CHAPTER TWELVE
Lucas
“Isn’t that another movie soundtrack?” I asked on our way home from the store.
Rosie huffed, staring down at the record in her hands. “Sort of, but this one is different.”
“Different.” Snatching it out of her grip, I inspected it closely. “ ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA, the single.” I turned the album around. “Isn’t this a little too… ‘girls night out’ for a date?”
“Experimental date,” she murmured. “And it was either this or ‘Ice Ice Baby’ by Vanilla Ice, a hip-hop classic.”
The owner had been rushing us out of the store at closing time. And I wasn’t going to lie, I was a little relieved that she hadn’t gone with Vanilla Ice. Nothing against him—or ABBA, for that matter—but hip-hop wasn’t what I’d pictured when I asked her to pick our soundtrack.
She continued, sliding me a skeptical look, “Have you not watched Mamma Mia? This song is Meryl Streep’s revelation moment. It holds the whole movie together. I once read an article about how it’s actually a sad track, and it made some very good points, but… I don’t know… it has always made me happy. It’s more than a song you dance to.”
Her admission was enough to satisfy me. In fact, knowing she had picked a song that meant something to her did a little more than just satisfy me. “So, you’re one of those people, huh?”
She narrowed her eyes, and it was hard not to smile. “What people?”
“One of those Mamma Mia–obsessed people.”
Rosie seemed outraged by my question. “It’s a musical and a romantic masterpiece.” She snatched the record back from me. “What’s not to love about having multiple love stories, all rolled up into the perfect musical? Nothing. Because it’s literally impossible to not love that.”
“Okay, okay.” I held my hands in the air. “It’s not exactly ideal for what’s coming next, but we’ll just have to roll with it.”
She shot me a quick glance, and I could see the question taking shape in her eyes.
“Ask me, Rosie.” I smiled to myself and returned my gaze to the sidewalk, happy that I was starting to get familiar with all her cues. “Always speak your mind around me.”
She lifted the record in the air with both her hands. “What’s coming next and why isn’t this”—she held it in front of her face—“amazing, outstanding, ahead-of-its-time musical masterpiece ideal for it?”
Laughter rolled straight out of me in a loud rumble for the second or third time today.
Rosie lowered the album, revealing a small frown. “What’s so funny?”
Nothing was funny about how much I loved that she made me laugh like this and how clueless she was. “You have no idea,” I told her simply, spotting Lina’s building in the distance. “And you’ll find out what we’re doing soon enough.”
I quickened my step and when I noticed she wasn’t keeping up, I peered back over my shoulder.
Rosie was standing in the walkway, looking in my direction with a cocked brow, all long legs in those shoes I was having a little trouble not paying any attention to, and greener-than-ever eyes in that leather jacket that made them stand out.
“I don’t know how I feel about surprises,” she said, her expression telling a different story. She was curious. Excited. I could tell. “Can’t you tell me now?”
“Nope.” I flashed her a grin and pivoted away. “My date, my rules.”
“Cheesy and bossy,” she muttered. “I didn’t think that was possible.”
Another laugh erupted out of me, this one chased by something else. Something that demanded my attention. But I shook my head and said, “I heard that!”
Back at Lina’s building, I stopped Rosie and headed to Adele’s side of the hall. I knocked on Lina’s neighbor’s door, and before I could catch Rosie’s questioning look, the old lady’s head was peeking out.
“Ah, you’re back.” Adele gave me a crooked smile before moving over to let me into her home. “I was wondering when you’d pick it up. It’s right where you left it.”
“Thank you, hermosa,” I told Adele as I slipped in and grabbed the box I’d dropped a few hours earlier. Now that I had learned that this Mateo she sometimes confused me with had been Hispanic, I made sure to say a few things in Spanish when I saw her or came over to check on her. “Eres la mejor.” She really was the best. “Have fun with your daughter later, okay?”
Adele’s face lit up when she said, “I will.” She eyed Rosie and added, “Have fun, too, you little rascal.”
Snickering, I returned to a dumbfounded Rosie, finding her blinking at the scene. “Could you please take care of the door?”
Rosie gaped at me for a long moment as I held the heavy cardboard box in my arms, before snapping into action. “Yes! Of course, yes. The door.”
I followed her into the apartment, throwing the door shut with my left foot. Something I realized a little too late was a bad idea when my right knee buckled.
“Lucas!” Rosie called, running to my side. “Oh my God!”
Wincing but regaining my step quickly, I tried to play it off as nothing, but Rosie was already holding the other side of the box.
