“In that order?”
“I hope so.”
I groan. I don’t want to go anywhere and I don’t particularly feel like seeing him, now that I know he’s with Ruby.
Then it dawns on me.
Fuck. She’s there with him right now, isn’t she?
Nausea rolls through me. Literally and figuratively.
“Are we going to be alone?” I manage to ask him, taking a deep breath in through my nose, trying to stay calm.
“Yes, of course.”
“I thought Ruby…”
“Oh, she’s not here,” he says. “She’s staying at an Airbnb.”
I exhale in relief.
“Yeah, I have lots to talk to you about,” he goes on. “While you’ve been in Turkey, things have been happening.”
“What kind of things?” I ask hesitantly.
“Get on your fucking clothes and meet me at The Old Mule. Twenty minutes.”
The Old Mule is just around the corner from my apartment in the Salamanca neighborhood. Marco doesn’t live too far away either.
He hangs up before I have a chance to protest.
It’s for the best.
Even though I feel sick, my head hurts, my tongue feels fuzzy, and my arms and shoulders are absolutely aching, I get two things on Marco’s list crossed off. Then I stumble into jeans and a black t-shirt, slick a bit of paste in my unruly hair, and slip on dark aviator sunglasses to hide all my sins.
It’s not long until I’m at the restaurant, Marco already having ordered us beer on the patio.
“You need this,” he says to me as I sit down. “You look like shit.”
“I feel like it,” I tell him. I don’t particularly feel like drinking, and the smell of the beer is turning my stomach, but after a few sips I feel I’ve made the right choice.
We place an order with the waitress and then Marco launches into it.
“So Ruby, huh?” he says with a wink.
“Yeah. Strange.”
“You think so?”
I’m glad he can’t see my eyes beneath the sunglasses. “You said you haven’t seen her for nine years? Suddenly she’s here? How did that even happen?”
“She reached out to me,” he says.
Fuck if that doesn’t hurt.
She reached out to him.
“When?”
“Over a week ago. She called me and said she was in Madrid for work and wondered if I wanted to get a drink somewhere. I thought, why the hell not, you know? So I met up with her and it was like…I don’t know, it was like stepping into the past. She’s changed, you know. We both have. She was young back then.”
“So were you,” I remind him.
“Right. Weird how it feels like yesterday, doesn’t it? Of course, I don’t have to remind you of that. Must feel like ages ago to you.”
Not quite.
“Anyway,” he goes on, after he swallows down a sip of beer, “I don’t know what to say but…I think she’s the greatest thing to ever happen to me.”
My brows go to the sky. “It’s been a week, Marco.”
“So? I’ve been around. Sometimes you find the right person and you know. Has that really never happened to you?”
I can barely shake my head.
“That’s sad, Luciano. It really is.”
I give him a fake smile. “I’m okay with it.” I gulp my beer.
“I think I’m in love with her.”
I nearly spit out my drink.
“The fuck?” I cry out. “You’re not in love with her.”
“How do you know?”
“You just met her.”
He can’t be serious.
“I just met her again. She’s an ex. This is our second chance. Maybe I was in love with her back in the day and I didn’t know it.”
“No.” I push my finger into the table, leaning forward. “You knew you weren’t. You dumped her and bought her a fucking plane ticket to Barcelona!”
He frowns at me. “How did you know that?”
Well, fuck. “You told me,” I lie.
He shrugs, as if he figures he must have. “I know what I did, but I was young and stupid. Look, I’ve been fucked around a lot lately, Penelope’s divorce really did a number on me. You should be happy for me. As a brother, as a friend.”
I breathe in sharply, my hands clenching and unclenching under the table.
“I am happy,” I say carefully. “I just don’t want you to get hurt. You can’t be serious already…”
He sighs. “We’re not.” He leans forward, lowering his voice. “She won’t even sleep with me.”
That makes me feel relieved, but… “It’s only been a week.”
“The girl I remember wouldn’t have waited.”
Oh. I want to punch him in the face, so fucking bad.
“Maybe she’s matured,” I say carefully. “Maybe she remembers what you did to her.”
He leans back in his chair and starts fiddling with the cufflinks on his suit jacket, a move that reminds me of my stepfather. “Maybe. But it’s been a long time. She should be over it.” Something comes over his eyes and he looks at me. “We should go on a date, like old times.”
“No.”
“Come on. I think you liked her, didn’t you?”
God, he has no idea.
“I’m not going to be your third wheel. Again.”
“Fine. Fine, but she’s at least going to interview you.”
“Marco,” I say sharply. “Stop with the interview bullshit. Why do you keep harping on that?”
“She’s doing really well now. She does sports reporting for a Finnish channel or something. She finally got to where she wanted to be.”
I have to admit, that piece of information warms me, just a little, like a lit match in a cold, dark room. “Good for her.”
“I just think it would be fun. It would bookend this whole thing. Like, this is how it started, and this is how it will end.”
“What’s ending?”
He shrugs. “Maybe my second wave of bachelorhood.”
I swallow, feeling like I have something in my throat. “And have you told her any of this, what you feel about her?”
“No. Absolutely not. Hey, I know I’m coming on strong. It’s a secret. Which means don’t tell her during your interview either.” He points his beer at me. “I’m watching you.”
I haven’t agreed to
