Thirty
Celia took a healthy swig from the wine bottle, then rested her hands in her lap. She would remind León how emotional honesty was done.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do about tomorrow,” she said, finally answering his question. Faint thunder outside punctuated the tight admission. “Probably the power will come back on, the food will be fine, or it can be replaced. It’ll go as well as it can go.”
“Sure,” he agreed, reaching for the wine. Casual.
“This is only the first unexpected twist, the first of many things I can’t plan for. Construction has been the easy part, and it’s about to get real.”
He nodded as she took a deep breath.
The warmth from the tart, fruity wine hadn’t reached her hands yet. They pricked with cold. “I’m scared, León,” she said. “It could fail. I have no control, no power over what’s going to happen.”
He pursed his lips, setting the bottle on the glass with a dull clink. “You have some power,” he said.
She shook her head, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I can pay to have this place built, but the people, they’ll be unpredictable. I have to make rules, and not everyone will like them. What if someone is rude or a bully? Or worse?”
León’s solemn dark eyes never left hers, like on that first day when his gaze left her unable to speak. She could dig deeper now, but how deep?
“Whatever goes wrong,” she said, “and there will be something, it’ll be my fault. I’m in charge. I took that stupid money, and rather than do something useful, I gambled on this—this vanity project! A playground for myself to play patron in. Did I do it for them or for me?”
Her hand fluttered to her lips, trembling. Her stomach churned.
Hell. These were questions she hadn’t said aloud, even in her own head. Pretending to be generous, in control, then realizing it was all a farce? The pain was sharp and unexpected.
“Hey,” he said, stretching a hand near hers but carefully leaving a distance between them.
···
Golden light had always turned her wide eyes that lovely gray-green. León wanted to drown in them.
His muscles ached with the strain of acting relaxed. He didn’t want to spook her or interrupt this emotional gift. Look at her, open and engaged and luminous.
“Starting something new is scary,” he agreed slowly. “Things can go wrong. You’ll just keep doing what you can. A lot of people don’t even do that much. You’re brave, and you try.”
She shook her head, a quiver in her lower lip. “Brave? I knew I could get this built and ready to open. I enjoyed it. But now what? What happens next?”
“Celia, that’s what’s brave,” he said. “You can be proud of this!” He swallowed as she looked down at her twining fingers. “I’m glad you didn’t settle for just helping me paint. This is more.”
A flash of silent lightning strobed in, capturing her still image in a frozen moment. Celia, listening.
“I was wrong about Incubadora being just a project,” he said. These words, he’d rehearsed late at night. “You invested yourself fully in something you believe in. It shows who you are.”
She closed her eyes. “Giving the cash straight to artists would have helped just as much. Instead, I built a place for myself. It’s so selfish.”
“You committed everything you have. How is that selfish?” he asked. “Your time, your money, even where you live! If they can’t be grateful to you for giving them literally everything you can….” He paused.
His mother’s words flooded through him, and he dropped his face into his hands.
“What?” Celia asked, her wary voice close.
Heat flushed slowly through him. Idiota. Slowly, he lowered his hands, finding her gaze on him, unwavering. Even the candlelight was still in the moment.
“That was me,” he said, his pulse a drumbeat in his head. “I did that. You gave me everything, and I asked for more. How could you feel like it was enough? I’m so sorry, Celia.”
She sat mute, giving away nothing. He could count his heartbeats, waiting for her to move. Then she reached carefully for the wine and took a slow drink. There, the slightest proud curve to her neck, finally a reaction.
“I felt like I gave enough,” she said, and his heart stopped.
Felt? Gave? Past tense? What else did he have to offer her if his long-overdue apology was passed over?
She fixed him with a straight look. “Why did you come back like this?”
Her unexpected question was punctuated by another growl of thunder. His mind blanked, and suddenly León could only see her fingers curled around the bottle, the delicate goosebumps on her coppery forearms. He swallowed, fumbling for any thought.
“Really,” she pressed. “Why are you helping me like we’re just friends?”
His knee began bouncing as he averted his face, pretending to look at the windows. Rehearsals for this question had never gone well in his head, and this one counted.
Truth, just give her the truth. “I couldn’t think of any other way to be near you. I hoped I could show you I’m different.”
He looked back. Even in the dim light, Celia’s cheeks burned with bright red spots.
León reached for the neck of the wine bottle, and she pulled her hands away to give him space to take it. He tipped it up to his lips, partly for courage and partly to stall. Still, she sat silent.
“I know,” he said, painfully aware of what was at stake. “I promised it before. ‘I’ll do better, one more chance.’” He snorted. The audacity he’d had! “But I learned. I’m listening. You see it, right? No more ego or demands about posing.”
A light slowly dawned in her eyes.
“That’s why you’re not painting.” Her forehead creased. “You think it was about the painting?”
