Chapter Eight #2
“Ay, por supuesto. You know you don’t have to ask. It will always be your home.” Mamí paused in the kitchen. “?Esta en dos semanas, sí?”
“Sí.”
“Bien,” she said, turning to rejoin my father outside.
Two weeks to get my head on straight so the next time I saw my best friend, it wasn’t obvious how frequently I thought of her boyfriend.
—
The weeks passed in a blur of filming, editing, and responding to comments. Alex and I exchanged messages sporadically because with the Scorpions in the playoffs, his schedule had been insane. As it was, attending homecoming was only possible for him because the team had a bye week.
While my communications with Alex had tapered, Denise and I managed to grab lunch and met at the gym to work out together a handful of times.
I also invited her to join us for the homecoming festivities, but she was on deadline for a project at work and would be in the office all weekend.
I was disappointed not to have her company, a fact reiterated now as I sat beside Alex in my Volvo as we made our way down Interstate 10 in Friday afternoon gridlock.
A pleasing hint of Alex’s cologne filled my senses with every inhalation, and I wasn’t mad about it.
“Thank you for driving,” he said, extending an open tray of Red Vines in my direction. “Caitlin mentioned that you don’t really like to drive, so I appreciate it.”
Snagging a piece of licorice, I snapped a bite before using it to gesture at the traffic around us. “Driving is not something we’re meant to enjoy. It’s a means to an end and nothing more.”
“A very practical way of looking at it.”
Something in his tone had me glancing at Alex askance, and I found him staring out the windshield with a quirk to his mouth. The amused expression sparked my defensiveness.
“If everyone on the road operated their vehicles with even an ounce of common sense and respect for their fellow drivers, maybe driving wouldn’t be such a frustrating activity.
” I thrust my chin toward the minivan in the lane in front of me.
“Take this Odyssey, for example. They’re driving in the fast lane but they’re not going fast.”
“They’re going five miles over the speed limit,” Alex pointed out.
My scoff reverberated my throat. “As I said, they’re not going fast. The fast lane is for drivers with ticket money. If you don’t have ticket money, move over.”
And with a few taps on the dashboard screen, “Move Bitch” by Ludacris pounded through my speakers, the music only barely covering Alex’s snicker.
He turned in his seat to watch as I sang the lyrics to the song, the smallest smile playing on his lips as I zipped in and out of traffic, finally turning on the cruise control when we were several miles south of the Phoenix area.
The dusty desert interstate stretched out in front of us, and I finally felt I could settle in for the drive.
“You are an intimidating woman, Sofia Mendoza,” Alex murmured. There was admiration in his voice that made my chest light.
“You are not the first person to tell me that,” I said dryly, darting my gaze to him for a moment.
He shook his head. “I’m sure I’m not. But I hope that when it’s been said to you, it was said as a compliment.”
A muffled snort was my best answer.
“Let me guess.” Alex leaned back, propping his elbow on the windowsill. “Someone you used to work with at your old job told you that you needed to be more approachable”—he made air quotes—“if you wanted to be successful in the corporate world.”
“You know marketing bros well.” My lip curled as I remembered the bullshit bro culture that flourished at Desert Media 360.
The happy hours and barbecues were nothing but an excuse for the guys in the office to drink and socialize under the guise of “team building.” For the first time since I had been laid off, I was thankful I didn’t have to worry about that toxic environment anymore.
“That I do,” he murmured, glancing out the window.
“Every head office has a different culture, and sometimes I’ve enjoyed it and sometimes I’ve done my part to make it better.
Thankfully, the Scorpions have fostered a positive environment and the staff is pretty diverse. I feel lucky to be a part of it.”
That was…nice. “You’re lucky. I keep running headlong into dude bros determined to reduce me and my experience to my sex. Even a few of the guys I met on dating apps wanted to take a cheap shot at my career.”
“Did they really?” Alex swung his head to look at me. “Do you date frequently?”
I lifted a shoulder. “No, not really. I went on a few dates here and there after I broke up with my ex just to feel something, but I quickly learned that meeting men on those apps was just asking for a headache.”
Alex was quiet for a moment and then he asked, softly, “How long has it been since your breakup?”
