes. “Let’s focus on saving our resort before our cousin sells her half out from under us.”
He nods, serious and worried for two-point-five seconds before he brightens. “Bien. I’ll woo Parker after you win.” He winks at me. “Unless she woos me first.”
With that bit of one-more-thing-I-have-to-worry-about, he carries his bomba across the floor, grabs a metal chair from the stacks along the walls, and sets up on a corner of the dance floor.
Parker walks over to me. “I’ve got to pop in on Kay Lee. Just do your thing. Don’t worry about the cameras. These people are professionals and will stay out of your way.” She looks at her watch, wishes me luck, then leaves.
Awkwardly, I walk onto the dance floor and begin to warm up. At first, it’s weird and uncomfortable to have cameras filming me, but after an hour, I’ve gotten not only comfortable with it, but I’ve forgotten a few times that they’re even there.
But I’m reminded when I spin unexpectedly and almost bump into one of the two camera operators filming me. I startle. “Perdóname. Sorry.” I make my way back to the corner where Mateo and his bomba sit.
I toe the edge of the wooden floor placed here as a makeshift dance studio, then stare at myself in the wheeled wall of mirrors. In an outfit this loud, I should have a matching routine. But we’ve been working on this for an hour, and the routine is not where it should be.
I pause, wiping sweat from my brow with a hand towel as I take a sip of water from my personalized FTW water bottle—each of the contestants were given one. Mine has my name on it over a silhouette of me doing my winning routine. Hips cocked, arms up, and hair flying wild.
“It’s off,” I say.
“Maybe if you slow down,” Mateo says, pounding out a slow rhythm on the drum to demonstrate.
Maybe. I run through the dance workout routine but more slowly this time.
“Hold there,” he says, trilling against the drum. With one leg extended into the air, I pause the pose.
In a real fitness class, I’d never hold this pose that long. It would be out of reach for too many people, but, for this show, we’ve been told to use the extremes of routines, as long as those extremes can be adapted down for the average person.
He unexpectedly speeds up the beat. That new tempo shifts something in me. This is how twins communicate. Oh!
“Fast, fast, slow,” I say, and start the routine again.
Twenty more minutes pass, and I can already see it’s going to be great. I grab my water bottle and take another sip. “I think it’s going to work. The combination of speed and slow, accompanied by the drum, creates an unexpected and dynamic routine.”
“Sí, me gusta,” Mateo says.
“It’s okay,” a voice says. I startle and turn around.
Wearing an FTW branded T-shirt and mid-thigh black shorts, Easton leans against the wall with his legs crossed in a way that emphasizes his thick, ropey leg muscles and bulging calves.
I have no idea how long he’s been watching us.