“It was about me getting my way,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “I know that. But the painting is part of it. I thought…Celia, I thought if I could make art, authentic art, it excused everything else. My parents’ help, your work, I would deserve it if I could really paint.”
Her face swam in his eyes, dizzying adrenaline plunging through him. Please, Celia. Please.
“León, your art never had anything to do with it,” she said softly. “The posing, the cooking, it wasn’t for the paintings. It was for you.”
He groped for his chest, fingers splayed, and drew a breath as the world regained its dark balance.
She’d looked at him with that gentleness before, across the kitchen island, in the pool. His shoulders actually twitched as he stopped himself from reaching for her. Wait. Breathe. Tranquilo.
···
His corded forearms and tense neck didn’t frighten Celia. They were familiar signs, this coiling León did before pouncing. She watched him restrain himself but not relax.
The heat spreading through her had nothing to do with wine. He wanted her still. Could it be up to her to say yes? Was she the one to decide?
“Painting clouded everything,” he said low. “I stopped so I could see, and the picture was rotten. I was so entitled. Now I’m just, I don’t know, some guy on your crew. But a better guy, maybe.”
His chin drooped, fingers balling into fists in his lap. His breathing was shallow. Hers matched it.
“You were always a good guy, León,” she said. “That first painting lesson you gave me, I’ll never forget how kind you were that day.” She waved toward the black room. “You came back here tonight and listened to me whine about being scared. I do know that my feelings matter to you.”
“Matter?” he exploded.
She sat back in surprise as his chair squawked back and he shot to his feet. He pointed that damn finger at her.
“I’ve begged to know your feelings! I kept telling you, I want to paint everything inside you! I’ve at least been clear about that!”
She stood as well, breaths coming harder, but not wary like in the past. She knew him. This was León at peak expression, all his whipcord drama frustrated. That illicit thrill ran up her spine. Finally, truth.
“You always held back on me,” he gritted. “Always.”
“I know.” There. Some truth back.
He clutched the back of the chair, knuckles white. “Why? What did I do?”
“It wasn’t about you.”
A broken, mirthless laugh escaped him.
“First, I couldn’t speak at all,” she said. “Then I could barely tell you the bad things. But I always held back the good things, and the more you pressed, the harder it got to say them.”
He frowned ferociously at the floor, jaw set.
She lifted her chin. “If I showed you the worst and you left, I would know why. I expected it.”
“If I left?” he scoffed, fingers working tightly on the chair.
“León, I couldn’t be your muse.”
He spun to pace, a few desperate feet back and forth before her and the candles. “I know, I pushed too hard, that stupid argument about belonging. I was wrong. I wanted to be closer to you and didn’t care how I got it.” He stopped, his eyes beseeching, the distance still gaping between them. “I still want that, and if that means never painting again, well…I quit painting.”
“It’s not that, León! I’m the one that failed!”
In his confused silence, another slice of lightning split the room.
“You said we needed trust, and I didn’t trust….” Her throat choked unexpectedly.
She couldn’t even say the words! Staying silent was the only power she’d ever had. She drew a stuttering breath, the air too thin.
She felt herself standing on the edge again, the world dropping off before her. Did she jump this time?
Slowly, she rose and walked to him. His eyes burned with that old terrible hope.
He joined her in the dark, stopping only before they touched. Their eyes met, their breaths mirrored, but the bare handspan between them lay deep as a canyon.
“Reina, I want one more chance.”
“And if I say no?”
He took a ragged breath. “Please don’t,” he said, low.
“What if I say no?”
“Then, I just keep trying to be someone you want to say yes to.”
Her heart felt like it might tear open and pour out all her words.
She jumped.
“León, I love you.”
His expression only grew more sorrowful.
“Don’t you dare say that unless I can stay,” he said, voice breaking.
She choked on a laugh that was half sob.
“Yes. Stay.”
He reached for her, and the world lit up; music soared.
···
León buried his face in her neck, breathing in her longed-for scent, hands wrapping around that beloved curve of her waist, crushing her to him.
“Cielito, reina, my Celia,” he repeated against her skin, words cascading like the rain that battered the world outside. Electricity hummed between them, his eyes squeezed shut against a painful radiance, the thrum of their joint heartbeats echoing through his bones.
“León!” she gasped, and he withdrew by inches, eager to see her face—
Jesus!
The loft had burst into color and life. Light blossomed around them into the fathomless dark, the rain outside reduced to rushing by the swells of music. Every jeweled hue glowed, rich red brick warmly surrounding pools of blue, flares of goldenrod, lush shocks of green.
“The power!” she squealed.
Overwhelmed by the boundless spectrum, León closed his eyes. The chaos of color and form he wanted was already cradled against his chest. He couldn’t help the joyful, relieved amusement that bubbled up, though, and it sent her into giddy peals, arms twining around his neck.
He couldn’t stand still, lifting Celia by her waist and spinning her around, their laughter rippling through the melody surrounding them.