My mouth suddenly felt dry, and I swallowed. “Four years.”
From the corner of my eye I saw him nod. I braced myself for more questions, but they didn’t come. After a few minutes, I exhaled a relieved breath.
I abruptly realized that maybe I should ask him about Caitlin.
About how their relationship was going. How they managed to make it work with her in New York and him in Arizona…
but I couldn’t bring myself to shape the words.
It was the reason why I hadn’t asked Caitlin the same questions.
With any of her other boyfriends, I wanted to ensure he was treating her well.
That her partner made her happy, because my friend deserved happiness.
But the thought of knowing any more about Caitlin and Alex’s relationship felt like splinters under my fingernails.
So instead of voicing those polite questions, I switched the music to a Bad Bunny album and held my silence.
But maybe Alex was thinking of Caitlin, too, because he asked, “So how did you and Caitlin meet? She said you two were roommates or something.”
“We were roommates.” My mood instantly brightened as I reflected on those early days of my friendship with Caitlin.
“Our freshman year. My parents live close to campus, but they wanted me to have the full university experience, so I lived in the dorms my first two years. On move-in day, there I was, trying to shove my clothes in the narrow box they called a closet, when the door opened and this stunning, stylish blonde walked in. I remember being instantly nervous because she looked so perfect. I thought there was no way she could actually be nice.”
Alex frowned. “Why did you think that?”
“Because I had met girls like her before. Or so I thought.” I glanced in the rearview mirror and flipped on my turn signal, easing into the fast lane to avoid a slower car.
“There was a group of girls in high school who were pretty, in that conventional way you see in movies or on TV. And because they were pretty, they were popular, and they used their popularity to act like bitches to others.”
“If being pretty made someone popular, surely you were prom queen or something.”
A flutter started low in my gut, and I whipped my head to meet Alex’s gaze.
He was staring back at me as if what he said hadn’t just sent my stupid heart careening into the atmosphere like a bottle rocket.
It seemed ridiculous for me to be so goddamn elated that Alex thought I was attractive, but as I had learned time and time again in the months since I’d met him, Alex Castillo knew exactly how to leave me breathless.
But there was no way in hell I was going to let him know it.
“Even if I was as pretty as those girls, I was a Latina with a mass of curly black hair and more curves than I knew what to do with. Those girls never let me forget I was different from them.” And thank God I was.
I was proud to be Puerto Rican and loved my heritage, but teenage Sofia, like most teenagers I’d wager, had just wanted to fit in.
“So you thought Caitlin would be like one of those high school girls?” Alex asked.
I nodded. “I did. But she took one look at me, rushed over, and threw her arms around me in a giant hug. I still remember what she said. ‘We’re going to have so much fun together.’ And we did, and still do.”
“Aside from that first night we met”—Alex huffed a breath—“well, met in person, I haven’t seen you and Caitlin together.”
“Well, you’ll have a chance to see us in action this weekend. We’ll be at our old stomping grounds, and I’m looking forward to our trip down memory lane.”
We spent the next hour swapping stories from college. Alex talked about choosing to attend Villanova because it was closer to his sister Elena, who was attending Temple University at the time.
“I’m a Wildcat, too,” he said, with a pleased expression.
Alex spoke of how he’d started college studying physiology because he wanted to be a physical therapist. He had a work-study with the athletic department and was shadowing a trainer during the men’s basketball team practice.
“We were chatting about protocols for when an athlete is injured during a game and I noticed the social media team filming a video of the guys doing dunks. But their angle was all wrong.” I glanced over to see Alex grinning in memory, his dimple winking.
“Social media was very different then than it is now, and I knew that if they wanted to share the video on Twitter, they would need to take a different approach. So I excused myself, walked over, and demonstrated how they needed to get two shots—one from under the rim and the other from the sidelines. They took my advice, edited the videos together, and posted it to the university’s Twitter page. And it went crazy viral.”
I turned to look at him, my eyes wide. “It did?”
He nodded, smugness oozing off of him. “The biggest video they ever had. The social media team hunted me down in the trainer’s office to ask for my help with more videos, and I agreed.”
“Is that how you made the change from physiology to marketing?”