Lessons in Gravity (Study Abroad #2) (15 page)

I swivel my head, just a little, and catch Maddie’s eye. They’re lit up again, her eyes, the blue fiery somehow, like a white-hot lick of flame. She’s so passionate in her adoration of Madrid. Madrid, my home, my city. She loves it as much as I do.

She may be a mess. She may have run out on me. But this girl—this fucking girl—there’s something wonderful about her, and I can’t get enough of it.

It’s stupid.

It’s a waste of time.

But the thought forms anyway, and suddenly it’s the only thought inside my head, big and loud and demanding to be heard.

“Come with me,” I say. “Next time I fly, you should come with me. My plane will be ready next week, I think. Maybe you could take some pictures for your thesis—we could fly over the monastery…”

“Really?” She draws back, nose scrunched in surprise. It’s cute. “That’d be awesome. I mean, I don’t want you to feel obligated—”

“No,” I say, too quickly. “Of course I don’t feel obligated. I want to. Take you flying, I mean. Of course, if you don’t feel comfortable, or you don’t want to come or whatever…you, um, don’t have to. Come with me. Flying. I meant you don’t have to come flying if you don’t want to.”

Christ I’m making a mess of this. I shove a hand through my hair, hoping she can’t see the heat creeping up my neck.
 

***

Maddie

I bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling. Javier is usually so eloquent, so well spoken in both English and Spanish. I’ve never seen him flustered like this.

I kinda like it.

“Yes,” I say. “I would love to come flying with you, very much. Thank you for offering.”
 

“All right,” he says. “This weekend?”

I grin. “All right,” I say.

I tell myself I agree to go flying with him for my thesis. Seeing the monastery from above might reveal something about its architecture I haven’t picked up on from the ground. It could be the missing piece that makes the whole project come together.

But there’s a niggling thread of lightness in the back of my chest, right between my shoulder blades, that has nothing to do with my thesis or the monastery.

It does, however, have a lot to do with Javier’s kindness. His adorable shyness as he offered the invitation.

I close my eyes.

Stop it
. I need to stop being so stupid.

I take a warrior breath, hoping it extinguishes that lightness in my chest. It does.

Good.

A few minutes later, Javier pulls up in front of his apartment building. Vaguely familiar, it’s a cool spot. The flat itself is in an old building, with tall ceilings and huge windows; the neighborhood is just on the edge of fashionable, with tree-lined streets and great bars, restaurants, and shopping.

I wait in the car while Javier runs up for the guitar. When he comes back out a few minutes later, he sees me through the window and smiles. My head’s been on swivel, watching people as they pass by with their dogs, their kids, their groceries. I was way too much of a mess that morning I left Javier’s to appreciate his ’hood.

“I love it here,” I breathe when he climbs in beside me. “What neighborhood is this?”

“Malasaña,” he says. “I actually bought the flat sight unseen while I was on tour. I knew I wanted to live in this area, so I jumped when I had the chance. It’s turned out to be quite lovely. Sounds a bit cheesy, but there’s no place on Earth I’d rather be. When we have more time, I’ll show you around.”

I look down at my lap, smiling tightly.

Javier will never show me around Malasaña. Not because his offer isn’t genuine—he’s a gentleman, any offer he makes is genuine—but because I won’t ever take him up on it. Touring his neighborhood together sounds pretty date-y to me. Something out of a romantic comedy. I don’t do dates, and I definitely don’t do romance.

Romance—falling in love—it requires you to stand still. To abandon distraction and face your fear and surrender to it anyway. The last thing I want to do is stand still right now, because then I’d have to face some pretty awful facts. Like the fact that my dad may not love me or my family. Like I may not be loveable at all. I mean, not to hark back to the whole Rafa thing (he
did
fall for my roommate, not me), but what else am I supposed to think?

Moving, doing, coming—they keep me from thinking about that stuff. I need the distraction to keep from hurting. It hurts too much to think about those fears, much less face them.

