Chapter 37
Miriam
Iam not cut out for turning up.
This weekend was a reminder of why I keep my butt in the house. I spent two nights in Toronto with my sister, and it only took one to realize that regret would be in the room with us until we checked out.
Marcela wasted no time getting the weekend started. Our three-hour drive to Toronto ended in a late boozy lunch and checking into our hotel.
By five, we were out for dinner. Two hours later, we pregamed at her line sister’s house like we were in undergrad and not nearing perimenopause.
By ten, I was in a lounge with Marcela and her friends with a dead phone, sore feet, and a forgotten charger.
Could I have picked one up earlier in the day?
Yes. Did I keep my battery life in its coffin in order to not revive thoughts of Antonio? Also yes.
He goes silent before a game, doesn’t check messages or talk to anyone except his coaches or teammates. I figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to revert back to life in the Stone Age since he’s usually busy anyway.
I miss him. His laughter, and how easy life is when he’s around.
It’s impossible not to think about him physically now that our toes went over the line, but I’m trying.
I try to forget his hard body exerting energy on the field in those tiny shorts.
Or the parts of said body that almost put me through a mattress.
Especially if they’re satisfying other women.
With a new season comes new hookups and “old friends” who are apparently back in town. But do they know the real him?
Does Kenya get pieces of his joy, the Ace Ventura dance he does when he finds a snack buried in the pantry?
How he lights up during off-season, when he gets to just exist in sweats, a tee, and no obligations?
Or when hotels have two-ply toilet paper and prioritize liquid soap over recycled bars that resemble prison weapons after use?
Antonio is more than his looks and his wallet. He’s one of the best people I know, with a heart bigger than every muscle on his body. A heart that draws me to him in ways I never predicted. We’re magnets, total opposites in every way, and it’s getting harder to fight the pull.
Distraction was my cognitive strategy to bury the feelings that followed me home from Vegas.
Keeping myself busy was starting to work.
Until Sunday, when he blew up Marcela’s phone looking for me.
I won’t lie and say it didn’t feel good for him to call her three times on his way to the airport.
He got a tongue lashing in English and Spanish for bothering her before eight a.m., but he didn’t care.
Ten minutes later, the concierge delivered a new charger to our room. I scrolled through the messages he left, but only one sent my heart through the wall.
We need to talk.
“Toro Mata” trumpets through my tiny kitchen. Celia Cruz always makes everything better, but she’s doing nothing to calm my nerves right now.
What’s so important that he’d get me a charger in a different country? He’s not injured. The hospital would’ve called me since I’m still his emergency contact.
I expel a sharp breath and lift the ladle to my mouth to sip the sancocho that’s been simmering on the stove for the last hour. When life becomes a complicated mess, I cook.
Rice with pigeon peas.
Patacones.
Potato salad.
It will take a week to eat through everything myself. Five pounds added to my hips, and I’ll still be right here thinking about the potential soft launch of his first relationship. The chemistry between them was obvious based on what little I saw from the interview.
Kenya seems nice. She looks like she flosses regularly, does charity work, and gets to see him more during the rugby season.
I should be happy at the possibility of my friend finding love.
That’s a big step, and I wish him a lifetime of happiness with whoever he chooses.
Any woman would be lucky. Antonio is sweet. And hung.
I sigh and shake my head. Here I go, thinking about another woman’s man. I know better.
We’ll both find life partners at some point, and I don’t want to lose him. If we want any chance of maintaining our friendship, we can’t be so close. The texts, the late-night calls before Vegas. His skilled mouth on me.
That last one. Whew.
Focus.
The point is, I’m not supposed to fall for him.
With the burner off, I shuffle to an overhead cabinet for a bowl and scream at the figure on my back porch. It’s more of an eep!, one Celia’s version of the Afro-Peruvian classic smothers. So much for signaling my pending doom to the neighbors.
I twist down the dial on the portable music player Antonio bought. Another housewarming gift that fits perfectly with my retro-style kitchen. It will be the final memory I have before the person outside of my home goes on a murdering spree and steals my food.
Hiding isn’t an option. The blinds are up on the back door. Whoever is out there has a full view of me frozen in place like a deer before it messes up your deductible. The window isn’t big enough to climb through. Breaking in through the door is a different story.
I’m not ending up on The First 48.
I reach for a weapon and startle at a tap.
“Doe, it’s me,” Antonio says against glass now painted with his breath.
“Why didn’t you go to the front?”
“I did. I rang the doorbell, and I called.”
I wipe the sweat from my brow and roll my eyes at the tongs in my hand. What was I going to do with these, flip him over in a skillet?
I expected him to be on my front porch when I got home around noon. He wasn’t, and he’s been silent since yesterday’s vague text, which I have yet to decipher. My exasperated sigh becomes a gasp when I open the door.
Light from the kitchen streaks the edges of Antonio’s face. Our gazes catch like it’s the first time we’re seeing each other, but it’s only been two weeks—fifteen days, if we want to be specific.
My bare feet retreat on their own once he steps inside and locks the door.
