Love, in English

  He shrugged and ran his hand through his hair. Though his face was neutral and pose relaxed, I could see his chest heaving slightly, as if this was getting him angry. I couldn’t fucking blame him.

  “Lauren, please,” he started. “With all respect, I do not think you know what you are talking about. Every country has bad, it doesn’t make the people bad and you can not fully understand something else, whether it is another person or a whole country, without being in the shoes. You, being an American, should at least relate to that.” He spoke in a calm and measured voice and a small part of me found myself falling for him. This wasn’t just a physical thing anymore. The man had strength of self and character and damn if I didn’t love it.

  “I don’t understand how being an American has anything to do with it,” she stated. Meanwhile, Sara’s eyes were volleying back and forth between the two and she was sitting on the edge of her seat like it was a tennis match.

  “Well,” Mateo said, getting to his feet so his tall frame was towering over her, “you are coming across as rude and arrogant. It would be wrong of me to say that all Americans are rude and arrogant. Of course, that is not true. It is only you. You, Lauren, are a bicycle. Vete a la mierda. In English, that means go to the shit.”

  With that he got up and held out his hand for me. “We have fifteen minutes left to talk, you and I.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I put my hand in his, shot Sara an apologetic glance and let him bring me to my feet. We walked away from the building and up the path, not heading anywhere in particular. It wasn’t until we were a safe distance away that he dropped my hand. Had it been an act of solidarity or one of affection? All I knew was that my hand now felt empty without his.

  I looked over my shoulder at the reception and dining hall where we could still see the shadowy figures of Sara and Lauren. Poor Sara had totally got roped into Lauren’s weirdo agenda, using something as fun and innocent as our one-on-one sessions and turning them into a self-serving platform for her PC issues.

  “That woman is fucked to shit,” Mateo said under his breath.

  “No kidding.”

  He turned to face me, scrutinizing my face. “I thought it was your first time meeting her on the bus. Do you know her?”

  I shook my head. “No. But I’ve dealt with chicks like her before. By the way, they really hate it if you call them chicks. They take politically correctness and feminism to a whole new hateful place.”

  “Ah, these are these haters,” he said. “The English word has come over here to Spain.”

  “Yeah, haters is one way to describe them. They take anything—feminism, religion, lifestyle choices, art—and they ruin them. They go so extreme that they lose sight of the original goal. Lauren…she’s just bitter and angry and probably hates the fact that I like sex or something. She’s a slut-shaming super femme. I bet you a hundred bucks that her vagina is covered in cobwebs.”

  Mateo burst out laughing again. It was the sweetest sound to my ears. I grinned at him, relishing his joy, and blushing a bit at my words. Sometimes I forgot that I wasn’t always appropriate.

  “You are special, Estrella,” Mateo said, his eyes softening as he gazed at me. I started sucking on my lip, wondering what the hell to say to that. “But,” he went on, looking back to the view, “I do not want to take your bet. I have no doubt that you are right but I do not wish to the one who…verifies it.”

  “Me neither,” I said with a smile.

  The rest of the day went quite well despite the hangovers and the fact that Lauren was a bicycle. For some reason I had thought that it would have reflected badly on me for having had a drunken makeout session with Dave, but it hadn’t, at least not with Mateo or Becca.

  In fact, as the evening rolled around and I had the rest of my one-on-one and business sessions under my belt, I’d actually bumped into Dave as I waited for a free computer. It was awkward for a second and then it intensified when I said, “Sorry about kissing you last night.”

  Luckily, Dave pretty much took it in stride. And by that, I mean he shrugged and said, “It’s cool.”

  And it was cool. After dinner and our activities, which consisted of a very silly, very immature game of forty-person charades, I went to bed early with a smile on my face. I’d survived my second day and I did so feeling like I had people who had my back.

