Heart Breaths (10 page)

“You made it!” Sam called as I walked toward the little party of towels that had been set up already.

“I told you I would, didn’t I?” I asked, toeing off my flip-flops and unrolling my towel.

“You did,” Gabe sat down next to me. “Hey, Maddie.”

I nearly swallowed my tongue. Fathers of little girls were not supposed to look that magnificent with their shirts off. “Hey,” I managed.

“You gonna introduce us or what?” a tall blond guy said, coming over and sitting down next to Sam. Practically on top of Sam.

She giggled and batted at his chest. “Chris, this is Maddie—she works in the café for Grandma Evelyn. Maddie, this is my boyfriend, Chris.”

“You’re the new café girl?” he asked, pulling Sam against his chest. “I keep on hearing about you, but haven’t been in the café in weeks.”

“Chris works for the fire department,” Sam explained. “His shifts are crazy.”

“I am the café girl,” I admitted, amused with the title. “I’m kind of nervous what you’re hearing about me, though.”

“That you’re magic,” he deadpanned as Noie came running over.

“Maddie!” she yelled, jumping into my lap. “Pink bathing suit and pink nails!”

“You’re all matching!” I agreed, giving her a hug.

“Magic?” I asked, turning back to Chris.

He pointed at Noie, who was currently snuggled on my lap, playing with the ring on my hand. “Magic,” he repeated.

I laughed uncomfortably and shrugged. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Does she really freak out that much about everyone else?”

Gabe nodded.

“Freaking out is putting it mildly,” Chris said. “No offense, dude.”

“None taken,” Gabe answered, running his hand through his hair again.

I shrugged. “I think y’all are over exaggerating a bit.”

“Y’all? Oh my gawd, you said y’all!” Sam said, bouncing. “We’re turning you all Southern now!”

“Not that Southern,” I protested. “It’s just y’all.”

“It’s just y’all,” she mimicked. “You say that again and we’re going to have to shove your little white Northern ass back up to where it came from. That’s practically sacrilege to say that.”

“Well, I am sorry,” I said, trying to drawl like them, watching them all burst into laughter.

“Don’t hurt yourself there, girl,” Chris said, standing up and grabbing Sam. Swinging her over his shoulder, he looked down at us. “Sorry to interrupt this conversation, but someone has to stay hydrated.”

“You don’t get hydrated by being tossed in the ocean!” Sam shrieked, laughing as Chris jogged toward the surf, carrying her over his shoulders as if she weighed nothing.

“I’m going to make a sandcastle with Grandma and Abuelo!” Noie announced, wiggling off my lap and heading to Gabe’s mom and who I assumed was her husband.

“Grandma and Abuelo?” I asked, puzzled.

He nodded. “Dad is Cuban,” he said.

“He’s Dad and not Padre?”

Gabe shrugged. “Yup.” He said.

Well, that explained the pastelitos he had made for dinner. And the glorious brown of his skin. Maybe not the muscles I was trying my hardest not to stare at, or the arms I was trying not to think about, but the skin… on his neck.

Which I wanted to bite.

Okay, not the skin on his neck then.

Had I ever been this attracted to Crawford?

The thought of Crawford and Jen was an ice bath of unpleasantness that shook me out of my drooling over shirtless Gabe. “So, you don’t work on Saturdays?” I asked, trying to think of something to talk about that wouldn’t involve shirtless men, or engaged sisters.

“Honey, nobody works on Saturday,” he said, the word honey causing tingles to race down my spine. “It’s the weekend.”

“I don’t know, you seem to be working really hard,” I said, running my fingers through the sand. “Maybe you work overtime or something.”

He sighed. “God, work one day is going to kill me,” he muttered. “No, we’re just in the middle of a huge project. I’m not normally this busy.”

“We?” I asked, still not sure exactly what he did. All I knew was that it involved a suit and a briefcase.

“I work in an architecture firm, and go to school for it at night,” he explained.

“Cool,” I said, not really sure. My mother had something redone or remodeled at least once a season for as long as I could remember, and there always was an architect involved. But I didn’t know much about the profession except for it involved blueprints, and that Mother probably didn’t need to hire one to repaint the bathroom. “Do you like it?”