There was no point in denying anything, so I repeated my words from that first night, “Good catch, Rosie.” I pointed to the left with my head, and added, “Let’s place it there, beside the TV stand. I think there’s a free plug.”
As instructed, we moved, together, and set it down on the floor.
Rosie took a step back but didn’t go too far.
Throwing the box open under her rapt interest, I extracted the object I had made sure to leave with Adele so Rosie wouldn’t catch on.
“Oh,” I heard Rosie say softly. “Oh.”
I looked up at her, taking notice of how her lips were forming a little O.
“It looks a little beat,” I admitted after a moment. “But the lady that sold it to me swore that it works.”
“You bought this?” she asked. “For m— For the experiment?”
“Of course.” Plugging the old record player into the outlet, I straightened and took a step back to admire my acquisition. “It was fate, really. I was walking around and found this woman selling a bunch of stuff from her basement, right there on the doorstep. I got it for only a few bucks and a favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
I snatched the ABBA record from the coffee table, where Rosie must have left it to help me carry the box. “She needed help moving a dresser.” One that the woman had forgotten to mention weighed like a motherfucker.
Rosie let out a strange noise. “You went into a stranger’s house? Just because she asked you for a favor?”
Shrugging a shoulder, I kneeled in front of the player. “It was actually her basement.”
She audibly gasped. “Lucas. You can’t… You can’t do that kind of stuff.”
I placed the vinyl on the plate. “Why not? She asked me to help her. And I was getting a record player in exchange.”
“What if… What if she was just luring you inside? To axe murder you. Or sell your organs. This is New York, Lucas. The ratio of crazy people per square foot is too high to do that. Especially if the word basement is thrown around.”
“Cute,” I said, and she just blinked.
But it was cute that she’d get worked up over the possibility of me being murdered.
“All right, Rosalyn Graham.” I stepped closer to her, and she tilted her head back. “Shoes off.”
“What?” she mumbled. “Why?”
“Because we can’t dance with you in those sexy heels without bothering the downstairs neighbors.”
Her eyes widened, as if I’d said something crazy. “Dance—We’re dancing?”
I pulled off my shoes. “Of course.” I kneeled back down and toggled with the few settings the player had. “I told you you’d be picking up our soundtrack. And that’s what a soundtrack is for. Dancing.”
Rosie looked at me like I was asking her to sprout wings and fly.
I tilted my head to the side. “Should I help you with those shoes?” I offered. “I can do that if you really, really need me to.” And I’d do it gladly, in all honesty. Those shoes had been driving me a little crazy ever since she’d put them on.
Her mouth bobbed a couple of times, not emitting any sound.
Only when I took a step in her direction did she seem to snap out of it. In a few seconds, the pair of blue heels was behind her, and her toes were peeking out from under the hem of her jeans. And what a pair of jeans. I hadn’t been lying when I told her they were my favorite, too. They definitely were when they hugged her—
Lucas, I told myself. Focus.
I pressed Play on the record player. The opening notes of “Dancing Queen” filled the apartment.
I cracked my neck left and right. Then I made sure to meet her gaze as I started moving left to right.
This song might not have been exactly my jam—definitely not what I had pictured us dancing to—but at least I knew how to keep a beat. Abuela had made sure of it when I was a kid, for when the occasion needed it. And so, I gradually added my arms to my motions, then my hips, and then, just so I’d get a reaction, any reaction, out of her, I spun in a perfect circle.
Rosie’s eyes turned to plates.
“You look so shocked, Rosie,” I teased, not stopping my solo performance. “Is it so surprising to see me dancing?”
Fine, I didn’t just know how to keep a beat. I knew how to dance.
The pink coloring her cheeks deepened, but the corner of her lips twitched.
Biting back my own smile, I did the only thing I could. I strode very slowly in her direction, matching every step to the beat of the song and making sure to keep my eyes on hers.
“Come on, Rosie,” I told her, then added a little louder, “You can dance.” I moved my hips left to right. “And you can also jive.”
By the time I closed the distance between us and I was only a short two feet away from her, I was fully singing to ABBA, swinging my arms and shoulders around her.
The smallest snort left her.
Almost there, I thought. And my leg wasn’t even bothering me all that much.
I moved forward. “Am I not a good enough dancing queen?” I asked her, stepping much, much closer. “I’m not seventeen but I’m young and sweet, anyway, don’t you think?”
A small smile tugged at her lips now. And naturally, that only fueled my need to take more from her. To make her give me more.
“Okay, that’s enough. Come here,” I said right as I snatched her hand and spun her in a circle.
