“I love the freckles,” I reply, smiling.And I adore her body…
“If you ever crave some good cuisine, the door is always open to you,guapo.”
“I might take you up on that offer, Maria. And I’ll drag her down here with me.”
“We would love to see more of her.” She leans in closer as if to confide a secret. “We were starting to despair, you know? She hasn’t brought back a man since her first year of university. She was lucky she found a man like you, after all.”
“I’m the lucky o—”
Andrea barges into the room, looking furious, her face reddened by anger. “Who knew?!” she demands, scanning her family.
“Knew what?” her mother asks.
“That Kate and Rafa are fucking each other.”
“Andrea, watch your language,” Isabella warns.
“So, youdidknow!”
“Of course we knew. It’s been going on for months.”
That doesn’t help Andrea feel better about the situation. “How are you guys so okay with this?!”
“They’re grown adults who can do whatever they want.”
“But they can’t!”
“If we’re okay with you dating your boss, you can be okay with this. No offense, Alexander,” Isabella adds, turning to me.
Katherine and Rafael choose that moment to join us, and even I can tell how guilty they feel about the secrecy. Andrea barely gives them a glare before she turns around, shouting, “I need some fucking air.”
Her mother scolds her about the language again, but she doesn’t care, off with the same furious energy she came in with.
“I-I should go talk to her,” Katherine hesitantly suggests when we hear the back door slam shut.
“No, I will,” I offer, standing from my chair. I grab Andrea’s coat on my way out and find her seated on the porch’s stairs that overlook a small backyard. She doesn’t turn around as I approach, nor does she when I drop her coat over her shoulders.
I sit next to her and wait silently, thinking she’ll say something. When she doesn’t, I ask, “Why are you so opposed to this?”
She doesn’t answer, crossing her arms before her and staring into the dark.
“You know I’m on your side, right?” I ask, nudging her shoulder with mine. “You can talk to me, freckles.”
She hesitates for a moment, searching for the words that can explain her overreaction. “I’ve known Kate since we were eight. We’ve been friends ever since. Even when she was popular in high school and I wasn’t, we stayed best friends. My brother at that time was a… manwhore, to be honest. He was our high school’s heartthrob, so some girls would pretend to like me only to get closer to him. Then he’d use them, throw them away. I lost many friendships because of him—which I eventually realized were never genuine. So, I made a deal with Rafa that I got to claim friends he couldn’t touch. The first one on my list was Kate, even though she wasn’t into his whole ‘player’ bullshit. And now, he broke that promise, endangering the only real and lasting friendship I’ve ever had because he can’t keep his dick to himself.”
I can hear the hurt in her voice, and I understand that what felt like a jealous tantrum moments ago actually stems from a trauma she’s carried with her since high school. Fake friends were my specialty as a child and teenager, so I know it couldn’t have been easy to be used as a vessel to get to her brother. Feeling bad for her, I wrap an arm around her shoulders and bring her closer.
“I understand where you come from and why this situation hurts you. But this isn’t high school anymore. And regardless of that, Katherine is never—”
“No one calls her Katherine.”
“Kateisn’t like those fake friends you had. Both your brother and her have been through life, they have experimented, dated, failed… And now that they have matured, this is what they feel is right and what they want.”
“But what if it’s still like it was before? What if they try, they fail, and then she can barely stomach the sight of me because of whatever happens with him?”
“She seems smarter than that. And you don’t know, things might go well with those two. Even I could see how much they care about each other—and you.”
“They still went behind my back and didthat.”