He shrugged. “Most days,” he said. “And then we get a client from hell who wants to change the design five minutes before the meetings with the contractor. Every damn time.”

I winced, knowing exactly what kind of people he was talking about. I grew up with those people. Hell, I was raised by those people.

He shook his head. “Okay, no more work talk today. We’re at the beach. Work does not belong on beaches,” he intoned, making me smile.

Excellent.

Because I wasn’t ready to talk about what I had been doing before I got here, which would inevitably be where the conversation would head.

Sometimes, I thought it would be easier to just tell people I was an escaped convict.

At least you don’t get any annoying fake sympathy for that.

The rest of the day passed in a blur of sunshine and meeting one friend of Gabe and Sam’s after the other. For people who didn’t grow up here, the two of them had made friends with nearly everyone in the neighborhood.

“Gabe!” a voice shrieked. A girl in a very skimpy bikini dropped onto Gabe’s lap and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Hey!”

Every alarm I had turned on. He had a girlfriend? Why hadn’t he said anything?

“Hey, Tiffany,” he said, lifting her off his lap and putting her down next to him.

“I haven’t seen you in so long!” she squealed. “How ARE you?”

I couldn’t sit there anymore. Watching Tiffany fawn over Gabe was a replay of every conversation Jen ever had without our parents hovering over us.

“I’m going to the water,” I said, not sure if he heard me over Tiffany’s chattering. Standing up, I walked toward the surf, wanting to just get knocked over by a wave and carried away somewhere else. Somewhere far away from stupid vapid girls in too small bikinis, away from golden brown boys with brilliant green eyes and a daughter I could love far too easily, away from the damn
New York Times
that was still scattered all over my balcony.

I waded into the water, letting the waves try their best to knock me over.

“Hey, miss!” a voice yelled.

I turned around to see the lifeguard. “Try to stay close—the tide is getting high.”

“Sorry,” I yelled back, not sorry at all.

“You keep on leaving.” It was Gabe.

“I’m not leaving,” I lied.

“Really? Because I’m under this impression you are,” he said, reaching down to tuck a strand of hair back behind my ear.

“Really,” I lied again. “I think you’re imagining things.”

“I think you’re lying,” he responded.

“You do?” I scoffed. “Sorry. Don’t know what to tell you.”

“The truth would be nice,” he said, his face suddenly serious. “Maddie, I thought we were going to be friends.”

Yeah,
that
had been a brilliant idea.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea anymore,” I said.

“Don’t I have a say in the decision?” he asked, coming closer. I backed up, inching my way toward the sand.

“Not anymore,” I said. “It’s for your own good, okay? You don’t want to be friends with someone like me.”

“Then why have I been talking to you on a fairly regular basis since you moved here? And why did I invite you to my house for dinner? And why am I okay with you hanging out with my daughter? Am I not capable of making my own damn decisions?”

“You don’t know really know me!”

He scowled in frustration. “Dammit, Maddie, because you don’t let me!”

His chest heaved, his frustration apparent. “Maddie, everyone fucks up at some point in their life. Everyone, okay? But if you’re the only one who’s left blaming yourself for something that happened before and you can’t go back and change it, the only person you have to blame about being miserable is yourself.”

I stared at him, shocked.

“And I’m not trying to trivialize whatever happened to you, I’m not, but maybe, just once, you can think about the fact that you aren’t the only one with regrets.”

With that, he walked back to the beach, leaving me stunned.

Chapter · Eleven

“Gabe’s pissed at you,” Sam said to me Monday morning.

I shrugged. It was better this way.

“What happened on Saturday?”

“Nothing,” I lied.

“Really?” Her eyebrows went up. “Somehow, I don’t really believe you.”

“Basically, I can’t be friends with him,” I said in a rush.

“Why not?”

“I just can’t right now, Sam, okay?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“It’s not no you just can’t, it’s you just don’t want to,” she said, too smart for her own good.

“Listen. I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, feeling like a broken record. “I’m not in a place where I can have a romantic relationship. I’m barely in a place to have a platonic one, regardless of gender.”

“I just think you’re making excuses,” she said, picking up her coffee.

“I swear, Sam, I’m not.”

