To those in the mountains
Who sheltered and fed us
Accept our offering
But stay there, understand.”
As the group laughed and others joined them, Sofia settled back against the railing and began to entertain them with legends about the monks who haunted the mountain caves. These monks taught early settlers how to make sacramental wine; the early settlers taught them how to enjoy it. The caves were the entrances and exits of the many natural tunnels that ran through the limestone foundation of the valley. The ghostly legends kept most from exploring, but Sofia knew the pathways better than anyone.
As more people joined their group, Sofia stayed relaxed and smiling, shared the myths and fables, and held her breath as she waited for Aish to interject himself.
But he didn’t. He stayed quiet as he drank from his water bottle and watched her.
Del amor al odio hay un paso, a few Spanish tabloids had declared under two images of Sofia and Aish: one where she glared toe to toe at him, the next where she wistfully looked up at him as he sang, her hands twined around her niece’s back.
There’s a fine line between love and hate.
#Aishia, they reported, was showing signs of life.
She could do this.
He took a step closer toward her.
“¿Estamos listos?” she called, straightening. “Are we ready for the next stop?”
For the first time, these people gave an enthusiastic reply.
She gathered a group of interns around her and turned, her velvet dress whirling around her shins. Feeling like el flautista de Hamelín, she headed for the back stairs, knowing that ratón was going to follow.
Goddamn, it was something to chase a woman like her, Aish thought as the laughing, chatting group walked through the village plaza. He had no practice with chasing; from that first moment in grade school when he became aware of dazzled grins aimed his way, people treated him like he was their gold-medal prize.
But here he was, a guy with a Grammy, an Emmy, and the panties and private phone number of a Hollywood A-lister, crossing centuries-old granite in his steel-toed boots to literally chase after her skirts.
It was more exhilarating than those podium walks and that limo blow job.
He didn’t care that she all but ignored him when she told her stories, stories from the heart of her, stories that made her shine. She’d be so pissed if she knew he was proud of her, but he hoped that some of her irritation with him had channeled into proving him wrong.
She ignored him, was annoyed by him. And yet, when she’d caught him staring at the bar, when she leaned back and taunted him with the unending sweep of skin from her breasts to her sharp chin, she beckoned him. Saliva had filled his mouth, and he had a drunk’s thirst to grab a handful of that cropped hair, arch her head back, and taste every inch of skin the velvet exposed. Fuck the crowd and the employees and the suspiciously absent security and media that had to be lurking somewhere. Fuck that big blond bodyguard that kept touching her.
You can do better than this. I deserve better than this.
And that was why Aish let her have her distance. Because he was trying to haul himself out of a year’s worth of thinking about nothing but his miserable self to spend a little more time thinking about her. About what she was asking for and why.
At this point, all he could realistically fantasize about was one decent conversation.
Sofia stopped outside a stone-fronted shop that looked centuries old. A few young guys came out of Bocadillos de Hernandez with trays of paper-wrapped baguette sandwiches and alcohol. Aish moved toward her as he watched Sofia greet a tiny, elderly lady with helmet-black hair. In a huddle of locals, it was a pleasure to watch Sofia speak a happy and knee-weakening Spanish.
He was such a fucking kid that her voice still did that to him.
As a waiter teased a young hospedería employee about moving to the big city, Aish saw Sofia’s happiness fall away. “Lourdes?” she asked the girl. “What’s he talking about?”
The girl—in her early twenties, round and cute—gave a retributionpromising glare to the waiter before she put her hand on Sofia’s sleeve. “You know my last semester is this spring. I have to start applying now if I want a teacher training position in the fall.”
Sofia smiled weakly. “The Monte needs teachers.”
“Si, señora,” the girl said. She could have been talking to the elderly lady, the way she was gently letting her princess down. “I might move back one day.”
What had Sofia thought, that a few smiles from the interns and couple of good news cycles had changed the tide working against her? He knew one of her hopes was stopping the flow of young people out of the Monte by providing them the jobs, opportunities, and fun that could come with increased tourism.
But everything was still on shaky ground. He and Sofia still needed each other.
He hated watching the little bit of joy he’d seen in her fade away.
He sidled in, brushing his leather-jacketed arm against her velvet sleeve, and said, “What’s a bocadillo?” He made sure to give the double Ls a flat L sound.
Sofia’s spine straightened. When she was annoyed at him, she was too puffed up to be sad.
“It’s bo-ca-diyyyyyyyyo, señor,” the older woman said in a heavy Spanish accent, stressing the y sound in the double Ls. She barely came up to his chest but her dark-eyed glare was formidable. “It’s a sandwich. This is my shop. Try one.”
She took a sandwich from a tray and handed it to him. Aish loved a late-night bocadillo when they were touring Spain, but this one—with crunchy-crust bread pillowing a perfectly seasoned tortilla española fixed up with paper-thin tomatoes and
