What was that in the plaza with her Titi?
There was nothing online about Loretta Hernandez, no refresher course Aish could have taken about the woman both Mateo and Sofia had relied on to be their soft landing when their parents dropped them from perilous heights. Titi had been paid to be their niñera but she’d loved and disciplined them like her own.
Aish remembered that. Confusion and his nearness created an unsettling buzz in Sofia.
The room was already warm, but he was the sun behind her. She knew without looking that his head was rocking and his shoulders were moving to the rhythm of her kingdom’s music. His hand—big, with long, elegant fingers and veins that popped out because of his guitar playing—probably tapped against his thigh. Inches from her body.
She remembered the way two of those fingers could exploit a crazy-making spot inside her.
I should have picked up the phone ten years ago, he’d said in her office. I should have said I was sorry for...
The band’s song crescendoed and ended with hoots and applause as the singer announced, “We’re going to take a short break and we’ll be right back.”
Gracias a Dios.
But as the band left the tiny room to go to the bar and the sweaty audience followed them out for drinks, air, and cigarettes, Sofia found herself staring at her empty glass. Aish settled on the arm of the armchair, stretching his long legs out in front of him. Sofia leaned back against the wall.
He plucked her empty glass out of her hands and replaced it with a full one.
“You’re not having any?” she asked and caught the shake of his head as he put her empty glass on the ground.
“I stopped drinking a year ago.”
Quick and angry incredulity made her meet his eyes. His presence in her kingdom proved that to be a lie.
His lip tilted self-mockingly. “Besides a slip a few weeks ago, the only thing I’ve had to drink since John died is half glasses of your wine.”
Sofia didn’t have many memories of him at meals from the last ten days; he either wasn’t present or she was ignoring him. But he’d never seemed drunk. Or hungover. And tonight, she’d only seen a water bottle in his hands.
“Why?” she asked, despite herself.
“Because I wanted a drink so bad,” he said simply. “Because I was tired of the way drinking sometimes made me an asshole.”
A decade ago, he’d never behaved like an asshole in the typical way drunk men throw around their bravado and fists. He’d been helpless. Embarrassingly slurring and boneless and careless with his words and behavior. Worse, there’d been no way to monitor when it was going to happen. She’d seen him walk a straight line after she’d shared two bottles with him and mumbling on her shoulder after two glasses.
“Should you be drinking my wine?” she asked.
The glint in his eye showed he’d read her unwanted concern.
“I’m not an alcoholic, Sofia. But I don’t want to become one. I wouldn’t be any good to my uncle. With John gone—” He cut himself off like he was surprised at his words; his broad shoulders tightened. He dropped his eyes to his hands. “It’ll be easier to tone down the partying on the road.”
She didn’t care about that. She had no interest in his future. But there was something she needed to say about his past. She should have said it ten days ago, blurted it out on the first day rather than letting it guiltily fester.
“I’m sorry. About John. I’m sorry he’s gone.”
When he raised his eyes to hers, the look in them had her pressing her shoulder blades back into the stones.
All he said was “Thank you,” soft and deep. But she had to look away. She looked through the gate, down into the tunnel. It was long and instantly dark, eating up the light. Half-full glasses and bottles congregated on one side of the arch, placating the ghosts who wandered this far.
“You know I borrowed from this style of music for our sound?”
That caught her by surprise. “How?”
His eyes took on...a look. Just for a beat. Then he gave a quick smile—dimple—and said, “Do you know about microtones?”
She shook her head.
He smiled wider and she’d forgotten how much joy he could pack into his cockeyed grin.
“Actually, you do,” he said. “You introduced me to them.”
She took a deep drink as he sat up to curve his fingers over an imaginary keyboard. “Think of microtones as the red keys between the black and white keys. Microtonal music is prominent in the Arab world. They have an ear for it; the western world doesn’t. But you hear it in Irish music and in flamenco and definitely in Celtic-style folkloric music popular in Northern Spain.”
He used his hands when he spoke—it had always been imperative for him to speak with his body—and nudged his hair off his forehead. He’d left it loose, with less product, and the blue-black thickness looked as soft as her dress.
“The music you introduced me to that fall, the world music I hadn’t heard before, a lot of it had microtones. So after we...after that fall...”
Queen-like reserve stomped out her flare of anger, allowed her to stutter-skip over the wound.
“I reworked our songs to put microtonality in them. It was one way to stand out among the millions of talented bands. And it worked.”
She shrunk back as he seemed to reach for her. But he just tapped the silver ring he wore against her glass, making it chime.
“That music helped me create something unique that still appealed to the masses. I have you to thank for that. I’ve always wanted to thank you.”
Sofia remembered one of Aish’s favorite quotes from that fall. “Music’s just sound if no one is paying attention,” she said.
His eyes went wide and bright. “Right.” His dimple dug deep.
She looked down in the amber depths of her glass. “You