Her eyebrow lifted. “Honey, you have to remember other people have feelings, too,” she said before turning and walking out of the café.

“How do I keep doing this?” I muttered to myself.

“Doing what?” It was Grandma Evelyn.

“Jesus, Grandma!” I gasped. “Stop sneaking up on me like that!”

“Then stop having such fascinating conversations with yourself,” she replied. “Now, how do you keep on doing what?”

“Pushing people away,” I said, looking down at the floor.

“Because you’ve been hurt and you’re so scared it’s going to happen again that you push people away before they get the chance to get close to you,” she said, sounding like a female Dr. Phil.

“Is that such a bad thing?” I asked.

She looked me straight in the eye. “Yes.”

“I’m back,” I whispered as I walked toward the cluster of flowers at the edge of the field.

Nothing.

“So, they got engaged,” I said, playing with a strand of grass. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. Or why it hurts so much. But it does.”

Well, the two of them deserve each other, I could hear Ravi say.

“That they do,” I said. “I don’t know what I ever saw in him. If I ever saw anything in him at all.”

A bird chortled from a tree top, and the wind whistled through the trees.

“Do you think I need therapy?”

Of course I needed therapy. I was sitting and pretending to conduct a conversation with my dead boyfriend.

You need to let go, I felt them say. His deep voice and her little one.

“But I’m not ready,” I whispered.

Standing up, I walked unsteadily toward the car. There was nowhere I could go to forget. Short of throwing myself off a bridge, there was nothing I could do to make me forget, either.

Maybe I should see a therapist. I thought back to the months after the accident—when everything was shrouded in miserable confusion. Would a therapist even have helped me then? I don’t know.

But Darlington-Grays didn’t go to therapists. At least, that’s what my mother claimed. Darlington-Grays didn’t need someone, even if that person did attend an Ivy League, to try to analyze them.

Besides, I was fine.

I was.

Right?

“Maddie, I kept on missin’ you all weekend.” Mrs. Mendez cornered me the next morning in the café.

If this was another conversation about Gabe and I, I was going to pour coffee on her head, I didn’t care how nice she was.

“Noie’s turning three on Friday, and we’re going to be making her a little birthday party on Thursday,” she said. “I know she would be thrilled if you came.”

Her third birthday. My stomach clenched. “It’s going to be at your house?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, at the apartment. Gabe doesn’t want it to be anything too big, and Noie likes to play hostess, anyway.”

“I’d love to come,” I said, feeling my hands shake. “When should I be there?”

“At four,” she said. “Early supper kind of birthday party.”

“I’ll be there at four then,” I said.

Reaching over, she gave me a hug. What was with everyone here and hugging? “I’m so happy I caught you,” she gushed. “Noie’s going to be thrilled.” She sobered a bit. “Honey, I don’t really understand why she’s so attached to you, but honestly, I’m not going to ask any questions.”

I watched silently as she walked out of the café.

Her third birthday party.

Birthday presents.

Taking a deep breath, I unzipped the second duffel bag. The one that was nearly unpacked, save for the wrapped package at the bottom. It would be better if she had it, I told myself. It was still wrapped. A little worse for wear, but wrapped. I grabbed the spool of pink ribbon Martina had left here, and added it to the present to fancy it up a bit. Putting it gently into the empty bag from the bookstore, I set it down near the door and looked at myself in the mirror.

Casual dress fit for a little girl’s birthday party? Check. Birthday present? Check. Steady nerves? I had no idea.

The only way I was going to find out was going.

Gabe’s apartment was decorated with bunches of pink and silver balloons. There was a small crowd of people, and it smelled like pizza.

“You came!” Sam beamed when I walked in.

“Of course I came,” I said. “It’s Noie’s birthday party.”

Hearing her name, Noie turned around. “Maddie!” she called. “I’m three!”

“Tomorrow you’re three,” Gabe corrected, walking in from the kitchen. “Hey, Maddie.”

“Hi,” I answered, trying to pretend it all was okay.

“Oh, you brought a present?” Mrs. Mendez came over to peer into the carrier bag. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Like you didn’t,” Gabe said, looking at the huge gift sitting in the middle of the room.

“I’m allowed to spoil my granddaughter, Gabriel,” she scolded.

