She settled in for a leisurely morning of orange juice and the Saturday paper and decided that her felicity deserved Cuban music, more specifically, a little bit of Buena Vista Social Club. As she listened to Pueblo Nuevo on her iPod, she perused the Arts section of Gabriel’s newspaper. An exhibition of Florentine art was coming to the Royal Ontario Museum on loan from the Uffizi Gallery. Maybe Gabriel wouldn’t mind taking her to see it. On a date.
Yes, they’d missed out on her high school prom and all the fancy parties at Saint Joseph’s University. But Julia was sure that all the wasted time and lost opportunity would now be returned to her tenfold to fill as she wished with Gabriel. Happily, she leaped to her feet as the trumpet player in her ears began playing a few bars of Stormy Weather as a counterpoint to the Cuban melody. Julia sang loudly, too loudly, dancing with her orange juice in Gabriel’s pretentious underwear, blissfully unaware of the half-naked man who was striding up behind her.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Aaaaggggghhhhhh!”
Julia yelped and jumped about a foot in reaction to the harsh, angry voice. She quickly took her ear buds out of her ears and turned around. And what she saw crushed her.
“I asked you a question!” Gabriel snapped, his eyes transformed to blackish-blue pools. “What the fuck are you doing in my underwear, jumping around my living room?”
Crack.
Was that the sound of Julia’s heart snapping in two? Or just the final nail in the coffin in which her dead love rested, but not in peace?
Perhaps it was his tone of voice, angry and commanding. Perhaps it was the fact that in that one question she realized that he no longer viewed her as Beatrice, and all her realized hopes and dreams just fucking died in their infancy. But whatever the true explanation, Julia’s iPod and orange juice slipped through her fingers. The glass promptly shattered, sending her old iPod skating through an ever expanding pool of liquid sunshine at her feet.
Julia stared at the disaster beneath her for a few seconds, trying to wrap her mind around it. It was as if she didn’t understand how glass could shatter and make such a mess, something in the shape of a glittering starburst. Eventually, she dropped to her knees to pick up the glass and began repeating two questions over and over in her head.
Why is he so angry with me? Why doesn’t he remember?
A tall and shirtless Gabriel looked down at her. He was clad only in his underwear, which made him look slightly sexy and slightly ridiculous. His fists were clenched, and Julia saw the tendons standing out in his magnificent arms.
“Don’t you remember what happened last night, Gabriel?”
“No, thankfully I don’t. And get up! You’re on your knees more than the average whore.” He spoke through clenched teeth, glaring at her servile form.
Julia’s head popped up. She searched his eyes, noting his complete and utter lack of memory and his irritation. He might as well have run her through with a sword. She felt the blade pierce and enter her heart, and she felt her heart begin to hemorrhage slowly.
Just like his tattoo, she thought. He’s the dragon; I’m the bleeding heart.
In that instant of silent realization, the most remarkable thing happened. Something inside of her, six years in the making, finally, finally snapped.
“I’ll have to take you at your word about the behavior of whores, Emerson. Only you would know,” she growled.
Then, when that snide remark didn’t quite heal the ache in the now expanding fissure in her heart, she boldly forgot about cleaning up her mess and leaped to her feet. And promptly lost her temper.
“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, you lousy drunk!” she snarled. “Who the fuck do you think you are? After everything I did for you last night? I should have let Gollum have you! I should have let you fuck her brains out in front of everyone on top of the bar at Lobby!”
“What are you talking about?”
She leaned toward him, eyes flashing, cheeks flushed, and lips trembling. She shook with anger as the adrenaline coursed through her veins. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to wipe that expression off his face with her fists. She wanted to pull his hair out in handfuls and leave him bald. Forever.
Gabriel inhaled her scent, erotic and inviting, and licked his lips involuntarily. But that was the wrong thing to do in front of a woman as angry as Miss Mitchell.
She tossed her head in fury and stomped down the hall, muttering various and sundry exotic expletives in both English and Italian. And when she came to the end of them, she switched to German, a sure sign that she was in a towering rage.
“Hau ab! Verpiss dich!” she spat from the laundry room.
Gabriel slowly began rubbing his eyes, for in addition to suffering from one of the worst hangover headaches of his life, he was slightly enjoying the sight of Miss Mitchell in his T-shirt and boxer shorts, passionately angry and shouting at him in a multiplicity of Western European languages. It was the second most erotic thing he had ever witnessed. And it was entirely beside the point.
“How did you learn to swear in German?” He followed the sound of her cursing auf Deutsch to the laundry room where she was removing her now semi-dry clothes from the dryer.