Twenty Seven
Celia returned to her front desk, leaving behind the misty day to rejoin Kelsey in the cavernous red brick warehouse. The sound of drilling on the floor above welcomed her back to work, a symphony of sawdust echoing off the lofty ceilings. Hector had gladly promised to move in on opening day—one more puzzle piece was in place!
She tensed as León followed through the door behind her. This was new; he usually lit off to his pursuits after fifteen minutes in her presence. She eyed him cautiously, moving quickly to put the desk between them as he loped up, radiating that energy she remembered so well. She’d seen that beatific smile when he finished a painting, and the heat it ignited in her belly was a warning: look away or bear the futile, painful wanting.
“Hector is coming to live here,” Celia told Kelsey, who still lounged in the single desk chair with her feet on a box, waiting to finish the social media plan.
“The first resident!” León crowed.
Kelsey raised one eyebrow at him. “You found one, huh? You’re quite the little worker.”
He ignored her to watch Celia avidly. His thumb was tapping against his thigh in that old familiar way. “There are a lot of beds to fill,” he said.
“One less now,” Celia said, blood thrumming at the change in him. His casual friendliness of the last weeks had melted away. This was the spirited León she remembered, eagerly bouncing when she had time to pose, his face alight as he woke her with questions in the morning. Mi cielo, he used to say.
The drill upstairs whined to a stop, silence emptying the room as Kelsey lowered her feet and turned the chair to watch the show. The chair’s soft squeak and Kelsey’s toes tapping against the dusty concrete floor echoed in the charged silence.
León stood on his toes, fingers tight on the edge of the desk, his arms stiff.
“I can’t stay on Andrew’s couch forever,” he said, eyes burning into her. “Maybe this type of group living is right for me.”
Oh.
Good lord.
León living one floor below her? There was only one way that could end. One of them would fly a white flag, and it would be all over.
Celia suddenly saw herself at the top of the black stairs, her eyes adjusting to the night-filled room below her, weak with apprehension but unable to stop herself from descending. He’d be awake, waiting for her, hoping. She’d approach as he lay in his dormitory bed, his face serious, eyes dark as he watched her come. He would slide the covers away, and she would climb onto the bed on hands and knees, her skin barely skimming across his, his quiet, shaky gasp welcoming her as—
Kelsey kicked at her ankle.
Celia’s held breath escaped in a rush. No. It would kill her to touch him again without returning to what they’d had, and she couldn’t go back to being trampled over.
She refocused to see him watching her with poorly concealed interest, so she shook her head, leaning one hip against the desk to steady her tense body. “Maybe there are other places like this, for established artists like you.”
He went still, the light draining out of him. “Sure. Maybe.”
He wasn’t going to fight her?
Muffled thumps shook the floor above and the drill started again, filling the echoing space with the familiar song of construction. Her stomach still in knots, Celia watched as León’s casual mantle stole back over him, his shoulders lowering and expressive face softening into a polite mask.
Celia couldn’t pretend as easily. For a minute she thought León had finally shown his hand. But if he had come back for her, why didn’t he press like he used to?
“If you’re done distracting Celia,” Kelsey said, “we could finish this work in ten minutes.”
“I’m done for now,” León replied, stuffing his hands in his pants pockets.
Kelsey clambered from the chair, one hand pressed to her lower back. “Good.”
Carlos appeared on the stairs, juggling an armful of sawn boards. He dropped a short one, which clattered musically down the iron steps. Celia stifled the urge to go pick it up.
“You could help me,” Kelsey was saying to León. “I want to tweet some neighborhood reactions to Incubadora. Positive ones.”
“Sure,” he replied.
Celia snuck a look at him. His attention to Kelsey felt off, artificial. It had been so easy to understand what he wanted before they broke up. Where was that honesty he’d always railed about?
Kelsey moved a sticky note to a new place on the calendar. “Hang out. We can talk after this.”
León shrugged, offering a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his dark eyes.
He hadn’t pushed back at all. Why wasn’t he fighting, burning with the same intensity that once defined him? Who was he now? The uncertainty was a vise, squeezing tight around her heart.
Celia looked over her shoulder at the black iron stairs, offering escape up to distracting work, up to her new loft home. For the first time, she saw an echo of her father’s black iron bridge; another way of escape. She clenched her jaw. No. She was better than that.
···
León stuffed the rejection deep down, ignoring the sinking feeling in his gut. It had been a long shot, and ill-timed due to his pleasure at landing Hector for her. She’d considered having him here, though! He’d seen her body respond, that pink blush creeping up her neck like the slow bloom of a morning rose.
The damned drill noise stopped again, and the board-carrying bigshot Carlos disappeared through a back alcove. Celia had wanted to go help the tall klutz; he’d seen her stifle a step in his direction. León risked a peek at her.
She still looked toward the stairs, the lovely familiar line of her neck and jaw like the curve of a river, her shoulders inching back as she stood taller and looked back to the front desk.
As if a cold gust of wind had blown straight through the room, Celia suddenly froze, snapping rigidly to attention. Her eyes grew round with terror.
León’s skin prickled, a shiver tracking down his spine. What… why? Her eyes were riveted past him, on the front door. Frowning, he glanced quickly too, seeing a short, vague figure outside, a silhouette cupping a hand to the fogged glass to look in.