“I give up.” He threw his hands up in mock despair. “Well, feel free to add it to the pile,” he said to me. “Thanks for coming.”

“No problem,” I replied.

Following Sam over to the couch, I sat down next to Chris while she slid onto his lap. “What’s going on, café girl?” Chris said, turning toward me.

Uh, my life is still falling apart, and if I can make it through this birthday party in one piece it will be a miracle.

“Nothing much,” I said. “How’s the firefighting coming along?”

“Quiet week,” he said.

“That’s good,” I replied.

“
Si, nieta,
” a deep voice was saying. “
Que es su fiesta de cumpleaños
,” It’s your birthday party.

“Maddie,
que es su fiesta de cumpleaños
,” Noie repeated and giggled.

“No, silly girl,
que es su fiesta de cumpleaños
,” I said.

Mr. Mendez turned his head to look at me. “
Habla español
?” he asked, surprised.

I hadn’t lived in New York for twenty-one years for nothing. “
Claro que si
,” I replied.

A broad grin stretched across his face. “Oy, Mami, who taught you how to speak Spanish?” he asked, his English slightly accented. “It’s beautiful.”

I laughed. “An Argentine,” I replied. “And I spent some time in Spain.”

“
Lucy, venga
!” he called to Mrs. Mendez. “You have to hear this voice.”

“Carlos, she’s from New York. You’ve met people from there before,” she teased as she walked over.

I laughed. “
No, Lucy, ella habla español
,” he said, fairly beaming with pride at the fact that I spoke the language of his homeland. “It’s beautiful, like roses.”

“Like roses?” Gabe laughed, walking over. “Dad, Spanish isn’t beautiful like roses.”

“Shows how much I teach you,” his father said, wagging a joking finger at Gabe. “Her Spanish is beautiful like rosas.”

“Pizza, Daddy!” Noie called, running back over from her pile of presents that she had been peeking at.

“You ready, almost-birthday girl?” he asked, leaning down to scoop her up.

Leading the group, we crowded around the table and ate pizza, talking over and around each other, the conversation bouncing back and forth from English to Spanish. Even Chris was pretty familiar with the Spanish.

“Cake and then presents?” Gabe said, looking down at Noie, who nodded, excited.

Mrs. Mendez walked back in from the kitchen, holding a pink frosted cake with three candles sticking up from the top. “Happy Birthday to You,” we sang, Noie included.

“Make a wish,” Gabe said as Noie scrunched up her face and blew the candles out. Clapping, Gabe pulled the candles out of the cake and started slicing it into pieces.

“Pink cake for my birthday, Daddy?” Noie asked, thrilled at the explosion of pink that had taken place that day.

“Pink for your birthday,” Gabe agreed, handing her a small slice of cake. “But only on the outside of the cake. Because there’s no such thing as pink chocolate.”

“Pink chocolate is silly,” she giggled, taking a bite from her cake, getting frosting all over her nose.

“Presents NOW?” Noie asked, having waited the whole night for it.

We all burst into laughter. “You can open your presents now,” Mrs. Mendez agreed as we all sat in various spots around the couch.

Barreling over to the presents, Noie began to rip the wrapping paper off the big cardboard box. “A doll house!” she cried, thrilled.

“With dolls and furniture to go inside it,” Mrs. Mendez said, smiling down at Noie, who was nearly overwhelmed with excitement.

“What do you say to Grandma and Abuelo?” Gabe prompted her.

“
Gracias!
” Noie said, her Spanish perfectly pronounced.

Making quick work of the rest of her presents, she suddenly was at mine.

Was it a good idea? It was too late now.

Ripping off the wrapping paper, she stared down at the box. “A baby?” she gasped. “A baby in a bed!”

It was a baby doll, nestled inside a little wooden cradle.

Coming over to me, clutching the baby doll, Noie looked up at me, eyes solemn. “Me and Devi say thank you,” she said, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek.

My eyes teared up and it was suddenly hard to speak around the giant lump in my throat. “You’re welcome,” I whispered.

Gabe looked at me like he wanted to say something, but didn’t.

And since it was a birthday party for a three-year-old, the night drew to a close when Noie got tired and cranky. “Don’t want to go to bed,” she wailed, leaning against me.