Chapter 7 #2
Grace paced back and forth on a limited path next to the dining table in Obinna’s studio apartment, trying to figure out a plan.
She’d only been in Spain for a month, and here was yet another disaster to contend with.
Somehow, it barely registered anymore, even though she didn’t have a place to live.
Disasters were a dime a dozen these days.
Alma stared up at her from the couch, tossing out ideas for a temporary place to stay.
“You can’t be that far away, Grace,” she said. “It’s madness.”
Alma’s landlord had been kind enough to offer one of his empty apartments for their use while the contractors were working on the place, and it was only a fifty-minute bus ride away even if it was in a sketchy rundown building.
Alma had immediately declined the offer, but Grace supposed she would at least have to take a look, because what other options did she have?
Sure, Obinna had already proposed that Alma and Grace could stay with him.
In his studio apartment. Alma could share his bed, and Grace could…
sleep on an air mattress in the middle of the room indefinitely? One night had been enough.
She would pass on that offer, which meant she was off to check out the rundown place in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, and plenty of people commuted fifty minutes. Most importantly, it was temporary.
Alma volunteered her brother as the perfect helper to escort Grace to view the apartment.
“He can drive you!” she’d announced, as if Raf didn’t have a job to worry about, and the matter was already settled.
Alma needed to be in the lab, but Rafael was flexible.
He could make himself available in a crisis, especially since he didn’t have client meetings or vendor research on the calendar.
Alma had strong-armed him into being Grace’s chauffeur for the day before Grace could offer a single protest.
“I know it might be awkward, but I really wish you’d just stay with Obinna and me. It will be cramped, but we could manage. It will be like a—um—what do you call it?”
“An orgy?”
“A slumber party! But I’m glad to see you still have jokes.”
Grace glanced at the deflated mattress slumped against the wall. “Obinna is so kind to offer, but I’m sure he doesn’t want his girlfriend’s best friend sleeping in the same room.”
“What about my parents? They have plenty of room. It’s still a bit far out. You couldn’t walk to the campus anymore, but I could go with you. We could both stay there.”
Grace crossed her arms. “I know you don’t want to stay with your parents, Alma.
You would fight with your mother constantly.
Seriously, this isn’t a problem you have to solve for me, and you have to take the opportunity to spend extra time with Obinna.
This will be fun for the two of you, and I’ll be fine on my own. ”
“Rafael?” Alma tried another possibility as if Grace hadn’t even spoken. “He has an extra room.”
“You’re kidding.”
“What? That could work. I just feel terrible for putting you through this. I was supposed to protect you. All I have to offer is some shitty rental insurance that barely covers anything. Or Obinna, my parents, or Rafael.”
“This isn’t your fault, babe.” Grace said. “And I’ll figure something out without you bending over backwards to fix it. End of discussion. Go to the lab already. I’ll be fine.”
Alma puckered her perfect lips in a pout, but she still accepted her defeat. She crossed the small room and gave Grace a quick cheek-kiss, before doing as she was told and going to the lab.
“Tough week?” Rafael asked as Grace climbed into the car. He was wearing a white shirt with a button undone and damn it if she didn’t stare at the triangle of bare chest peeking out, just for a moment.
“You could say that.” She flipped her hair out of the way and put on the seatbelt, and when she glanced up to find Raf’s eyes on her, he simply gave her a lopsided grin and turned back to the steering wheel.
“Ready?” he asked.
Grace nodded, but since he wasn’t looking at her anymore, she took a breath and coughed out, “yes.”
There was something about the small space of the car that made her feel a little claustrophobic.
Rafael’s arms were right there, almost brushing against hers, and his scent filled the entire vehicle.
She smelled him even though she didn’t mean to, and he smelled like warm laundry right out of the dryer.
“Thank you,” she said, “for driving me. I know you probably had other plans today, so I really appreciate you taking time—”
“Alma was right.” He cut in with a sigh.
“What?”
“She said you would ramble on and on about how grateful you are to me just for giving you a lift. It’s nice that you’re so appreciative, Graciela, but you don’t have to thank me. If the situation were reversed, I know you’d do the same for me.”
“I don’t have a car.”
Raf let out a little laugh. “Fair point.”
Grace leaned back in the seat trying to relax, but without her overwrought outpouring of gratitude, she wasn’t sure what else to talk about, and the silence hovered over them.
“Are you feeling homesick for America?” Rafael asked.
Grace glanced at him, surprised he’d made the effort to start a conversation.
She wasn’t really homesick for America. She was homesick for the things that weren’t there anymore, things that no longer existed anywhere.
Not that she was going to start wading into her emotional turmoil with Alma’s older brother…
again. “Mostly, I could just go for a good hot dog,” she said.
She swallowed as a lump formed in her throat. Beer and hot dogs, that was how she and Derek celebrated everything. The end of the semester? Derek’s big raise? Anniversaries? They marked every occasion with beer and hot dogs. It had been a long time since Grace felt like celebrating, though.
Rafael was aghast. “A hot dog? No.”
She shrugged. “Something from Portillo’s. That’s all I want.”
“A hot dog, Graciela?” Raf shook his head in disgust, just as she suspected he would.
She exhaled a little laugh, inordinately pleased to have irked him. “Is there something in particular you miss from your time in America?”