  Chapter Eight

  The next four days rolled on together as one. You would think that because I was speaking to different people each day, that each day, hey, each hour, would stand out. But it didn’t. There were a few Spaniards who I really liked, who made an impression on me: Eduardo and his cute ways, Angel and his innocence, tall, young Ricardo in his earnest enthusiasm, long-haired rocker Manuel, and sexy Nerea with her blue hair, who seemed like me in ten years. But everyone else was just normal, just okay enough, just ordinary people whom I didn’t really have a connection with. So those sessions, well they just kind of blended into one.

  Of course, there was Claudia and Becca and Sammy and occasionally Polly or Beatriz but we pretty much did the same things every night. Eat dinner, take part in the activities, then drink at the bar. I did have to say, that our behaviour—especially the behaviour of the Spaniards—totally loosened up over the days. It became more flagrant, more perverse. I loved it. This was the true side of the Spaniards—they were just finally finding the skill to express their naughty selves in English.

  The only thing that really stood out about the four days was my interaction with Mateo. Once I had him for a business meeting and twice I had him on a one-on-one. Most nights we tried to have a meal together. It wasn’t like a thing we agreed upon, but if he wasn’t looking for me, I was looking for him. I liked that. I liked it a lot, to know that someone was seeking me out.

  On each of those four days, Mateo had asked his questions.

  His first question he asked me was why I studied astronomy. We went for a walk down the country lane, past the oak trees and lavender fields, indulging in this sun-drenched early summer. I told him how I’d fallen in love with the stars at a young age, all because of a book. The Little Prince. I became obsessed with the infinite possibilities of the twinkling lights in the sky. Oddly enough, I had a fear of space—I knew I’d be the last person to ever get on a space shuttle. Space was cold and scary and lonely. But the planets and the stars and the cosmos of forever, they were my own exploration. I could study them, peer through a telescope, map their ever evolving status, putting a piece of myself out there on a journey without ever fully investing myself.

  The next day he asked me what music I listened to. I had a feeling he’d had a one-on-one with Becca before that one came up. As we lay down on the grass in the ever deepening sunshine and I told him I listened to pretty much anything with an edge. The first concert I ever went to was when I was twelve to see the Deftones touring on their self-titled album, stealing Mercy’s ID to get into the show. I liked metal, I liked punk, I liked classic rock—anything with guts and a beat and anything that hummed with sincerity.

  In turn, Mateo gave me snippets of himself. He told me that not only did space scare him too, but his first concert was Aerosmith—I didn’t ask how long ago that was. Since then he’d turned to rock with a singer songwriter slant. He loved Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, all the peeps I could totally get behind.

  The day after that, during another one of our phone calls—this one, he had greatly improved his business sales speech—he asked me how I thought the world would end. It wasn’t exactly the kind of conversation I thought I’d have with him over the phone but it definitely made me think. I ended up stating that we’d all be wiped out by an asteroid, because it was just fitting that something I was interested in would end up killing me.

  Then it was time for question number four. While we were lazing over our last glass of wine at dinner, Mateo asked me about my family, again. Tyler, an uptight ginger from Seattle who had a My Little Pony wallet in a totally non-ir
onic way, and Paco, had long-cleared the table, leaving just the two of us as the waiters made the rounds to collect the empty plates.

  “Tell me, Estrella,” he said slowly, his long, elegant fingers toying with the stem of his wine glass. Oh, he’d also been calling me Estrella for the last few days, something I was enjoying more and more. He gave me a pointed look. “Why don’t you get along with your older sister?”

  I laughed into my glass. “Wow, from the end of the world to family matters again.”

  He gave me the one-shouldered shrug. “I have fourteen days left, I figured why not. The closer we get to goodbye, the harder this will get.”

  Goodbye. I’d first seen him a week ago today, when I got on that bus. Now, goodbye seemed like such a foreign concept. Becca had been totally right about the program and the way people bonded. I couldn’t imagine a life where I wasn’t with all these people, drinking my wine and speaking overly-enunciated English. If this was how I felt after a week, how would I feel after a month?

  “You can ask me anything,” he added, as if that would help. Well, it helped a little.

