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“Huh,” I said, looking at her with a big smile on my face. “That’s so…” And at that moment, it clicked. This whole metaphor of my time in Tres Fuegos. I was here with her, my lighthouse, after so many moments of darkness.Her.
And now it didn’t seem so heavy, weathering this darkness. I moved the candle closer to us so I could see her better, the day getting darker by the second. It was the exact moment when you needed light, but sometimes, light was not enough to show you what you had to see. What you had in front of you. The light flickered, and I flinched, almost like an automatic response to the potential darkness. Lucía froze next to me, waiting for more, for a reaction.
“Oh my god,” she gasped, her eyes wide open. “You’re afraid of the dark.” Her features softened.
“No, I’m not,” I said childishly, trying to laugh it off. I had no idea how she got to that conclusion from just this interaction.
“Yes, you are!”
I smiled, trying to alleviate some of the concern I saw on her face. It was the first time I would say thisout loud to anyone. “It’s not that I’m afraid of the dark, it’s just…” I shrugged, like this really wasn’t a big deal to me. “Creepy.” I ran my fingers through my hair, the sound of the action making me shiver. “I don’t know the town and its noises, so it’s—whatever.”
“It’s okay, baby,” Lucía whispered. She moved closer and reached out her hand to me, linking our fingers together. “The creepiest thing in this town is probably Jacinto,” she said with a laugh.Baby.
I pulled her towards me, my heart racing at the ease in which she came towards my body, like I was lifting a bag of feathers.
My eyes found her lips, and she licked them, no doubt an involuntary response to everything, anything going on with us. I leaned forward, giving her a small peck and pulling her towards me, her soft body flush with mine and our hearts beating to the same drum.
I love her.
28
LUCÍA
It was a weird thing,going from being practically strangers to being this.
Whateverthismeant.
Domestic was the word.
We went from an awkward hello a few weeks ago to unloading groceries and putting things away in my parents’ kitchen. To circling each other in the space like we’d done this thousands of times, over and over again for years.
But instead, we were two strangers who were joined by one obscure thing that happened to both of them, drifting apart with time and no excuse to talk to each other. To see each other outside of that one setting that pulled us together.
“Where does this go?” he asked, his head cocked to the side in question. “Why did you even buy this flavor of ice cream?” Francisco scrunched his nose, and the onlything running through my mind was how adorable and kissable that face was. But I didn’t want to push my luck; it all still felt like a dream. Like I was about to wake up from a heat-induced nap that lasted for weeks. A dream in which I suddenly found myself doing all the things I had wanted for a while. With the one I wanted for a longer while.
“What?” I turned to face away from him and smiled at the image of him standing there looking like an innocent boy, his hair tousled and all his clothes wrinkled from his failed drive back to the city. “I like it.”
He laughed, bending at the waist and setting the container on the counter, his chest vibrating with amusement.
“Linda.” Pretty. Gosh, this man. I would let him do anything to me. “Only old people buy this flavor.” His smile reached his eyes, crinkling them at the corner. It was the first time I’d seen this smile since back then. At the pralines and cream ice cream that was definitely melting.
I smiled and turned towards the sink, huffing at his comment. “I do live with my parents, you know.”
He chuckled in response, then walked over to me by the sink, his arm grazing my shoulder delicately, making me shiver. It was accidental, maybe, but I liked it a lot.
I couldn’t catch my breath every time he was around me.
“What do you want for dinner?” I asked, my back still turned to him, setting the tomatoes on the counter. My parents had a weekly grocery delivery—a mix of refrigerated and shelf items to withstand the power failures—from thedifferent businesses around town, which came in particularly handy during these times because I didn’t have to drag myself out in the heat and figure out what to get. This way, it was almost like the meals were planned for me. Excessive? Maybe, and sometimes it made me feel like a child, but today, it was perfect.
Because I could spend more time with him. Before he went back to the city—for real this time.
“You.”
I blushed. Immediately. “Oh my god,” I gasped. He was standing behind me, his hands caging me in against the countertop. He dragged his nose up the back of my neck and took a deep breath, the sound of it giving me goosebumps. “Fran.”
“Uh-uh,” he said, his lips on my neck, small, intimate pecks. “Baby.”
I turned to face him, his hard body leaning against me. My hands went to the back of his neck, tugging him towards me. “You like that?”
