Our coworkers seemed to have all left, and a quick glance at the empty street confirms a certain pink Wrangler is also absent.Thanks, Judah. Guess I’ll be walking my drunk ass home.
I stand there for a beat, stealing a moment to appreciate Arturo’s strong silhouette in the neon lights of the bar. He lost the blazer a while back and is dressed in blue jeans, cognac leather dress shoes, and a dark gray cashmere sweater that hugs his broad chest and biceps. Day-old scruff kisses his jaw, and his floppy hair is smoothed back impeccably.
I’ve known him a long time now. I’ve kissed this man, held his dick—and seemingly, my fate—in my hand. Once upon a time, I’d thought about doing a lot more. His hair is now dotted with salt and pepper at the sides, it hangs a little longer at the nape of his neck, and the lines around his eyes when he smiles makes me smile too.
He’s a good man. He works hard and sends money home to his family in Mexico, he single handedly paid for his niece and nephew’s education, and he often skypes with them before we open the restaurant. They’re adorable and I’d suspected for a while now that they were giving him a hard time where I wasconcerned. Pedro had even asked Arturo if his uncle was going to marry me. My eyes had grown wide and my mouth gaped open, but Arturo had just laughed and said, “I’m working on it.” Either that or he’d said, “I’m working on a gravity belt.” My Spanish was rusty-o, so it’s not like I’d known for sure.
My phone vibrates with a message, jolting me back into the present.
Arturo: When are you coming back from the bathroom? I am lonely.
He’d been so good to me. He never refused me a day off with Axl getting sick, he always had a fresh coffee waiting for me in his office when I came in Monday mornings to do the books, he gave me back my job without making me beg when Gabe was in rehab, and we never talked about the disaster on my wedding night or the fight he and Gabe had had in my hospital room. We never talked about any of the things that mattered, which is why his following text surprises me.
Arturo: You’re so fucking beautiful.
I laugh and look up to find him watching me, and then I squint at the screen, the words blurring a little as I type my reply.
Me: You’re so fucking drunk.
The neon over the bar gives his hair a blue-black shine and catches the playfulness in his eyes. He’s every bit the handsome devil he was the night of my wedding, the night I kissed those pillow-soft lips, and his sure hands roamed over my body.
I stumble onto the seat beside him and loop my arm through my purse. The twinkle lights glitter from the beer garden, and I long to stretch out on one of the padded bench seats. I hadn’t planned on drinking at all tonight, so I’ll need to call a driver or stumble my ass home if I want to make it back in one piece.
“I better be going,” I slur.
“Uh-uh-uh, mi amor. Jose and I are lonely.” He shakes the tequila bottle in his hand. “And you should never let a man drinkuntil he hits the worm at the bottom, especially not alone. It’s bad luck.”
“Then maybe it’s time to put the tequila away.” I reach for the bottle, but he slides it out of my grasp and laughs when I fall against him.
“Maybe you should stay and share a drink with me.”
“Ihaveshared a drink with you. Several, in fact. That’s why I need to call it a night.”
“Where is your little el chico tonight?”
“With Gabe.”
“Then you need not to worry.”
“You’re persuasive, I’ll give you that much.”
“I am a lot of things, but persuasive is not one of them.” He pours us both a shot and throws his back. I use the opportunity to snatch the bottle from his hands. “Nada, if I were persuasive, I would have you working more than just my tables.”
I chuckle and give him a wicked smile. “You’re drunk.”
“We Mexicans can hold our liquor. And you, you’re part Romanian, this is why you have not fallen over yet.”
“There’s still time, Arturo.”
“Yes, there is.” He raises his empty shot glass, and I pour us both another round, sloshing tequila over the sides. His carefree smile disappears as he says, “A toast, to beautiful women who are not yet falling, and her fool of a boss who wishes she would, so he might catch her.”
He clinks my shot glass against mine and knocks it back. I’m left gaping. “Drink up, mi amor. After the events of your wedding night, surely, this is not a surprise to you?”
It’s not. Not really, but the fact that we’re openly talking about it is. Arturo seemed just as content to bury this attraction to one another under the rug. It’s been almost six years. He’s dated women, beautiful women that made me feel small and dirty in comparison. He’s always friendly and professional butnever inappropriate. So his behavior tonight is ... a very big surprise, and I find myself downing the shot because of it.
Arturo takes the glass from my hands and pours us both another. I shake my head. “I shouldn’t.”
“Shouldn’t what? Drink with me, or fuck me?”