CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lucas
I rested my elbows on my knees and let my head fall between my shoulders. Closing my eyes, I told myself for the hundredth time that I’d done the right thing.
The only thing I could have done.
Rosie wasn’t the only one struggling with the idea of saying goodbye. I was, too. I… didn’t think I could have gone through it if I hadn’t left the way I did.
I snuck out while she was still asleep.
I was a coward.
But it was about survival.
I couldn’t give her what she deserved. I was… a man with no plan. No life. No purpose. Sin oficio ni beneficio, like Abuela would say.
And if I had stayed one more minute in that bed with her all soft and warm and wonderful against me, I would have never left her side. I would have only delayed what was to come: her finding someone else that could give her all the things she wanted and deserved. Everything we’d had, and stability. Someone that had goddamn plan, a future. Someone who had his shit together.
I didn’t want Rosie to settle for me. And I wouldn’t let myself use her, use us, to ignore reality.
Eyeing the counter again, I finally saw my destination displayed on the screen above it indicating that it was open for check-in.
“Fucking finally,” I muttered under my breath, even when I knew that this was on me for showing up at the airport hours early.
Instead of enjoying that time with Rosie.
With a sigh that wasn’t of relief, I stood up, grabbed my backpack from the floor, and called for Taco, “Vamos, chico.” Then I headed to the queue before it got too long.
Checking my phone as I stood there, I fired a text to my sister, who had arrived in Spain from Boston yesterday. With the time difference, I knew it had to be around lunchtime in Spain.
Lucas: At the airport. Will you pick us up?
Lucas: Can we stay at your place tonight?
Charo: first, I babysit your dog. Now, the two of you?
I rolled my eyes; she was just being difficult by default. I knew my big sister.
Charo: Abuela is staying here too, she planted herself here today. So we’ll go pick you up. I’ll bring sandwiches to the airport; I know flying gets you hungry. Jamón or chorizo?
Lucas: Jamón.
Charo: How about please and thank you?
Lucas: Please. Thanks.
Lucas: And why is Abuela with you?
Charo: Rude. I hope you got her a gift. Mamá, too.
Lucas: oh.
Ah mierda. I hadn’t thought of getting anything for anyone. Not even the Empire State Building key ring Mamá had asked for.
Charo: oh? That’s all you got?
Lucas: what do you mean?
Charo: first you say please and thank you without being snarky about it. Then, you don’t even try to sell me something like “I’m bringing myself, I’m the gift.” Or like being your usual… charm-man.
Lucas: I’m sorry.
Charo:… Now you’re apologizing?
Charo: are you okay?
That was a loaded question. How I was, was something I didn’t have the energy to dissect myself, much less via text with Charo. I started typing an answer.
Lucas: I’m okay. Just tired, we’ll talk when I get there okay? I will land at—
“Lucas!”
My head lifted off my screen, my eyebrows knitting because that couldn’t be the voice I thought it was. Her voice. She couldn’t—
“Lucas! Wait!”
I turned around.
My eyes scanned the crowd behind me, jumping from head to head, from face to face, until settling on one. Just one. The one face I could never miss. Not even in a packed airport terminal.
And then, everything slowed down.
As if I was starring in a dream, Rosie parted the sea of busy people. Her hair was a beautiful mess of curls, her eyes burning green, her cheeks flushed, and those full lips I’d memorized parted. She was wearing the short-sleeved shirt she had been sleeping in—my shirt—the front tucked into her jeans and… God, why didn’t she have a goddamn coat on? It was November and freezing outside.
“Lucas!” Rosie repeated. She closed the distance while I stood there like a statue. Like a total dumbass, watching her run toward me, and hearing Taco bark excitedly. “Oh my God, you’re still here. Thank God.”
The last three steps she took felt like a haze. Like she wasn’t real, and this couldn’t be happening. I’d have to be imagining it.
“Rosie?”
But instead of answering, she threw herself at me, landing on my chest, and it was as if the ground beneath my feet had finally settled. Everything around me disappeared.
I wrapped myself around her, breathed her in, rejoiced in having her in my arms, being able to do all those things I’d regretted not doing one last time.
She looked up, meeting my gaze with those eyes I’d never forget.
Unable to stop myself, I leaned down and kissed her. Simply content to get one more kiss from her lips.
When I came up for air, I moved us out of the line, not giving a damn if I lost my spot. I looked into her face. “Rosie, what are you doing here?”
She shivered in answer and I took off my coat and placed it around her shoulders. Her head shook but she didn’t complain. Good. I wanted her warm. Safe.
“I…” she trailed off, taking one step back. “I couldn’t do it, Lucas.”
I didn’t like the space between us, but I had the feeling she needed it.
“I thought you didn’t want to do goodbyes,” I told her. “That’s why I left.”
Liar, it was you who couldn’t bear the thought of saying goodbye to her.
“And you’re right.” Her throat bobbed. “I can’t. I can’t say goodbye to you, Lucas. That’s why I’m here.”
I frowned, feeling there was more. Something else.
She pulled out her phone from the back of her jeans. Unlocked it and looked for something. “Here,” she said showing the screen to me.
