Benito clicks on the bedside lamp and turns to me, and I finally get to size up his bedtime appearance: a worn-out Cambridge T-shirt and soft gray pants, his hair askew from the pillow. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, stiffening like he’s bracing for impact. Like whatever he’s about to say will cause him physical pain. “I don’t think you’re going to leave because I want you to leave.”
I relax. “I’m not actually going to murder you. I saw what happened to Amanda Knox, and she wasn’t even guilty. It’s the last thing my reputation needs.”
He frowns and looks at me seriously. “I’m just being realistic.”
I turn so I’m facing him. “But that’s just it. . . you think me leaving is inevitable,” I say. “I thought I was starting over, not taking a vacation.”
He uses his arm to prop himself up. His forearm flexes and I have to actively force myself to look away. He continues, “Can you really blame me for thinking someone like you wouldn’t want to stick around a nothing town like La Musa?”
“Someone like me?” I ask. I put on a valley girl accent, “A dumb, like, American.”
Benito shakes his head. “No.”
His eyes lock into mine. My heart picks up its rhythm. I try to find my bearings before the stirring can start again. “If you hate La Musa so much, why did you come back?”
He looks down at his hands. “It’s—”
“Complicated?” I ask, finishing his sentence. “I know complicated. I also know that you don’t walk away from your dream unless you have no other choice.”
Benito flits his eyes back at me in recognition. “My father. . .” he starts. “He was the mayor here for many years. Decades, really. For longer than I can remember.” Benito fiddles with the edge of the sheet. “The mayor’s home has always been my family’s home, and when he left, my mother was going to have to move out. She loves that house. She’s too proud to admit it, but to leave would’ve crushed her even more than she already—”
He trails off but takes a deep breath, regaining his composure. “There was only one solution. I move back and run for mayor. I knew I’d win because I analyzed the data and ran the polls. Now I’m the mayor and she gets to keep living in her house.”
My head goes fuzzy and my vision blurs, like my body’s trying to rationalize the tremendous sacrifice with the curmudgeonly man I’ve known the past two weeks. “Benito. . . that’s. . .”
“Pathetic. A grown man gives up everything he’s worked for, his whole life, so his mommy doesn’t have to move.”
“No. It’s. . . a beautiful and loving thing to do.” It turns out Benito and I are alike. We both ended up back in La Musa because it’s the only place we can be. “I’m sure your mother would understand if your heart is really in London.”
“I don’t know that it is,” he says, almost laughing. “I don’t know where my heart is, where I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to do.” He rubs his hands against his knees. “And what about you? Where’s your heart?”
My mind flashes to the Capitol building, the house in Beachwood, the La Musa clock tower. “I guess I don’t know either. Maybe it’s still searching for where it feels most at home.”
He nods, fixating his gaze on me. We sit there silently, but it’s comfortable. Maybe we understand each other. Maybe the friction we felt between us was because I resented Benito for wanting to change La Musa when I am so desperate to return to it exactlyas I knew it, and he resents me for having the ability to go anywhere in the world and choosing the place where he feels imprisoned.
Or maybe the friction is caused by something else entirely, and I didn’t notice it until our bodies were almost touching. I look down at his hand; it wouldn’t take more than a few inches of movement for my fingertips to graze the tops of his. Maybe he’s thinking the same thing, because his hand shifts slightly, narrowing the distance between us.
A loud knock startles me.
We both look at the door, but neither of us moves. There’s another knock, this time more aggressive. “Maybe your butler’s come around?” I ask.
“It’s probably the wrong room. Ignore it,” he says. Was that an invitation? I try to grasp the bearings of my various limbs. Where are they and where would they be better suited?
The knock returns. I’m closest to the door, so I fling the sheets off me and get up. A hotel worker is standing on the other side, holding a bottle of prosecco. “We want to apologize for the mix-up,” she says.
I take the bottle from her. “Thanks.”
I’m about to close the door when she stops me. “Wait,” she says. “Are you. . . are you that congresswoman from California?” My blood goes cold. “Congresswoman Rhodes!” she shouts. I nod, barely able to move my head among the sudden ringing in my ears. “I thought so! I study political science at the university. I’ve watched videos of you.”I nod again. She leans in. “Keep fighting the good fight, ok?”
I nod again, desperate to get back into bed as soon as possible. “I will.”
When I close the door, Benito is standing next to the bed. That’s not really where I want him to be. Why isn’t he waiting in bed for me to resume whatever tension was brewing between us? But then, like a lightning crack in the sky, I remember: London, girlfriend, Sutton.
Sutton.
It was easy to forget about the girlfriend when his skin was so close to mine, but whatever I felt toward Benito moments ago was clearly one-sided. The prickling of my fingertips like a current of electricity running through his body and into mine wasn’t real. He has a girlfriend. He’s not into me. It wasn’t real.
Why are my feelings always so wrong?