Rosie yelped, loud and pitchy, and a second later she broke out laughing.
There it is.
Because there it was, that laughter I had been craving.
I spun her one more time, her body now slowly beginning to move to the rhythm of the song. And when she was facing me again, it was with a full-fledged grin parting her face that I had no choice but to return.
The chorus started just as if we’d choreographed it, and we screamed the lyrics at the top of our lungs.
And just like that, Rosie’s limbs loosened, her eyes shut, and her body got lost to the seventies hit. I held one of her hands and watched her sing like it was nobody’s business, so loudly that I could hear her voice over the music. And boy, she wasn’t a good singer. Not by a long shot.
Not that it stopped me from taking her other hand and spinning her in another circle. We whirled and whirled, singing and laughing, perhaps one too many times, because with that last twirl, Rosie lost her footing and spun right into my chest.
Our bodies clashed, my arm going around her waist. Our gazes locked, chests heaving in breathless sync as we stared at each other. The sweetest wave of peaches wrapped around me, making my nostrils flare.
My throat worked as I started noticing the way her breasts pressed against my chest, moving up and down with every heaving breath. One of my legs was thrust between hers, and somehow, in a basic reflex I hadn’t been able to control, I pulled her closer. Tighter against me. Our hips coming into contact as our legs tangled further.
Her breath caught, and when her mouth released the air, shakily, rockily, it hit me on the jaw. Something inside of me stiffened, hardened.
My fingers splayed on her waist. And I—
The record scratched, bringing everything to an abrupt stop.
“Lucas,” Rosie breathed.
My arm kept her secured right where she was, against me, giving myself a few more seconds to… think. I needed to think. “Yeah?”
“The music,” she added quietly, breathlessly. “It stopped.”
“Yeah.”
“Was that—”
A strange noise cut off her words.
Rosie’s head peeked over my shoulder, in the direction of the sound. “Lucas?” she whispered loudly.
I opened my mouth, but the sound grew louder, stopping my words.
“What is that?” she asked over the scratch scratch scratch. “What the heck is that?”
That was a damn good question.
I spun us around, now holding her for more than one reason.
The scratch continued, increasing in intensity, and I took a tentative step forward. “Pero qué cojones…” The Spanish curse slipped out of me as I stretched my neck.
“Oh no,” Rosie loud-whispered. “Lina says that a lot when something’s about to go wrong.”
I moved us forward.
“Lucas, I don’t like this. What are you—”
“Shush,” I told her softly. “I think there’s something behind the record player.”
A pitchy screech left the vicinity of the box, so I peeked down in time of… Ah, mierda.
“Okay.” I softened my voice. “I want you to remain calm, Ro.” Because if that was what I was pretty sure it was, and Rosie happened to be scared of—
A scream pierced my ears.
Okay. So, she was.
“Lucas!” Rosie bellowed, jumping and managing to climb up my body as if I had been nothing more than a pole. “A rat! Is that a rat!?” A hand landed on my face, another one on my shoulder. One of her knees reached my armpit. “No, no, no, no. Please, tell me that’s not a rat!”
Throwing my arms around her waist, I adjusted her around me so her legs would close around my hips. “I’m not going to tell you any of that.”
“Why the hell not?!”
Chuckling, I placed my hands on the back of her thighs and turned us around so she’d face the opposite way. “Because there’s a huge rat in the apartment and I’m not going to lie to you, Ro. Not ever.”
Another scream.
Pivoting, I tried my best to carry her to the other side of the studio while she squirmed in my arms and left me with no choice but to place one of my palms on a perky and rounded ass I promised myself I wouldn’t think about. “Hey, Ro?” I told her, holding back a groan when she wiggled right against my crotch. “I’m going to put you to safety, okay? But it’s going to be easier if you stop moving. Please.”
That seemed to put a stop to all her squirming because she froze in my arms. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Lucas.” She tried to hop off from my embrace, but I didn’t let her. “Am I too heavy? I’m such a jerk. Let me—”
“Stay right where you are,” I told her as I carried her the rest of the way with only a light limp and placed her on the counter very gently. “It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not.” Her expression was remorseful, pained. “I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that.”
And yet, I hadn’t even cared about her doing so. I hadn’t cared about the tightness gripping the now weak muscles under her weight. Or the soreness I’ll suffer in a few hours after our dancing session. To be honest, I was sick and tired of paying attention to any of that. I was sick of not being able to do whatever I pleased because of this goddamn injury.
Swallowing, I answered the only way I could: “Don’t worry about it. I don’t.”
