“So what’s the occasion?” I asked.
“I just want to make up for the fact that you missed your birthday this year,” he said. “Also, I just want to make up.”
“You drugged me on my birthday. I don’t even remember what happened that day.”
“I know. I’m so sorry. And I can’t stand it when we’re not talking.”
I was such an ass, but I couldn’t hold a thing against him when he was kissing my neck like that, leaving behind the sweetest, softest string of apologies.
“I’m sorry, too. About yester—”
“Let’s not.” He shushed me. Let’s not apologize for the things we can’t help feeling, the loyalties that are tearing us apart. My mother. Your father. The whole world waiting to see how this will unfold. “Just you and me tonight, okay?”
I nodded and followed him out to the verandah, where he’d set up the table. With one chair.
We ate in silence, no longer taking anything for granted: the way his neck tilted to make room for my nose, how I finished one mouthful to his three, how he ate the parts with the most bones and left the rest of the fish for me, how I smothered everything in gravy and he liked it plain. It was an evening we didn’t want to end. The sand glistened with the warmth of the sunset and the water lapped up in soft, golden waves.
“Dessert?” he asked when we were done.
“Don’t tell me you baked a cake.”
“I have something better in mind.” He led me to the beach, smiling because I refused to take off my newly reclaimed heels.
I followed him to a pile of hot rocks in the sand. The fire had been doused, but the rocks sizzled when Damian sprinkled water on them.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.” I smiled.
He uncovered a basket full of black, wrinkly bananas.
“Please tell me you’re not going to make me eat rotten bananas.”
“Hey, I ate your ceviche. Besides, these are not bananas. It’s plantain, and it’s the sweetest at this stage, when the skin has turned all black.” He peeled one, cut it in half lengthwise, and threw it on the stone. When it started to caramelize, Damian poured tequila over it. I squealed as it ignited in a glorious blue-tinged flambé.
“Want some now?” He pried the plantain off the rock and put it on a plate.
I looked at the wrinkly peel and back at the plate. Damian shrugged and popped a piece into his mouth. He lay back, elbows out, fingers interlaced under his head, looking at me. I took a tentative bite. It was warm and sweet and gooey, and so, so good.
“Better than cake?” he asked.
“What’s cake?” I smiled and stretched out next to him.
We alternated between dessert and trying to guess where the next star would appear, as the blue velvet of night unfolded over us.
“Tomorrow,” said Damian.
“What about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow’s the day I visit MaMaLu.”
“You think it’s safe?” My arms tightened around him.
“They’re looking for Damian, not Esteban. Esteban disappeared a long time ago, and there’s nothing to connect him to me, nothing to trace MaMaLu back to me. I don’t think they’ll be staking out the gravesite of a woman no one remembers.”
“I remember,” I said. “You remember.”
He laced his fingers through mine and we listened to the song of the waves. “Why does it feel like we are the only two people in the world right now?”
“Because right now, we are.” I slipped my arms inside his jacket and around his back.
“Do you know what I remember?” he asked. “I remember thinking that MaMaLu’s lullaby was about a beautiful little piece of sky, something that dispelled all the darkness. Then we came to Casa Paloma, and I felt like it was about you. Cielito lindo.”
“And I always thought she was singing about you. I imagined mountains, dark and black, just like your eyes.” I kissed Damian’s eyes and his eyelashes, his straight brows, the row of scars from his stitches.
“I’m going with you tomorrow,” I said, sliding the jacket off his shoulders.
“I know.” He flung it aside.
MaMaLu bound us together. The fact that Damian was willing to share her with me, in death as he had when she was alive, made me love him all the more.
“No wind today.” I unbuttoned his shirt and trailed my hand down his hard, smooth belly, to the trail of male hair that disappeared under his pants. “No sand.” I ran my tongue over it.
“Let me see.” He rolled me over and returned the favor, his lips taking full advantage of my exposed back. “Mmmm. You’re right. Not a grain. Just smooth, silky skin.”
I squirmed as his fingers slid under my dress, raising it higher, until it was wrapped around my waist.
“God. This ass.” He pulled my panties down and kneaded the flesh. “No sand here either,” he mumbled, leaving teeth marks on my skin.