Still. I can’t help but imagine how wonderful touring Javier’s neighborhood with him would be. Walking beside him on a pretty afternoon, the low rumble of his voice filling the space between us as he tells me why this hole-in-the-wall bar is his favorite; as he shows me where he buys his groceries, where takes his mom for gelato; as he explains in languid Spanish why he’s so in love with this place, the place he comes from.

He’s so sure about who he is and where he belongs.

So sure about the beautiful life he wants. The beautiful life he deserves.

I look up at the window. The nighttime rush of Madrid passes by: twinkling lights, pedestrians huddled against the cold, fountains lit up like shimmering beacons in the darkness. My heart swells in my chest. It’s so gorgeous here, even at night when it’s negative fifty degrees outside and it’s a gloomy Wednesday in November. That’s the magic of Madrid—even when you’re cranky and you’re cold and you’re confused as hell about who you are and where you’re going, it can stop you dead in your tracks with its beauty. Its ageless elegance.

I used to think I deserved a beautiful life, too. I wanted to marry the guy of my dreams. I wanted the white picket fence and the pretty dream house and the family.

But now, after my dad set fire to my sense of self, my sense of trust? Now I’m not so sure. That life seems more like a fantasy—something that doesn’t exist, something that could never come true—than a dream. A dream is something that
could
come true with a lot of work and a little luck.

But right now I’m overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes just to keep my head above the water. My dreams—well.

I don’t know if I even believe in them anymore.

Chapter 11

Javier

Traffic is still pretty bad, and it takes us a while to weave our way to city center.

Maddie watches out the window as we drive up to the monastery, lips parted in breathless wonder. I’m worried the dazzle of seeing it for the first time might fade, but Maddie appears as enrapt, as passionate, as she was last weekend. More so.

I hurry to open the door for her, but she’s already climbing out of the Defender, her boots landing on the cobblestones with a small
thump
.

“
Balls
it’s cold,” she says, inhaling a sharp breath through her teeth.

I take a step back, allowing her to walk forward before I move to her right. “I’m on the outside, remember?”

She tugs at her bottom lip. “Right. That time I almost got run over by a van.”

“This way they’ll hit me first,” I reply. The sidewalk is very narrow here. My elbow brushes hers.
 

“Sorry,” I say.

“It’s all right,” she says. She steps back, putting a bit more space between us.

It’s none of my business, what’s going on inside Maddie’s head. It’s none of my business, and I tell myself I’m not interested in digging deeper anyway.

But why does the girl who came apart quite loudly, quite freely, in my arms that night at Ático—the girl who let me touch her and tongue her, the girl who seemed to enjoy every second of it—why does that girl back away when our arms touch?

Leo is waiting for us at the side entrance to the monastery. He’s running through the last bit of his cigarette, inhaling deeply. I inhale myself. The second the smoke fills my lungs, I’m hit with longing so potent it makes me dizzy.

Staring down the cigarette, I run my tongue along the inside of my cheek. It’s all I can do not to reach out and pluck the cigarette from his mouth, taking it for myself.

“Put. That. Out,” I manage through gritted teeth. “For the love of God, Leo, you know I’m trying to quit.”

“Sorry, mate,” he replies, tossing the cigarette on the ground. He grinds it out with the heel of his boot. “Maddie! Ha-lo! Nice very to have you!”

Maddie allows Leo to wrap his arms around her with a smile, squeezing her eyes shut when he plants an audibly wet kiss on either of her cheeks.

“I wouldn’t miss it, Leo,” she says. “You guys sound so great up there. The perfect soundtrack to do some research to.”

Leo meets my eyes, wags his brows. “The research. Yes. So much of the doing research together.”

I step inside the monastery after Maddie; her shoulders relax at the sudden burst of heat.

