Would he still feel something for me?
I felt as if I was going to be sick. After I went through customs, I ducked into the bathroom and sat down in the stall, breathing in and out, trying to keep my nerves from bouncing like a rubber ball. I counted down to ten, did my makeup in the mirror, making sure I didn’t look like a jet-lagged mess. I looked normal…a bit wide-eyed but normal. I was wearing a long-sleeved dress that covered up my tats, just wanting to look more presentable when I flew, my hair pulled back into a braid.
Okay. Time to do this.
I walked out of the bathroom and headed for my carousel, my eyes darting around the busy area, looking for a tall handsome Spanish man. I didn’t see him. After what seemed like forever, my bags finally appeared—I had a large suitcase that Josh had given me and the backpack I had gone traveling with. I was moving my whole life over, after all, and was amazed everything could fit in those two bags. Everything else I had to leave behind, Josh promising he would take care of it and not let mom throw everything out. Not that she would, but considering her tendency to overreact, I wouldn’t put it past her.
I put the bags on one of the luggage carts and looked around. I hated feeling like he was somewhere watching me when I couldn’t see him.
After five minutes though, I was really starting to panic. What if he never came for me at all?
“Are you Vera?” I heard a soft voice beside me say.
I turned to see a girl who was at least model height, all willowy limbs, with long, thick brown hair and greenish eyes. She was wearing a loose strappy tank in a metallic green that showed off her tanned skin, and those Hammer pants that made everyone except women like her look like they had saggy diaper butt.
“Yes,” I said, smiling uncertainly.
“I’m Lucia,” she said, showing me a great flash of white teeth. She thrust out her hand. “I’m Mateo’s sister.”
“Oh,” I said slowly. Why was she here? Where was Mateo? I shook her hand, limp at first until it really clued in who I was speaking to. Jesus, where were my manners? “Hi,” I said quickly. “Sorry. I just got off the plane and…um, I guess I thought Mateo would be here.”
“He was but he got called into a meeting with the lawyers,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “He asked me to come in and get you.”
“That was nice of you,” I said, feeling terrible. I couldn’t have had the best reputation—I mean, if he asked her to come, then she knew about me. And now she had to come to the airport and pick me up.
“Do not worry about it,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Do you need help?” She gestured to the cart. “I parked in the temporary lot but it is not too far.”
“No, I’m good, thank you.”
“You are good?”
I needed to stop saying that. “I don’t need any help. I have it.”
She smiled and flipped her long hair over her shoulder. I caught a whiff of a women’s perfume I couldn’t quite place. She walked slightly in front of me, her car keys jangling from her hand. I noticed she was wearing strappy stiletto heels, and I envied her ease in them.
“I like your shoes,” I said as we stepped outside into grey skies and muggy warmth.
“Mango,” she replied. “The autumn sales will start soon. We will have to go. Mango, Zara, Blanco, they have the best deals. You can get a leather jacket for forty euros. Forty! Real leather.” She looked at me over her shoulder. “Do you like shopping? I like your tattoos.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said, caught off-guard by how friendly she was. I guess it made sense, since her brother was a charmer. Still, I thought if I ever got a chance to meet Lucia I would have been met with hostility, not this instant buddy-buddy thing, which surprisingly, I didn’t think was an act.
I pushed the cart forward, struggling to catch up with her long-legged gait. “And yeah I like shopping. We have Zara at home. They have nice dresses.”
She shrugged. “More or less. It is a Spanish store, yes? But I have a feeling you will like Blanco more. Once you are settled in with Mateo we shall go.” She raised her keys in the air and clicked the fob repeatedly until the electronic doo doo of the locks unlocking rang out down the row of cars. Satisfied, she waved at me to follow.
Wow. It was a silver Mercedes two-door…car. I didn’t know cars well, obviously, but it looked really pricey.
“Nice car,” I said.
“You like it? My boyfriend bought it for me,” she said.
“Nice boyfriend,” I commented, giving her the slow nod of approval.
“Yes,” she said, staring at it with an appreciative smile. “He likes to spoil me. You will meet him too, soon.” She opened the trunk and lifted my backpack up, apparently packing some muscle in her thin arms. Together we lifted up my heavy suitcase and pushed it into the back.
“Come now,” she said with a jerk of her head. “I will take you to your new home.”
Whoa. I know I had moved all the way here for him, but to hear where I was staying being described as home was jarring to my ears. My home. That seemed fucking surreal. It’s like I stepped off a plane and found a friend and a home right away. It didn’t seem right. It seemed too easy.
As she peeled the car smoothly out of the parking lot, she grinned at me slyly. “It seems you are in shock.”
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
“My brother didn’t tell you much, did he?”
“Not really. But I didn’t ask too much either.”
“I see,” she said, pulling out a tin of Altoids from the middle console. She offered one to me, and though I wasn’t a fan of strong mints, I knew my breath was probably rank after being on that plane for twelve hours. I put it on my mouth and the taste made my brain perk up.
“Yeah,” I said. “It was all kind of last minute. I guess I was just so focused on getting here, and I didn’t really think about what happened after. Mateo told me about his new apartment, after…um, you know. But I guess I didn’t really think about the whole moving in, physically, that this would be my home.”
“Are you worried?” she asked, her lips pursed slightly, her thin brows furrowed.
Yes, I was very worried. But about things that she’d probably take the wrong way. “No,” I told her. “It’s just…”
“Don’t worry, I understand,” she said. “I can only imagine how it is for you, to leave home suddenly and come here. Of course, Mama and Papa, we were so surprised about Mateo and you. We thought that, yes, he was different when he came back from Las Palabras. But when he asked for a divorce and then he told us about you, well…”
Well, ain’t you a whore, I finished in my head. Frankly, I didn’t think I’d heard it enough.
“Well, it certainly was surprising,” she went on with a flash of smile. “But in the end, it made Mateo happy. We all knew that he wasn’t happy with Isabel anyway. At least I knew that. She was always in it for the prestige and not him.” She shot a quick glance at my face, as if to make sure I wasn’t the same. “Like I said, he was happy when he said he met you. It did happen fast, and I’m sure there will be words said about it from the other side, but what can I say, Mateo knows what is best for him and we all support Mateo.”
That was an awful lot to process at once. “So your mom and dad, they weren’t angry at him?”
She shrugged. “Papa didn’t really understand, at first. But my mother, she knew. I think it was a similar situation for her, you know, when she met Papa. None of us had seen Mateo so…like…” she tapped her fingers against the steering wheel in thought, “like he was back in Atletico. You know, the life back in him. That was so nice to see that we didn’t really care what had brought about the change in him.” She eyed me out of the corner of her eyes and smiled. “I can see though that you are a nice girl. Very different from what he is used to, so don’t be surprised if some people give you a funny look. It is just that you are so much younger, and you have the tattoos. It doesn’t really mix in with certain types of people. But you know, I like you.”