His eyes slide down the blue paisley midi dress I wear around the house and land on my cotton candy pedicure.
My kitchen is functional, but it’s tiny.
Now that he’s sucked all the air out of the room, it feels the size of a dollhouse.
“Food.” I blink away the lust clouding my judgment and my urge to crack a window. “I made food. For dinner.” I fumble with the spatula and stir sancocho that doesn’t need stirring. Fluffing rice and checking an oven I never turned on buy me time to slow my heart rate.
My breath gets more audible with every step he takes to reach me. His chest rises and falls when it makes contact with my back, the hard ridges of muscle under a cream Henley pressed firmly against me.
Do not inhale his pheromones. He must be jet-lagged. Maybe a little high.
I do a Jean-Claude Van Damme split reaching for a formula or equation, something to focus on that’s not Antonio’s hands trailing up my arms, which are now peppered in goosebumps.
“I missed you,” he says, prickling the tiny hairs on my neck.
“Yes, same.” I double-check that all of the burners are off.
He must really be jet-lagged. “It’s part of the season, right?
You away in different cities.” An image of him impaling Kenya flares my nostrils.
Be his friend. “Meeting new people and playing different teams. Old friends. Do you want rice? It has pigeon peas. Not sure if you’ve had them before, but they have a nutty flavor.
” Don’t think about nuts. “Great source of protein and iron.”
“Miriam.” His thumbs rest over the straps of my dress.
What is he doing?
“Th-the patacones are a little crispy but they still taste good.”
“Miriam.”
“This confuses me,” I whisper, damn near out of breath. Between my stomping heartbeat and the sensation building between my thighs, I’m at my limit. “Whatever this is has to stop.” I won’t let him mess up his first relationship.
“Yeah?” His voice is low, rough.
“Yes.” I swallow a moan at the heat from his fingers down my back.
Be strong.
“I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” I say.
“I won’t let us,” he counters, twirling a curl from my twist-out between his fingers.
Be strong.
I grab the skillet. “What about Kenya? A-aren’t you together?”
“Not even close. She’s not the one I think about.”
Bitch, be strong!
My breath hitches at his hand on mine. Every ounce of resolve drains from my body.
“If we cross this line—“
“We already did.”
I turn just enough to look him in the eyes. The air is knocked out of me when Antonio’s mouth crashes onto mine. His hands hold my face as he tilts my head to suck on my lips. I stumble at the force of his body pushing against mine before I’m lifted into the air.
Where the hell is my strength?
Girl, it’s gone.
His lips on my skin isn’t what shocks me. What shocks me is that I’m kissing him back.
A moan slips, and he chases it with his tongue. My arms wrap around his neck as our kiss deepens. Searching. Unleashing.
He walks us to my kitchen table and clears it with a swipe of his hand. The salt and pepper shakers and the lemon bowl I spent an hour rearranging crash to the floor.
“Sorry,” he mumbles against my mouth.
“It’s o—“ I groan at the erection pressed between my parted legs. My hips buck, an invitation for him to rock the weight of his length into my center.
“Let me take care of you,” Antonio says, showering kisses down my neck.
I lean back on my palms, anchored to the table. At no point does common sense activate to tell me that this is a bad idea. My common sense is grabbing her ankles in the air.
My breasts are in his face, and he caresses them, massaging the plump curves between his hands.
I widen my legs so his tongue can continue its voyage down my body.
Our eyes meet, and I bite my bottom lip when he pinches my nipple between his fingertips.
Cotton skates over my sensitive buds, and I free them with the push of my straps.
He’s practically drooling when he dives in. The suction of his mouth and the pull of his teeth are enough to send me through the wall. I hiss at the pads of his fingers over my clit, and it becomes a cry when he pushes inside of me. He moans at my lack of panties and pumps in and out.
It should be embarrassing how wet I am. The echo of my desire is louder than Celia Cruz. My hips buck at the pressure building between my legs.
“Fuck my hand.” Antonio pecks my lips and fists my throat. “Yeah, that’s it. Harder, Doe.”
My body must have received a memo that said we like being choked on a kitchen table. My back arches off the table when his other hand presses down on my abdomen. He inserts a third finger and increases his speed.
I jerk from the explosion of pressure, short-circuiting in English and Spanish curse words when I come.
Antonio squats, tossing my legs over his shoulders. I get a kiss to the thigh before he latches on to my engorged hood.
He sucks hard, pulling my clit deeper into his mouth. I push him away once it’s too much, but he pulls me back in. His tongue spreads, and the room spins as his pace quickens.
“Slide it over my beard,” he commands, separating my thighs to lick me in long strokes. His deep moan is all I need to ride him and his beard.
I know for a fact this man licked his plate clean when he was a child.
He meets me thrust for thrust until I come hard.
Antonio kisses up my thighs until his mouth returns to my lips. The scent of his cologne mixes with the taste of my arousal.
“Hi,” he says, his face satisfied.
“Hi.” I’m panting like I ran to the mailbox and back. “Are you hungry?”
He smiles. “I could eat again.”