“You sort of did.” He chuckles.
“I’m sorry things aren’t easier with him,” I say before Mateo’s face can go sad and pensive.
Mateo shakes his head. “I’m explaining it wrong. He wasn’t bad. He simply wasn’t right for my mother.” Mateo frowns. “Or maybe he was. Maybe they just worked toohard. Maybe the conversations they had had become upsetting, all about household things and childcare things and…”
I wrap him in my arms. “I’m sorry.”
“Your family is very nice.”
“And I still did not tell them about myself.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Well, you could…” I chew on my lip. No. No, I will not interfere.
“Try again?” Mateo asks.
“We could go to Puerto Rico together,” I say.
For some reason he looks surprised.
“Maybe over Christmas,” I explain. “We can stay in a hotel, but you can still see him.”
He blinks. “You want to spend your Christmas with your fake boyfriend and his distant father? I don’t even know how good his English is.”
My cheeks heat. It’s too much. Holidays are for real boyfriends.
Dummkopf.
The world is too hot, like all the Florida heat is rushing into the air, despite the whirr of the four-star hotel’s air conditioner.
“It was a suggestion,” I say stiffly. My cheeks are hot.
He slides his eyelashes up. “I wouldn’t mind.”
My chest loosens. It wasn’t too strange of a suggestion. It was fine.
“Maybe it would be strange not to meet him? Since we’re… you know.”
“Pretending to be boyfriends?”
“Boyfriends normally meet parents after a while.”
“That’s right. But traveling there… It would be expensive.”
“I have money, Mateo.” My forehead crinkles. Mateo should havenoticed that.
For some reason he is not looking at me, and I hate it. He glances at his phone. “I need to get to work.”
I nod. Mateo is here to give massages.
“Will you be okay?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He looks at me uncertainly. “You can go to the pool. Maybe hang out with the other players.”
I nod, but to be honest, they’ve been acting strangely. Maybe they don’t like that I need so long to recover.