He pressed his lips together, thinking. “As far as American cuisine goes, there is not much to miss. Certainly not hot dogs.”
Grace rolled her eyes.
“But there was a pizza place in New York City. Scarr’s. I get a craving for that on occasion.”
“You like pizza, Raf?”
He frowned. “Is that so hard to believe?”
Grace smiled and shook her head. She definitely wouldn’t have pegged him as a “craving a slice” kind of guy. “And that’s it? Nothing else you miss about America?”
He seemed to be thinking very seriously about the question. “New York was too loud and crowded and over-the-top for me. I liked the M&M store in Time’s Square though.” He smirked but didn’t look at her.
Grace’s mouth dropped. “Did you just make a joke, Rafael?”
His smirk suddenly turned into a laugh. “Why are you so surprised?”
Grace was somewhat hopeful as they neared the landlord’s building with an empty unit.
Yes, this was the middle of nowhere. They passed the bus stop where Grace would catch the bus every day, and it was so dead, Grace wouldn’t be surprised to see a tumbleweed rolling by.
If they had tumbleweeds in Spain. But the drive hadn’t been terrible, and a quiet little area certainly wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Some of the houses they passed appeared nice and well maintained, and even though Grace really was not looking forward to almost two hours of bussing every single day, she wanted this to work out.
If she could get her shit together enough so she could avoid begging Alma for more help, she would consider it a win.
It was temporary, after all. Her grandma always said you could do anything for two weeks.
There had been no promises about how long it would take to get back into Alma’s apartment, but it couldn’t be too long, right?
Then they pulled up to the building, and Grace’s grand ideas for making this work started to wane. But she could handle chipped paint. She could handle broken gutters. She could maybe handle rickety stairs. She had to.
Rafael scanned the scene and made a noise.
“What?”
He turned and raised an eyebrow as if to say what do you think?
“It has some cosmetic issues, but it’s not terrible.”
“It looks like your apartment here is ten times more likely to flood than the last one.”
Grace bit her lip. Raf followed her up the stairs, and when Grace got to the open unit, she put the key from the landlord in the lock and turned. It seemed to work easily, but when she tried the door, it wouldn’t budge.
“Allow me,” Rafael said. He turned the knob. He jiggled the handle. The lock wasn’t the problem, it was more like the entire door just didn’t want to move. Raf shoved a shoulder into it and then gave it a kick. Finally, it busted open.
Grace didn’t need to look over at him to know the face he was making, but still, she tried to tell herself that she could do this. She wasn’t a princesa. She didn’t need perfect conditions. She just needed a place to stay for a little while.
They walked through the musty unit and uttered not a single word until she reached the bedroom. Then, she spotted the cockroach in the corner and backed up so quickly she fell right into Rafael. He caught her easily, his arms pressed against hers, his breath on her neck.
“What is it?” He followed her gaze to the massive bug and nodded without letting go of her. “Ah. Let’s go outside and discuss.”
“Okay,” Grace said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Just a minute.”
She walked into the dingy bathroom with chipped tile and stared at the ceiling, trying to prevent tears from escaping down her face.
She did not want to cry in front of Rafael.
She didn’t want to cry at all anymore. She was so sick of it.
She pressed her fingers under her eyes as if she could squeeze her tear ducts shut and took a few deep breaths until she felt composed again.
She remembered looking at apartments when she and Derek had decided to move in together, how everything had felt so fresh and exciting, like a whole new life was waiting for them.
This experience was…the opposite. She splashed some cold water on her face and inhaled a deep breath through her nose.
She couldn’t fall apart again, not now. She refused to let one crappy apartment get the best of her.
She exhaled through her mouth and fixed her hair.
Then she walked back into the empty living room to join Rafael.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Ready.”
“Good.” He ushered her toward the front door. “Let’s get out of here.”
It took a while to get the door back into place well enough to lock it, but they managed eventually, and then Rafael stood on the sidewalk by his car with his hands on his hips.
“You cannot live there,” he said, as if he’d just been waiting for the appropriate moment to make this announcement.
“You won’t even be able to get the door open in the first place. ”
Grace stared at the building. She knew he was right, but what choice did she have?
There was no other viable option, and she would rather punch through her door each night than sleep at the foot of Alma and Obinna’s bed.
“It’s not so bad. It could be much worse.
” She could fear the tears welling up again and tried to turn her face from Raf’s line of sight.
“It could be worse, certainly, but there’s no reason to live here, Graciela. You don’t need to be out in the middle of nowhere all alone.”
“What would you suggest I do then?” she asked, a spark of anger flaring inside of her. Water was rushing over her cheeks, and she tried to wipe it away discreetly.
“Well.” Rafael paused, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just for a little while.” He cleared his throat. “Come live with me.”
She couldn’t help turning back toward him then to gauge if he was serious, but when she did his expression changed, his eyes filling with concern. “Grace,” he whispered, reaching out a hand.
She didn’t stop him as he pressed the pad of his thumb to one of her tears. Then he let out breathy laugh. “I didn’t realize just the idea of living with me would make you cry. I promise it wouldn’t be that terrible.”
She laughed in spite of everything and shook her head. The idea of living with him was completely ridiculous, but she appreciated his generosity. She never would have expected him to be so soft and comforting.
“Come on, princesa,” he continued. “What do you say?”