“Saturday morning.”
“You’re gonna put up with me for that long?”
I want to sayLonger, if you’ll let me, but I don’t. Four days is already about eight times as long as we’ve ever been together. “If I can,” I say, and he grins. “I was going to surprise you and knock on your door, but I thought better of it at the last minute.”
I can’t bring myself to show up at someone’s door and sayHey, I’d like to be a surprise guest. Not even if that someone is my boyfriend.
“What were you going to do if I said no?” he teases. “You knew I wouldn’t.”
“Drive back home and pretend I was never here,” I answer, which is the truth. I take a deep breath, my back still against the rear door of my car. “I wanted to be with you after this weekend instead of both of us going back home and not being togetheragain until the wedding, becausethat’sgoing to be crazy, and—I just wanted some time to be a couple. Together. In a normal life where we’re not sneaking around or trying to convince our families we’re not deviants.”
“Speak for yourself,” he says, and I snort. It’s unladylike.
“Can we go inside? You’re not even wearing a coat,” I say, because he’s in nothing but a button-down shirt and slacks, presumably what he wears to his receptionist job.
“Yes.” He kisses my forehead. “Welcome ho—to my place. Mi casa es su casa.”
“Wow, hedoesknow Spanish,” I say, and he steps back so I can open the trunk to my car.
“I took two years in high school,” he says, gently shoving me out of the way and grabbing my suitcase. I packed in a hurry, and I probably packed too much, so it’s heavy enough that his shoulders flex against his shirt. He sees me notice and smirks. “You ever go to Mexico and need someone to ask for a library, I’ve got you. I know that, prayers, and all the things my grandma baked when I was a kid. Sorry—myabuela.”
The inside of his building is more functional than it isnice. The floor is still concrete, and the enormous elevator is obviously a freight elevator with paneling put in to hide that fact. In a city, this would be the kind of building that would’ve been gutted and turned into luxury apartments, the kind that would charge extra for exposed brick and pipes across the ceiling. Out here, though, I’m pretty sure they did the bare minimum required for habitation and then started renting them out.
I didn’t miss the fact that he nearly saidWelcome homebefore he stopped himself. I don’t know if it was a slip, or wishful thinking, or both.
“Hope you like lots of cat fur,” Javi says as he opens the door.
His place does havea lot of cat fur, which is fitting because it’s also got a lot of cat. Javi gives me a quick tour, pushing piles out of the way, and Zorro watches suspiciously from the top of a bookshelf. He looks like a jaguar waiting to pounce. It would make me a little nervous if he were only the size of a regular cat, and he’s the size of at least three.
“Can I give him some treats?” I ask, once my stuff is in Javi’s bedroom and I’ve been fully reintroduced to Javi’s apartment. (“This is the fridge, it’s got fridge stuff,” he said at one point.)
“Oh, that’s a good idea.” He goes to a cabinet. The second he opens it, Zorro flows off the bookshelf like a black liquid and walks over to Javi, tail held high. “You gotta take them from her,” he tells the cat and hands me a plastic canister.
“Hi,” I tell Zorro and sit on the floor in a show of…solidarity, I guess. I’ve never had a cat, and I’m suddenly realizing that I’m not exactly sure how this goes. “Friends?”
I hold out a couple of treats in my palm, and he comes up to me, sniffs them, then sits back.
“You gotta put them on the floor,” Javi says, a little apologetic. “He’s not a hand-treat guy.”
I follow instructions, and Zorro scarfs them down, then looks at me expectantly. I reach one hand out, which he sniffs. After a few seconds, I gently pet the top of his head, and he accepts this.
“He’ll warm up to you.” Javi crouches down and gives Zorro a vigorous under-chin scratch. “He’s still mad that I left him with Wyatt and Barry this weekend.”
“How dare you,” I say, and Zorro meows in agreement.
Hours later,Javi collapses on top of me, forehead just below my collarbone, breathing like he’s just sprinted here. I wrap my hand around the back of his neck, damp with sweat, and I close my eyes and try to get my own breathing under control.
“I’m glad you came,” he finally says.
I’m floating a little, his weight on top of me an anchor, my mind blissfully clear. “Was that a pun?” I manage to ask.
“Double entendre, I think.”
“Ah.”
Later, in the shower that’s too small for adults to share, I let him wash my hair, though I make him use the fancy color-safe shampoo that I brought.
“Oh,” he says. “This is what you smell like.”
