“You like pizza, Raf?”
He frowned. “Is that so hard to believe?”
Grace smiled and shook her head. She definitely wouldn’t have pegged him as a “craving a slice” kind of guy. “And that’s it? Nothing else you miss about America?”
He seemed to be thinking very seriously about the question. “New York was too loud and crowded and over-the-top for me. I liked the M&M store in Time’s Square though.” He smirked but didn’t look at her.
Grace’s mouth dropped. “Did you just make a joke, Rafael?”
His smirk suddenly turned into a laugh. “Why are you so surprised?”
Grace was somewhat hopeful as they neared the landlord’s building with an empty unit. Yes, this was the middle of nowhere. They passed the bus stop where Grace would catch the bus every day, and it was so dead, Grace wouldn’t be surprised to see a tumbleweed rolling by. If they had tumbleweeds in Spain. But the drive hadn’t been terrible, and a quiet little area certainly wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
Some of the houses they passed appeared nice and well maintained, and even though Grace really was not looking forward to almost two hours of bussing every single day, she wanted this to work out. If she could get her shit together enough so she could avoid begging Alma for more help, she would consider it a win. It was temporary, after all. Her grandma always said you could do anything for two weeks. There had been no promises about how long it would take to get back into Alma’s apartment, but it couldn’t be too long, right?
Then they pulled up to the building, and Grace’s grand ideas for making this work started to wane. But she could handle chipped paint. She could handle broken gutters. She could maybe handle rickety stairs. She had to.
Rafael scanned the scene and made a noise.
“What?”
He turned and raised an eyebrow as if to saywhat do you think?
“It has some cosmetic issues, but it’s not terrible.”
“It looks like your apartment here is ten times more likely to flood than the last one.”
Grace bit her lip. Raf followed her up the stairs, and when Grace got to the open unit, she put the key from the landlord in the lock and turned. It seemed to work easily, but when she tried the door, it wouldn’t budge.
“Allow me,” Rafael said. He turned the knob. He jiggled the handle. The lock wasn’t the problem, it was more like the entire door just didn’t want to move. Raf shoved a shoulder into it and then gave it a kick. Finally, it busted open.
Grace didn’t need to look over at him to know the face he was making, but still, she tried to tell herself that she could do this. She wasn’t aprincesa. She didn’t need perfect conditions. She just needed a place to stay for a little while.
They walked through the musty unit and uttered not a single word until she reached the bedroom. Then, she spotted the cockroach in the corner and backed up so quickly she fell right into Rafael. He caught her easily, his arms pressed against hers, his breath on her neck.
“What is it?” He followed her gaze to the massive bug and nodded without letting go of her. “Ah. Let’s go outside and discuss.”
“Okay,” Grace said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Just a minute.”
She walked into the dingy bathroom with chipped tile and stared at the ceiling, trying to prevent tears from escaping down her face. She did not want to cry in front of Rafael. She didn’t want to cry at all anymore. She was so sick of it. She pressed her fingers under her eyes as if she could squeeze her tear ducts shut and took a few deep breaths until she felt composed again. She remembered looking at apartments when she and Derek had decided to move in together, how everything had felt so fresh and exciting, like a whole new life was waiting for them. This experience was…the opposite. She splashed some cold water on her face and inhaled a deep breath through her nose. She couldn’t fall apart again, not now. She refused to let one crappy apartment get the best of her. She exhaled through her mouth and fixed her hair. Then she walked back into the empty living room to join Rafael.
“Everything okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Ready.”
“Good.” He ushered her toward the front door. “Let’s get out of here.”
It took a while to get the door back into place well enough to lock it, but they managed eventually, and then Rafael stood on the sidewalk by his car with his hands on his hips. “You cannot live there,” he said, as if he’d just been waiting for the appropriate moment to make this announcement. “You won’t even be able to get the door open in the first place.”
Grace stared at the building. She knew he was right, but what choice did she have? There was no other viable option, and she would rather punch through her door each night than sleep at the foot of Alma and Obinna’s bed. “It’s not so bad. It could be much worse.” She could fear the tears welling up again and tried to turn her face from Raf’s line of sight.
“It could be worse, certainly, but there’s no reason to live here, Graciela. You don’t need to be out in the middle of nowhere all alone.”
“What would you suggest I do then?” she asked, a spark of anger flaring inside of her. Water was rushing over her cheeks, and she tried to wipe it away discreetly.
“Well.” Rafael paused, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just for a little while.” He cleared his throat. “Come live with me.”
She couldn’t help turning back toward him then to gauge if he was serious, but when she did his expression changed, his eyes filling with concern. “Grace,” he whispered, reaching out a hand.
