“I know what this is,” he says. “I’m not asking you to be my girlfriend or my wife. You were at that bar looking for something, and I’m just the lucky bastard who caught your eye. But I’m not going to stand here and lie to you. I can’t tell you I don’t want to see you again after tonight.”
“The thing is, I’m not sure I’ll be here much longer.” I meanlife, but Rory, I know, hearsKansas City.
“Can we just enjoy the time we do have, then?” He ducks his head to hold my gaze, and I suddenly am not sick Valentina. I’m not cancer-patient Valentina. In his eyes, I’m hot and sexy Valentina. The girl with the Spanish accent who bought him a drink. “Please?” he nudges.
“Okay,” I say, unsure how the hell I’m going to get out of this. The thing is, spending what little time I have before treatment with him sounds lovely. I can always make an excuse later if I’m not feeling up to going out on the weekend.
He leads me by the hand as we make our way back through the trees and lays down on the grass. He pats the spot next to him. “You gonna join me?”
“This is the weirdest hookup of my life,” I tell him, attempting to joke, but he doesn’t laugh. His beard shifts lightly with the movement of his clenching jaw.
We are nestled between two trees, looking up at the black sky through the leaves. There are no stars out tonight. I’m completely sober now, and a gust of wind makes me shiver. I press my naked arms to his body as I curl up to his side.
“Hold on.” Rory shifts. “Lift your head a bit.” I do as I’m told, and he slides his arm under my head so that I nestle next to him and lay my head on his shoulder. He wraps his other arm around me and rubs my arm a few times to warm me up. “Better?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I get cold easily.”
“That’s great because I’m always running way too hot.” And it’s true. His warm skin soothes me, and I bet my cool skin refreshes him. I fit next to his body perfectly and can only imagine what it will be like to have him fully.
A short gust of wind rattles the leaves into the most soothing sound.
“Valentina?”
“Mmm?” I moan, too relaxed to form words.
“Why did you pick me?”
I shrug. “You’re handsome. And . . .” I bite the inside of my lip.
“And what?”
What the hell.Pa’ luego es tarde, as Chema would say. “When you were getting the Pop-Tart from the vending machine, Imayhave checked out your ass.”
“You checked out my ass?”
I lift my head so I can read his expression, and he chuckles. “Yeah. I checked out your ass. Sue me. It’s a cute little bubble butt.”
“Oh, Valentina—”
“What?”
“I was checking out your ass the entire time you were threatening the machine.”
“You were?”
“Yeah.”
I laugh, and a moment of silence follows. I’m thinking about the train station and all the places I want to go one day. “Rory?”
“Mmm?”
“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”
“Easy. India.”
“That’s unexpected.”
“I’d eat my way through India until I got sick of it.”