  I took a large gulp of wine, really starting to appreciate the effect the alcohol had on me. I exhaled. “Fine. It’s not every interesting though, it’s just stupid family stuff.”

  “Everything about you is interesting,” he said sincerely.

  I shot him a shy smile, blushing inwardly at the compliment. “My sister’s name is Mercedes but we call her Mercy. As in, Lord have Mercy on our souls because she’s a…” I remembered his shock when I insulted her before and I had to switch up my language. It seemed that the Spaniards had a more respectful view of family than I did. “She’s a handful. Anyway. We used to get along. She’s three years older so I was always the baby to her. And Josh is two years younger than me. I guess Josh and I were closer, even from the start. So, when I was thirteen, we discovered that my dad was having an affair.”

  Mateo’s eyebrows quirked up with the new information but said nothing.

  I went on, my eyes glued to the ruby wine as it made trails down the inside of the glass. “He was a pilot—still is. She was a flight attendant. Her name is Jude. Apparently this had been going on for years. My parents fought for as long as I could remember, so there wasn’t much love lost between them. But my mother is a very proud person and it humiliated her to know that it had been going on. They got a divorce and my life became very miserable. I was really close with my dad, daddy’s girl…you know? But Jude wasn’t ready for teenagers so my dad and her moved to Calgary. My mother got the house and the kids.”

  I took a sip of the wine. The glass was empty now and Mateo immediately refilled it. I had to admit, as scary as it was to talk about the past, even something that was probably quite mundane to him, it felt good. “I started doing drugs and hanging with the wrong crowd, even though they were my crowd. I made stupid choices, mainly with boys, but I was still a good student, straight Bs in everything, so it’s not like I was a major fuck-up. But, you know, I liked tattoos and piercings and I started dying my hair every single Crayola color and my mother hated that. And in support of my mother, Mercy started hating that too. Then, when I was a senior in high school, I invited Josh to come hang out with me and my friends. At the time he had this stutter that other kids made fun of and he was tall and skinny and totally awkward. But my friends were the kind that didn’t care. Every lunch hour, skipped class, before school and after school, the big group of us would take over these steps behind the school gym and just be social delinquents.”

  And so, Josh started going down the same path that I did. Smoking, drinking, drugs…sex.” I briefly met Mateo’s eye. He was listening as if he were totally enraptured. I cleared my throat. “And unfortunately he didn’t care so much about school or his future, not like I did. So he just kind of became a slacker. An artist, he liked to draw, but still a slacker. My mother, and Mercy, they both blamed me for his demise, that I ruined all his potential with sex, drugs and rock and roll. So, I became the villain.”

  “The black sheep,” he said softly. “Which we know is not true.”

  I took another gulp of wine and wiped my lips with the back of my hand. My red lipstick was smeared all over it but I was too comfortable to care. “So that is why my sister and I don’t get along. It doesn’t matter that I’m doing a science degree, or that I’m naturally smart. What matters is that I supposedly ruined my brother and that I’m not the perfect daughter that Mercy is. Especially now. Mercy is marrying a rich jerk and her upcoming wedding is the be all to end all event. I’m not even part of the bridal party! I mean, Jesus, how is that for family. I guess I would embarrass her, ugly up her whole event.”

  “Ugly?” Mateo said in fervent disbelief. “No. You are terribly beautiful, Vera. So beautiful that it hurts. You would outshine her like the star you are.”

  Whoa.

  I felt like lava had been poured down my spine.

  I slowly lifted my eyes to meet his and was taken aback by what I saw in them. The last four days I’d felt this thing building between us, always so subtle, so hard to place my finger on it. Even calling me beautiful was just a compliment, albeit a wonderful one. At least, it would have been. Now there was something in his eyes that I’d only seen hints of before. Now, his gaze, his brows, those strong, wide cheekbones, they smoldered with what could only be described as lust.

  Lusty Mateo. This was a new side of him.

  The most dangerous side of all.

