I WOKE UP in a haze. Sergio hadn’t said goodnight to me after the paintball war.
It was the first night since I’d been at his home that Sergio hadn’t said goodnight. Then again, maybe that was just as hard as hi now that he’d gotten everything out into open.
I didn’t want my heart to hurt, any more than I wanted to still be drawn to him, the impossible mourning man who had the most gorgeous blue eyes I’d ever seen.
His pain made it impossible to hate him, because he wore it like a cloak over his muscled body. Pain does that. It makes people feel sorry for you and it does create anger, but it doesn’t create hate.
I really wish it did.
After putting on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve pink shirt, I slowly walked down the stairs and made my way into the kitchen.
The coffee was brewing.
Breakfast was on the table.
And more importantly, Sergio was at the table, reading a freaking newspaper.
I hesitated, maybe he was having a meeting and I wasn’t invited?
My stomach grumbled, and my eyes darted to the coffee. Desperation won out, so I wordlessly went to the cupboard and grabbed a mug.
I’d had to locate every fork, every plate, every scrap of food, on my own. Had I not gone to the grocery store we would have starved.
So maybe I slammed the cupboard harder than I should have, and maybe I stomped over to the bar and sat, but I did feel slightly better about the fact that at least he could hear my irritation.
Just as I brought my cup to my lips Sergio blurted, “Hi.”
I nearly spewed my coffee all over the table in surprise before I gave him a sharp look. “Um… hi?”
He set the newspaper down and leaned his bronzed forearms across the table. “How are you, Val?”
I turned away. “Tired.”
“Yeah well, shooting the shit out of your husband has a way of exhausting a person.”
I would not smile. Or laugh. Or turn around.
“So.” The sound of the chair scratching against the floor made my heart pick up like a hummingbird. And then footsteps. “What are you doing today?”
“It’s Monday,” I said in a bored tone. “Grocery shopping and a cooking day.”
“Can I come?”
The olive branch may as well have been a bomb going off in that kitchen. My hurt feelings demanded I turn him down, they demanded I say something mean, something that made him feel as hurt as I’d felt. I wanted to hold on to the anger, I wanted him to feel hurt. It shouldn’t be easy for him to just come waltzing back in, because in my experience with Sergio, he almost always panicked after we got close.
One more time.
If he did it one more time.
I think, no, I knew, it would completely break me.
Shaking, I put the coffee cup down and stared into it. “No.”
There I’d said it.
But I didn’t feel better.
“At least let me drive you,” he pushed, his voice gentle.
I nodded, not trusting myself not to take it back, take it all back and launch myself into his arms — I was so starved for affection from him that it was hard to keep myself from crying into my morning cup of coffee.
He’d become my friend.
And something more.
I felt him.
I didn’t want to feel him.
It would be so much easier if he was just another human body in that giant gourmet kitchen.
But I felt him.
And I had no explanation why, other than, when I was near him, it was never close enough.
“Yeah.” My shoulders slumped in defeat. “You can drive.”
SERGIO HAD TOO many cars.
Way too many cars.
It was like going to a dealership and going hmm which shiny vehicle with a max of fifteen hundred miles on its odometer do I want to use?
I picked a shiny red Tesla — a car I’d heard about but never ridden in and tried not to look too impressed when he started the engine.
My hands gripped the leather seat as Sergio hit the accelerator as hard as he could sending us sailing down the mile long driveway at breakneck speed.
“Um, Sergio.” I grabbed the handle to the door, my hand getting sweatier by the minute.
“Hmm?” He didn’t look at me.
“Kinda fast.”
“You need fast.”
What the heck did that mean?
He peeled out onto the main road. It was the strangest thing, knowing how fast we were going — and accelerating, but not hearing any of the road noise.
Were all electric cars like that? Or just ones that cost more than most people’s houses?
Faster, we were going faster, but I couldn’t tell by the sound. I felt it, though, like we were soaring without straining to get to that place.
Like I could do anything.
Slowly, I released my grip on the handle and the seat as Sergio kept breaking all speed laws. “How fast do you want to go?”
It seemed like a loaded question. Like there was meaning behind it, although I couldn’t figure out what. I glanced over and noticed we were hitting over one hundred and twenty.
“How fast can we go?”
He grinned, shifted, and I watched in amazement as we topped out at one sixty.