“Oh no,” Celia breathed, her whisper nearly lost in the vast space. She was pale as death, her face suddenly as blank as an untouched canvas.
The figure entered, an older woman well-bundled against the damp weather. She was petite and graying, her champagne-toned anorak beaded with mist as if she had walked through a cloud, her neutral light-eyed gaze taking in the empty brick warehouse.
“Good morning,” Kelsey chirped, slipping into her La Creche sales voice. “We’re not open yet, but do you have a question?”
“A few.” The woman smiled absently, her footsteps a soft tip-tap against the concrete floor as she walked to the front desk. “I have been leaving you voice mails for weeks, Celia Rose.”
León gasped. No way. No goddamn way.
Kelsey still had no idea. “Our grand opening is in two days. Do you live nearby?”
“No,” the woman said. “I’m visiting.”
She didn’t look like a monster. She seemed polite, comfortably social. Sort of like a retired teacher or office manager. She had a competent air, her presence solidly normal.
A glance at Celia was alarming. She was stiff as a ramrod, her posture as rigid as the steel beams that framed the warehouse, but her blank face told him everything. A protective rush flooded through him. He stood at the ready to help, as soon as she gave any hint of what she wanted.
···
Mom was here, and she was mad.
Celia could see her anger in the flinty fractional narrowing of her eyelids, the thin creases at the corner of her mouth, the smoothly deliberate restraint in her walk. Celia was dead in her sights. Careful, her trapped body crooned, careful….
“We’re not open,” León said. He sounded different, hard-edged.
Mom flickered a glance through him, dismissing him immediately. “What is this place?”
Celia’s voice, small and cracked, sounded far away. “How did you know about….”
Kelsey’s head tilted.
“I thought your phone number might have changed,” her mother said. “I put your name in Google and saw this place.”
“I said we’re not open!” León said louder. Celia wanted to look at him, encourage him to say it again, draw some strength from the steel she heard in his voice, but she was pinned by Mom’s gimlet eyes.
“I stopped at your house first, but no one was there.” She lifted her hand, bulging purse dangling from her fingers, a loose charging cord hanging out of the top and whipping about as she waved it. “I’ve got bags. The least you can do is give me a room. And your new phone number.”
Kelsey gasped, then stepped sideways to stand next to Celia.
Celia barely felt the lump in her throat, the frantic stutter of breath. The verbal beating was inevitable, her friends here to witness her shame. Cowering wouldn’t save her. It never had. She was small and lightheaded, powerless and unlovable, called to answer for her failures. She looked frantically at her black iron stairs but knew escape had never been an option. Her Incubadora closed in on her, no beat of activity, no melody of construction.
Cornered and mute, a frantic drumbeat in her chest, she was finally driven to stand.
Kelsey’s hand softly touched her back. León stood poised to protect.
From a strength borrowed and built, she chose.
“No.”
“No?!” Mom’s voice was a whip crack, echoing in the high rafters. She raised a thin hand to her throat in hurt disbelief. “You’re really going to turn your back on your own mother?”
Wheedling, Celia tried. “Mom. Please. I’m just… I am doing what’s best for me.”
“And what about me?” Mom stinging voice rose, sharp and pointed.
“I’ve taken care of you! You have the house, everything is paid—”
“I mean, you refusing to talk to me. Incredible!”
Celia’s fingernails bit into her palms. “No, you said….”
With a sorrowful pity in her downturned mouth, her mother sighed. “You’re confused. This isn’t how an adult handles things, Celia Rose.”
“Maybe,” Celia conceded, a chill sinking through her. “I know I’m confused. That’s why I need time on my own to figure it out.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “Figure what out? I can’t go through your dramatics again, poor little Celia! What did I do? I never thought my own child would abandon me like this.”
“Mom,” Celia begged, “please don’t.”
León dropped an arm across the desk with a thump, a barrier between them. “She said no.” His voice had never sounded so steely. It rang up Celia’s spine like a bell. Kelsey’s palm pressed firmly against Celia’s back, a warm reminder that it was there.
Mom turned her affronted glare on León and Kelsey in turn. “You’re being influenced,” she declared. “You would never do this otherwise.”
Probably true! Celia’s friends…those beside her now, Andrew who knew the antidote, Trevor with his story in the alcove. Her found family.
“I’m sticking with people who lift me up,” she said.
Biting back a laugh, her mother raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, that’s rich! After everything I’ve done for you!”
“Maybe I will regret this,” Celia placated. “I don’t know.”
Kelsey whispered, almost to herself, “Celia, no.”
Mom skewered her with a look, brows low, lips set in a line. Her coiled stillness held the promise of a slap. “Is this really what you want, Celia? To hurt your mother?”
Silent dust motes floated through the weight of years. A collective breath was held.
“No.”
Her mother raised her chin, righteous.
“I’ll get you a hotel,” Celia finished. “I’ll tell them to call you with directions.” She heard Kelsey release a long breath. From León, there was only tense silence.
Mom goggled. “Has your mind snapped?”
“No.” The single word was a shield.
“You stop this craziness right now, Celia Rose.”
Celia breathed. “No.”
León finally took his eyes off her mother, risking a look at Celia. She met his dark, ready gaze and understanding flared between them. He inclined his head slightly to the door, raising his eyebrows. She replied with a barely perceptible nod.
León took Celia’s mother by the elbow. She jumped, mouth open, but didn’t struggle as he firmly walked her out of the building.