  Because I was certain I’d been nothing but Lusty Vera from the moment I saw him. Never acting, always thinking, always feeling. I did not need the temptation from him to make what we had—which was just friendship—into something more.

  And yet the carnal way he was looking at me, it seemed inevitable.

  Even after everything I had just told him.

  I had to look away. I gave him a tight smile and pushed my glass of wine away. “I think we need to get going for the skits we have to do.” Two days ago we’d been broken up into teams of five and had to create our own plays based on things that are “lost in translation.” Tonight were the performances.

  I got up before he could say something and started to walk.

  He was fast though, his body moving out of his seat with grace. He grabbed my hand, lightly and pulled me to a stop.

  “Hey, Vera,” he said in a throaty, low voice that made my body tremble. “Wait.”

  I turned to look at him, my expression blank. “Hmm?”

  He squeezed my hand softly. “Did…did I say something wrong?” He truly looked puzzled and I felt a pang of warmth deep in my chest. No, it wasn’t anything he said. It was how he looked at me, how he should never look at me and how much I wanted him to keep doing it. But how the hell was I supposed to say that to him? That wouldn’t fly in any language. Even I had trouble translating it to myself.

  “No,” I said, keeping my tone airy and hoping my cheeks weren’t betraying me with my scandalous thoughts. “I just remembered that we’re cutting it a bit close. To the time,” I quickly added.

  He was still holding my hand. As if he read my thoughts, he dropped it and casually eased his hands into his pant pockets. He was still wearing a suit, though, lo and behold, today he had worn a plain white tee under his stone-colored blazer. He’d also let his stubble flourish into a light beard. It was incredibly sexy.

  “Of course,” he conceded. “I had nearly forgotten about it.”

  Mateo wasn’t in my group, which was a shame because it meant I couldn’t rehearse with him but at the same it meant I’d get to see him acting. He’d loosened up a bit over the last few days—if his t-shirt was any indication—so I was curious to see him in a play.

  Going to find our respective groups we parted ways like we usually did. A quick smile and a wave. Very civil and professional and oddly enough, completely the opposite when compared to how I said goodbye to everyone else. With Eduardo, Antonio, even Froggy Carlos—there was a lot of hugging and the double kisses o
n each cheek, regardless of if they were married or single. It was just the way things were, the way they greeted me and, in turn, the way I greeted them. I did this to the girls too.

  But with Mateo, there was this strained politeness between us. I felt closer to him than anyone else here, but despite from the occasional times he’d grab my hand, there was always an acute physical distance between us. I knew that was probably a good thing. If I did the beso beso cheek kiss with him I’d probably head straight for his mouth.

  While I walked over to Antonio’s cottage where my group was meeting, my mind kept going back to that thought. His mouth. I wondered what it would be like to kiss him, even though I knew it would be heaven. He had that perpetual smirk that only good kissers had, like he knew how to use his mouth in every way, everywhere. His sensual lips didn’t hurt either. His stubble would scratch you up perfectly, a bit of pain with the pleasure.

  Plus he was hot, thirty-eight and an ex-athlete. That amounted to the type of experience that most men didn’t get.

  Before I got started on what he’d think about the feeling of the tongue ring he’d admired so much, I cut myself off. This crush was getting out of control and I needed to just…

  Fuck. I don’t know what I needed. I needed to go home and bring out my vibrator, that’s what I needed.

  When I walked into Antonio’s cottage that he shared with Ed, an elementary school teacher from New York, I knew my crush on Mateo wasn’t the only thing out of control. The group—Antonio, Polly, Beatriz and Ricardo—were all listening to Faithless and dancing around the room like they were at a rave, bottles of beer spilling from their hands.

  “What the hell?” I said loudly, closing the door behind me. They raised their beers at me but kept dancing. “Aren’t we supposed to be practicing for the play?”

  “Oh don’t be such a wet blanket, Vera,” Polly said as her blonde pigtails and fake boobs bounced around her. “We know what we’re doing.”