Chapter 12
Miriam
“You missed a spot.” Antonio motions to the space between my jaw and ear. He dodges one of the new throw pillows I toss at his head. “You started it.”
That I did.
I never had a paint fight, much less one involving gallons. We managed to keep the walls safe, but the floor and furniture covers were casualties. I scrubbed my crack and creases three times to remove the paint from my body. My hair is a lost cause. There are mint green splatters across my coils.
Antonio fared better, with only paint on the beard he washed and all over the shirt and jeans he replaced with sweats and a tee he brought from his place. Our near-foot height difference was not to my advantage. A reminder he hasn’t let me live down.
“Want me to lick it off for you?” A smile toys at his lips.
“You’re such a flirt.” I roll my eyes and dab a napkin from the tray on the end table into my water glass. “Did I get it?”
“Yeah,” he says, a splatter-free poster child of peace, shoveling complex carbs and protein into his body by the mouthful.
We’ve been together over thirteen hours today—not that I’m counting. Aside from my mother’s call and a text from Marcela reminding me about brunch tomorrow, I barely looked at my phone. I don’t have people trying to get in touch with me like Antonio does, but he hasn’t checked his phone either.
I put us straight to work after our trip to the home improvement store.
We painted, sorted through most of my boxes to unpack the lifetime of books I’ve acquired, and built bookcases.
Antonio’s jaw remained on the floor when he learned engineering encyclopedias are a thing.
I’m the proud owner of twelve, including one on vibrations, which he thought was code for something else.
Those vibrations are in a small box inside my bedroom closet. I’ll unpack that one once a certain guest goes home.
“Want more before I kill it?” He lifts his container of citrus barbecue chicken with broccoli and brown rice from the other end of my sofa bed.
“No thanks, I’m stuffed.” I pat my stomach, satisfied with the chicken and rice I inhaled. “Thanks for bringing dinner.”
“I got you.”
Today wiped me out. I was too tired to cook, not that Antonio would have let me if I’d tried. He grabbed two meals from the weekly prep packs he orders for the team. A walking testament to the wonders of good nutrition and big muscles.
The weighted blanket I found at the store swallows me in my pink and white pajama set and everything but his torso. Neither of us has moved since we sat down for dinner. The way my muscles are screaming at me for what little manual labor I did, I’m done for the evening.
Note to self: Find a method of physical fitness you’ll actually tolerate.
As predicted, the dance-offs and paint-tossing banished me to the couch for the evening.
Still.
“I had fun today.”
Antonio mirrors my smile and leans back into his pillow. “Me too.”
The glare from the TV he set up dances across his caramel complexion and the hard slab of his chest. His gaze is a silent expression I struggle to translate, which breaks when his phone rings.
“Excuse me,” he says, halfway off the sofa bed and on his way to my little kitchen that could with the phone to his ear. The ringtone is different than his usual factory-setting jingle. So is the care in his tone when he answers, “Hey.”
Hey, who?
“Not my business,” I say under my breath as I turn onto my side to scroll through movie and show options.
It’s not my place to care about Antonio’s sexual partners. Unless they support something harmful or have secret children.
I’m very much aware of his activities. There are years’ worth of stories, and I’ve seen the texts roll in firsthand like emergency alerts. If you’re sending rapid-fire messages like that, the ding-a-ling must be exceptional.
Antonio is a shower, and he has thumped me a time or two with his—
Stop thinking about his penis!
I flip to a baking competition, which, thankfully, has no phallic symbols that will keep my mind in the gutter.
“Peanut butter blossom cookies are a fine choice,” I say to the screen.
They look like nipples.
So much for baking.
I switch channels with unnecessary aggression and lean over the arm of my sofa bed when I hear faint laughter coming from the kitchen. He’s not visible from the doorway, but his hushed whispers echo in the distance.
What’s so funny?
The living room’s long shadows contour in streaks of light from the TV and the candles scattered around the room. Antonio asked who we were conjuring, like an appreciation for clean-burning soy and relaxing your nervous system through scent means séance. I lit five, not twenty.
The light above the stove keeps him from standing in total darkness while he talks to whoever.
A booty buddy?
A lover?
An enemy he likes to penetrate?
He’s never reacted so quickly to a woman before. That’s a lie. He’s chased plenty with his tongue wagging behind him. But hurdling over the blanket to answer a call? She’s special.
Why do you care?
I don’t. I’m merely acknowledging an observation.
The shuffle of Antonio’s socks over hardwood stirs me into action.
My hand slips off the armrest, which is surprisingly high in this position.
The struggle to lift the half of my body that’s hanging over the arm is another reminder of my lack of physical strength.
I tip forward to catch myself from face-planting.
“What are you doing?” There’s a trace of laughter in Antonio’s voice when he sees my butt tooting in the air.
“Stretching.” I grunt as gravity and my underdeveloped muscles battle it out with my breasts as they try to punch me in the chin. I reach for my glasses, which are slipping off my nose, and buckle further over the edge. “It’s, um, a nighttime routine.”
“A nighttime routine,” he repeats. “Why are your arms shaking?”
I pant. “They’re not.”
“Okay,” he says, not believing a single word out of my mouth, which is about to kiss the ground.
I push off my hands, but that proves to be a mistake. They go limp and send the rest of my body over the sofa arm. I squeak, but my face never connects with the floor.
Protective arms hoist me up by the waist. Every ounce of color would drain from my face if I were upright, but my crack is right under Antonio’s chin.
I can’t verify how close it is to his mouth, but I suspect he could nibble on the cheek meat hanging out of my shorts.
The only thing visible are the three bookshelves lining the wall and mild embarrassment loading.
“You need a helmet,” he jokes. He lays me on the plush mattress like I’m a feather and not the one-eighty he casually lifted like a handbag.
Who is his rugby team’s strength and conditioning coach?
My forehead is battling a downpour of sweat after holding myself up for two minutes. Antonio is a different story. There are no heavy breaths or signs of strained muscles.
But there is a frown etched into his face. “I have to go.”
Oh.
He stuffs his hands into his sweats and looks off. “I’ll send you details about Vegas if you want to come. See you this week for the school bus event to make friends?”
I laugh and adjust my glasses. “It’s not a school bus.”
He shrugs. “It might be. You need a helmet regardless. Come lock up.”
I’m unsure why my chest is tightening at him leaving. He got the boot last night when he attempted to test-drive my sofa. Him sleeping over makes no sense, but leaving so abruptly after a phone call doesn’t sit right with me.
“Is everything okay?” Something happened from the time he was on the phone, trading quiet laughs, to now.
“Yeah,” he sighs. “Need to take care of something, but I’ll check in later.” He pulls me into a hug and kisses the top of my head. “Try not to break anything stretching.”
“Hush.” I try to push him away, but he doesn’t budge. So I sniff his armpit and inhale the fresh scent of his soap and what I assume is oak in his deodorant. “Can’t. Breathe,” I mumble around cotton.
He lets out a short laugh and goes through what’s now his post-bear-hug routine in search of injuries. His eyes soften. “It’s been good spending time with you. I’ve missed it.”
I chuckle. “We never spent time together, unless you count me checking your homework before you went to bed.”
Middle school Antonio was a handful. He’d fight to stay up and ask twenty-six questions about a problem we already solved just to annoy me.
His back straightens, lengthening the distance between the top of my head and his chin. “It counts for me. Lock up, Doe. Goodnight.”
The timbre in his voice lingers long after he leaves. God bless the woman’s organs he’s about to rearrange.
“Knock it off, Miriam.”
I blow out the candles, resettle under the weighted blanket, and fall asleep to a cake bake-off.
No sugary cookie nipples in sight.