She nodded her head, and one more time, she shocked me by not pressing. Pushing me to talk about it. Instead, she lowered her voice. “I’m terrified of rodents.” She lifted both legs and placed her bare feet on the counter. “And now I can’t stop thinking about that…”—she shivered—“that creature eating away at my toes.”
Her expression was of pure disgust, and it made me smile. “It won’t eat your toes.”
“It could,” she hissed.
“I mean, sure, it could. But you’re high up now. It won’t reach you here.”
Rosie groaned. “You’re not making it better. I’m going to have nightmares now, Lucas. We’ll have to sleep with the lights on and I might have to wake you up to bring me water to my bedside table because I’ll be scared of something biting my feet if I step on the floor. You’re digging your own grave here, really.”
I sighed, but it was more for show. “I’ll do that if you need me to. That’s who I am. A good roommate and an even better friend.”
Rosie’s lips fell and she muttered something under her breath.
“Now stay put, okay?” I told her before she lost it again. Then, I moved back to the record player, located the rodent, and not without effort, managed to corner it and shove it back into the empty box with a magazine that had been lying around.
Once ready, I held the box—with the rat—and started making my way back to Rosie.
She stopped me with a hand. “Do not move one more step with that thing in there, buddy.”
“Buddy? Really?” I feigned outrage. “How about ‘Oh, Lucas, my sexy and skilled knight in shining armor’? Now that’s a nickname that suits me and I can get on board with.”
She shot a threatening glance in my direction.
Before I could say anything, a knock on the door came.
“Oh my God,” Rosie whispered. “What if that’s another one of them?”
“Well,” I said, heading for the entrance. “Then, I hope they brought snacks.”
Leaving a fuming Rosie on the counter behind me, I opened the door with the box under my arm and I was welcomed by a face with features I recognized from a much older woman.
“Hi,” a brown-haired woman with one of those edgy haircuts I’d seen around said. “I’m Adele’s daughter, Alexia. I hope I’m not…” She trailed off, her gaze falling behind me. “I hope I’m not interrupting something.”
“Oh no. Don’t worry,” I told Alexia with an easy smile. “She just likes it up there. Right, Ro?”
Rosie’s answer didn’t come for a few seconds. “Yeah,” she called. “Right. I love climbing on furniture. It’s really a pastime of mine.”
I chuckled before returning to Alexia. “It’s very nice to meet you.” I offered my free hand. “I’m Lucas. And the pretty lady on the counter is Rosie.”
“Nice to meet you… both,” Alexia said, shaking my hand. “I wanted to come by to introduce myself and thank you for looking after my mom. Either my wife or I come by every evening, and God knows how hard we’ve been looking for full-time care for her, but it’s proving…” She seemed a little overwhelmed for a moment, leaving that statement unfinished. “Anyway, you’re really good to her, and you absolutely didn’t need to check on her, so I appreciate it. More than you know.”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing.” And I meant it. It really was nothing.
“It’s not nothing.” Alexia reached out and patted me on the arm. “The last time she talked about Dad this way was right after he passed.”
Dad.
So, Mateo had been Adele’s husband, like I’d suspected.
Alexia stared at me for a long time, a heavy emotion filling her eyes. Grief. Clear as the day. “God, you look so much like his old photos. He was Argentinian, mi papá.”
There wasn’t anything I could say that would make it better, so I didn’t.
“All right.” Alexia cleared her throat. “I won’t keep you from”—a knowing smile replaced the sadness that had been there—“whatever you two were doing that definitely looks like fun.”
I nodded, relieved that she hadn’t asked about the box under my arm. “I’ll see you around, Alexia.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ll see you around, too, Lucas.” She peeked behind me. “Bye, Rosie!”
“Bye!” she hollered. “It was nice meeting you, too!”
Only when Alexia was gone, I looked over my shoulder. Rosie was exactly where I’d left her, though her expression was now different. “You’ve been visiting Adele? Every day?”
“Yes.”
“You…” she started, her gaze roaming around my face, her eyes filling up with something. “Ah crap.”
I frowned but our little boxed friend moved, bringing our attention back to where it should have been. “I’m guessing that picking up stuff from the street is a no-go around here.”
The left corner of Rosie’s lips twitched. “I’d probably stay away from basements, too.”
“Fair enough.” I sighed. “All right, I’ll take our little friend out to the street or… to a park?” I frowned. “You know what, I’ll google what to do with it. Just, come down from there when I close this door, okay? You’re safe.”
Because invader rodent or not, I had promised Rosie that much.
And I wasn’t going to forget that.