I help Maddie out of her jacket, and when she tries to take it from me, I wave her off, and tell her to start taking her photographs. As we head further into the monastery, I grab Leo by the arm, letting Maddie walk a few steps ahead of us with her enormous camera in hand.

Leo,
I murmur.
What the hell was that? You’re scaring Maddie with your weird innuendo.

He looks at me with a teasing gleam in his eye.
I see the way you look at her, Javi,
he says in Spanish.
She’s beautiful. I hope you get to do a lot of
ree-search
with her, whatever that is. It sounds dirty. Is it dirty?

I hold my head in my hand, letting out a small sigh of exasperation as we climb the stairs.
I wasn’t looking at her like…like that.

You can lie to yourself,
Javi
, he says.
But you can’t lie to Leo.

I came back to Madrid for Carmen
, I say.
I want Carmen. That’s who I’ve been looking at. Didn’t you notice last time at practice?

He shrugs.
No. I didn’t.

The gallery is lit up like there’s an honest to goodness concert tonight, the frescoes and sculptures and six-hundred-year-old tapestries taking on new dimension in the soft gilding of the chandeliers above.

Maddie is already at the top of the stairs. She holds the camera up to her face, one hand curved around the lens while the first finger of the other clicks away, the camera emitting a snap every time she takes a photo. Right now she’s getting up close and personal with a green marble column that supports a monumental gilded arch, bending her knees to get a better shot.

Her legs. My gaze moves up and down, down and up the shapely length of her legs. Her heeled booties make them look even longer. She’s wearing these super tight leather legging things that leave literally zero to the imagination. I can see everything.
Everything.
They make her ass look—Christ help me, it’s perfect.

María Carmen
, I tell myself. Think of Carmen. Carmen, the girl you’ve been fantasizing about for the past six months.

The girl you came back to Madrid for.

Think of Carmen and stop staring at this American chick’s ass.

Maddie looks up, meets my eyes. Smiles. Excitement lights up her face, her eyes glittering with that heat again. I tighten my grip on the plastic handle of my guitar case.

“Incredible,” she says.

“Yes.” I mount the top step, my gaze sweeping up the length of her legs one more time. “Incredible.”

I’m glad I have the band and practice to distract me. Otherwise I’d have a tough time fighting an inconvenient boner right now.

I swallow, hard, and hold my guitar in front of my crotch as I make my way toward the church.

***

Practice goes much more smoothly this time around, thank God. I actually put my music to paper for the first time in forever—before, we were using recordings I’d made on my phone while I was on tour—so now the guys have something solid to work from. We even manage to write the riff of a new song, with sexually explicit lyrics provided by—who else?—Leo.

Every so often, I look out into the church, dimly lit, to see Maddie taking notes in front of the organ, a side chapel, a window.

It’s fun watching her. She taps her foot in time to the beat as she scribbles in her notebook; I even catch her mouthing some of the lyrics, bobbing her head as she sings. I wonder what she’s thinking; I wonder if the monastery is capturing her imagination the way it captured mine when I first came here.

I guess I watch her for a while, because all of the sudden Ricky B. is banging on his drum, a sharp, startled sound, and I look back to see him and the rest of the band scowling at me.

“You are doing the look again,” Leo says, a smug little smirk curling at the edge of his mouth. “And it is the look
like that
.”

“No it’s not,” I growl. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But ten seconds later, Maddie catches me looking, too, and she smiles, shouting something in Spanish about how our music is inspiring her thought process, can we please keep playing?

I smile, too. I smile so hard I feel like it’s splitting my face in half. She really does dig my music.

I can’t ever imagine Carmen calling to me from across the church for more of my music. My old music—the music I played with Juan—maybe. But my new stuff? No way. During our chat on the phone the other night—I’ve been calling her a bit lately—she made clear she’s less than enthused about me and my nameless band. I even invited her to come watch us again, but she declined the invitation—politely, of course. I told her I’d call her at ten tonight after practice is over.