“Sure,” Grace had joked, “a geyser. Better watch out or it might spurt all over the tech district.”
He’d almost smiled at that. Almost.
It was the first thing Rafael had thought of when Alma told him her depressed best friend was coming to live with her in Granada—how he’d judged her and been so sure he was correct in his opinions. If not giggle fits and dumb jokes, then what else would he have expected from a twenty-year-old American college student, especially one who was so close with his silly sister? But there were moments when she’d managed to break through the haze of his superiority, even then.
Grace.
Her captivating blue eyes had always stared right into his when she wanted his attention, and she’d smirked like they had a secret between them. Or maybe like she was laughing at him; he was never sure.
The second thing he’d thought of was how he’d tried to kiss her.
That had obviously been a stupid mistake, and considering the fact that it was almost ten years ago, he didn’t even feel the need to be embarrassed about it anymore. There was no doubt he’d been a complete idiot in his youth, and if he bothered to spend too much time dwelling on that, he’d waste much of his adulthood as well.
But when Grace walked into Alma’s apartment for the first time—her long, dirty blonde hair a rat’s nest from the convertible, her blue t-shirt wrinkled and worn—she looked at him in just the same way she had back then, as if she was studying him, or maybe, as if she didn’t need to study him. As if sheknewhim already. Somehow, she’d figured out everything she needed to understand about Alma’s older brother, and there was no need to pass a second judgement.
He didn’t blame her. It may have taken a while, but obviously he’d come to realize what a giant asshole he’d been during those years after college, how he’d never actually gotten to know any of the American women he took to his bed, never even tried to open up or form a real connection with them. He also realized how much he’d been influenced by his father when he was yet to completely comprehend that his father was a totalcabrónand not someone to emulate. Rafael had probably been at his very worst during that summer in Barcelona when he met Grace, and he didn’t need to read minds to know what she thought of him.
“Hi,” she said in response to his greeting. “Thanks for coming to help.”
“No problem,” he said, pocketing his phone. “Good trip?”
She nodded but clearly didn’t feel the need to say anything more about it. “How are you?” she asked without smiling.
He nodded, too, mirroring her movement, but nothing came out of his mouth.
She looked almost the same as she had ten years ago, except for the dark circles under her eyes. She was still beautiful. Her lips still puckered in that same inviting way that had gotten him into trouble in the first place, but he could already tell she didn’t have that same lightness about her, that she was no longer floating through life without a care in the world. He’d thought it shallow and superficial at the time, her innatehappiness, but now she seemed like a complete stranger.
If he’d imagined her greeting him at all, he would have expected her to throw her arms around him with abandon and squeeze him too tightly, loudly declaring how thrilled she was to see him again. She would have grinned up at him like they were old friends, rather than forced acquaintances. Maybe she would have even teased him about his fancy gold watch or his loafers. That’s how she’d been ten years ago, without a worry to spare about what he or anyone else thought of her.
Now, she carried herself like her limbs were too heavy for her, like the sound of a twig snapping would frighten her. Cautious and uneasy, where before she’d been all carefree glee. Shewasa stranger.
“Keys?” he asked his sister. “I’ll get the bags.”
“I can help you,” Grace said. “There are a lot of them.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I can handle it.”
He quickly discovered he couldn’t handle it, at least not all at once. Four large bags and three flights of stairs was impossible, so he took two trips, and he was sweating through his Sea Island cotton shirt by the end of it.
When he finally finished, he was annoyed to be sweating and annoyed that Grace would see him sweating, even though she didn’t look like the picture of perfection herself, and he didn’t know why he cared in the first place. He slid the bags into the apartment but straightened when he heard the sound of her voice.
“He’s so gorgeous,” she said. “Was he a model at some point?”
Alma poured another splash of wine into Grace’s glass as they huddled in the corner of the small kitchen. Rafael wasn’t remotely surprised to hear them chatting about Alma’s boyfriend, since Alma talked about him constantly.
“You’ll meet him tomorrow,” Alma answered. “Just wait until you see him in person. And I told you, Gracie, he’skind. That’s the thing that blows my mind.”
Obinna was kind, and on the several occasions that Rafael had spent any time with him, he’d actually enjoyed his company, which wasn’t something he could say about any other man that had captured his sister’s attention. He still didn’t understand why she felt the need to go on and on about him like she did. No one wasthatgreat.
Alma teased Rafael about going on and on about his work, though, so he supposed they were even. “So busy and important, aren’t you, Rafa?”Alma would say, and even though she was poking fun at him, Rafael couldn’t help but agree.
He was busy. New company, new client, new important project. There was nothing wrong with that. He approached the counter where Alma was taking a long drink of wine, and Grace’s head cocked toward the side as she looked at him.
“Thank you for taking time out of your day to help,” Grace said. “I honestly think we could have managed, so I’m not sure why Alma made you do this.”
“Well, now that he’s here, he can stay for dinner,” Alma offered.
Rafael stiffened. Sitting around in his sweaty clothes watching sad Grace eat take-out paella did not sound appealing at all. Grace’s face seemed to reveal that she didn’t think so either.
