“¡Tía!” I scold.
“Well, you know how musicians are.”
Karl laughs. “I know. I was like that too. I won’t lie to you. But I’m serious about Lola, and I’ll take good care of her heart because it is my own.”
I turn to look at him, at how serious his face is as he has this showdown with my aunt, and my eyes well at the sincerity of his words.My heart is his own?I shouldn’t be surprised to hear it because just as my heart is his heart, his is mine.
Sensing my emotion, his hand falls under the table to squeeze my knee.
“I don’t like being lied to,” Elena says finally.
“I’m sorry,tía. I thought we were over, but we just reconnected.”
“Can you at least promise me you’ll be careful? Take it slow?” she asks me, completely forgetting Karl is at the table too.
“I’m sorry,tía. I can’t promise that. I’m in love with him.”
“Ay chamacos,” she says with a shake of her head. Then she sighs. “Well, at least you brought him by to introduce him to me.”
She stands and motions for Karl to follow. She is so short next to him and has to crane her neck all the way back to look at him. “With her parents gone now, I’m her family. You understand?”
“I do,” Karl says.
“Good.” She then pulls him into a hug that Karl returns a bit awkwardly, obviously taken by surprise. When she pulls away, she asks him, “Are you hungry?” But it’s not a question. Karl is about to feast even though he already had breakfast not too long ago—his first test.
* * *
The following night,Fernanda and I are off from the dinner shift, and we decide to meet up with her new friends. The guy she met at the bar, Geraldo, turned out to be great, and he is bringing his boyfriend, though that surprises me given the looks he and Fernanda were giving each other at the bar.
She vouched for him, and he for his buddies, that they wouldn’t give Karl away if we hung out with them tonight.
So Karl and I join their little group around a bonfire on the beach. Even with how impressed the group is by Karl being in the band—they are all metalheads in their own right and immediately knew who he was—they are more impressed with his attempts at Spanish.
I beam at him proudly. Those months apart, he must have been practicing.
“I still can’t believe you’re dating Karl fucking Sommer,” Fernanda says as she places her beer bottle between her bare feet, half-buried in the sand.
“Trust me,” I say. “Most days, I can’t believe it either.”
“What I don’t understand,” Geraldo says, “is why you’re working and not just naked in bed twenty-four hours a day. I mean, look at you. It’s like looking at golden beach Ken and Barbie.”
Karl and I both laugh at the odd compliment.
“Believe me,” Karl says. “I tried. But Lola here thought I should meet her family and friends now that we’re official.”
Karl takes my hand to kiss the back of it, and Geraldo’s hands fly to his chest as he lets out a comical, “Awwww! Aren’t they cute?” He is leaning back against his boyfriend’s chest, arms snuggling him from the breeze, mirroring Karl and me.
When Fernanda reveals Geraldo is also a guitarist, Karl and I almost start geeking out with him until his friends protest that this is not a guitar convention, so we stop, but I know I’ll be connecting with him later on. Maybe my band could have both a lead guitar and a rhythm guitar in it. We could do some incredible things musically with two guitars.
Hours later, the group is plastered, for the most part, and barely standing. Karl and I have managed to remain somewhat sober, though I know we’re both tipsy. Earlier in the night, he’d whispered in my ear, “Don’t overdo it tonight. I have plans for you.” And if that isn’t a reason to stay sober, I don’t know what is.
Now, his hands are fisting the skirt of my yellow sundress covered in daisies, and I can feel his erection pressed behind me.
No one notices when Karl and I stand and relocate a few meters away from the group. They’re all winding down into theChentesinging portion of the evening—the drunkest part of the night.
I sit on Karl’s lap, watching the moon reflect on the calm waters, his thick length pressing hard against my behind. “We should go home,” I breathe out, my skin on fire from his touch and the booze.
He pushes all my hair over one shoulder to expose the other side of my neck and draws his teeth down the sensitive skin.