It was a photo. A selfie of me and Taco on a beach. An old one. From way before the accident and before we’d ever met. I—
“Here,” she repeated. “I’ve been keeping this on my phone ever since you posted it on your Instagram.” The pace of her breathing increased, the air leaving her mouth in big gulps. “I… sort of followed you, Lucas, without actually following you. I checked for new posts every day, went to bed thinking of them, of you, of your face, of Taco, too.”
My own chest mimicked hers, oxygen suddenly struggling to enter and exit my lungs.
“For months,” she added. “Then, you didn’t come to Lina and Aaron’s wedding, and I was heartbroken over missing the chance to meet you in person. Devastated. But I told myself I was being stupid, that it was just a silly online crush.” She shook her head. “But I was fooling myself. I… never stopped thinking of you, Lucas.”
My mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. I just… What was there to say? I was trying to process everything she was telling me. How fucking good it made me feel. How my chest and head were growing a couple sizes too big.
“Do you think I’m a weirdo? A stalker?” Rosie whispered. “Because if you think that of me now, you have to tell me before I—”
“No,” I finally rushed to say. “No. God, no.” I clasped her cheeks, my thumbs caressing them. “I’m flattered, Rosie. I’m… I’d never think you’re weird. I love that you liked what you saw. I love that you wanted me.” I kissed her forehead. “If anything, I’m flattered, preciosa.”
“Okay,” she murmured. “That’s good. That’s really good.”
“I wasn’t lying, Rosie.” I tilted her head back with my hands, making sure she was looking at me. “Everything I said on that rooftop about us, if we’d met at the wedding, was true. Do you understand?”
Her gaze filled with something. Something that made me short of breath. Something that resembled the way she had looked at me that night, seconds before asking me to kiss her.
“Lucas,” she said, staring into my eyes. “I’m glad you say that. Because I…” Her eyelids fluttered closed very briefly, then opened again. “This is my grand gesture.”
My heart thrummed recklessly in my rib cage.
“I’ve told myself a hundred times that I shouldn’t do this, but I can’t not do it,” she said, looking at me with a million different things dancing in her beautiful eyes. “Stay with me, Lucas. Be with me. I want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time. I know that you can’t stay in the country without a visa, that you squeezed that time to the last second. So, I’ll come with you. I’ll get myself a ticket right now, I—” She shook her head. “I haven’t packed or have anything with me right now but that doesn’t matter. I’ll buy what I need in Spain. You are all I need, Lucas. I want you. I want to go on dates that are not experimental. I want to kiss you under the rain a hundred times more. I want to dance with you in the kitchen every morning. I want to bring you a box of Cronuts when I want to say thank you. And not because we’re friends.”
My heart had halted in my chest.
My lungs stopped functioning and no air got in or out.
My hands fell to my sides.
And I… I didn’t know how I was still standing.
Then, Rosie went for the final blow. “But because we’re more. Because we’re everything. And we can do that here, or in Spain.”
I blinked, everything inside of me breaking.
Shattering with a big loud bang.
Rosie must have felt it, too, because her face fell. She took a step back.
“Rosie,” I somehow rasped, the word barely coming out. I reached for her face, but she shook her head. Because she knew; I didn’t need to tell her. She could read me. “You can’t leave your life behind and follow me. I—”
She took another step back, merely a few inches this time, but it was enough for my blood to drain from my face.
I needed to hold her. I… just couldn’t bear seeing her hurt and knowing I was the one responsible.
“Rosie, preciosa,” I reached for her again. But she shook her head. Something lodged in my chest, cutting the air. “Rosie… I…”
I couldn’t make the words form, climb to my mouth, and leave my lips. Everything in me stuttered, watching this beautiful woman be shredded to pieces. By me.
By what I couldn’t bring myself to say out loud. To give her.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. But it wasn’t. “It’s okay. That was very selfish of me, reckless. I put you in a hard spot.” Her throat bobbed. “I knew the last thing you needed right now was this. You said so yourself, that you were not in the market for a relationship, right? That you didn’t date. I just thought… I thought maybe that had… changed. Because of me.”
“Rosie,” I said, her name again, and for the first time, it felt wrong rolling off my tongue, like I had no right to utter those five letters together anymore. Like I’d lost that the moment I’d hesitated. “I…” Want to. There’s nothing I want more than you, I wanted to tell her. “I can’t.”
I can’t make you do this. I can’t let you uproot your life for me. Not when nothing is waiting in Spain for me.
But the words wouldn’t come out, paralyzing anxiety, fear, flooding me.
One single tear slipped down her cheek and it killed something inside of me. It smothered a light, bringing only darkness.
I managed to step forward, opened my mouth to beg her not to cry, but she stopped me with a hand. “I knew what I was doing. I was happy to have this one week with you, even if it was the last. So I don’t regret you, Lucas Martín. I don’t regret doing what I just did, either.” Her arm dropped, coming around her middle. “I just really wish you wanted me as much as I want you.”
But I do.
I want you with every cell in my body. Every nerve ending. Every bone. Every ounce of who I am.
“Have a safe flight, Lucas,” she whispered.
Then, she turned around, and even when Taco whimpered and nudged my leg maniacally, I still didn’t move. I remained rooted in place, gasping for air, and watching her walk away with my jacket hanging off her shoulders.