Page 63 of The Last Sunrise

“Not because I hate them, but because I’m about to cook and I’m a pretty messy cook as it is.”

“Mhmm,” I tease him with a smile. “Can I help?”

He regards me for a moment. “Actually, yes. I’d love to show you how to make arros brut.”

“Arros brut,” I repeat.

He smiles at my pronunciation. “Every region has their own version of this dish, even in the States. The direct translation is ‘dirty rice.’ Have you had it?”

“Once, from a barbecue place outside Fort Worth, but it definitely didn’t have any vegetables in it.” I laugh, excited to help him cook.

“I have my own touch too. You’ll see.” He tosses me an apron and leads me out to the dock, to a little corner between a few empty boats. Not a person in sight. There’s a grill and some contraption that looks like an outdoor stovetop. There are at least eight chairs set up, bottles of wine and beer cans, coolers, and plates scattered around small stumps of wood being used as tables. It’s lively, lived-in, and a place where I can tell many memories have been made.

“This is our… communal kitchen. Where we come to eat, talk about work, complain about everything, fix marriages and contemplate divorces,” Julián explains with a rough laugh.

“Plus, it’s too hot to cook inside and the flavor is better when you sear the vegetables and roast the beef over real flame. There’s also this view, which is much better than in there.” He nods to the boat gently wading, anchored and parked at the dock.

“You had me at ‘complain about everything.’?” I wink, tying the apricot-printed apron around my waist.

“You sit while I chop. Have some wine, it’s for everyone.”

I reach for a bottle of white wine and read the label, even though I don’t know the difference between any sort of wine, just that I prefer white. I pour it into a plastic cup from the stack and take a drink.

“Good?” Julián asks me, spreading out a bundle of ripe tomatoes onto a wooden surface that’s clearly multi-use: a cutting board, an island, and table. It’s waist high and the biggest of the table-like pieces.

“Wait, shit,” he says in a panic. I jerk up, hoping he didn’t already chop a finger off. “Are you allowed to drink? Does that make you more likely to have a seizure?” he asks, guilt written all over his face.

I walk over to join him. “I can drink. I’m not going to get wasted, I just want a little wine. But no, it doesn’t make me anything… don’t worry about me. Unless you don’t feed me soon, then you should be afraid… very afraid…” I tease and stand on my toes to kiss him. He wraps his hand around my neck, pulling me in as his tongue savors mine. A groan escapes from his throat, and I swear every time he kisses me feels like the first time. The bubbly confetti exploding in my tummy, the swimmy marshmallow feeling in my head, swirling my thoughts around in glitter.

I reach my hands up and wrap them around his broad shoulders. A throat clears and I jump back away from him. I move to hide behind him like a child, a trained reaction from having such a helicopter mother my entire life. Mateo is standing there with two other men I haven’t seen before. The three of them are dressed in full work gear, and one, who looks to be at least ninety, has a thick net wrapped around his arm. I look more, peering around Julián’s shoulder, and feel him shake in amusement. The one in the middle grabs a bottle of vodka from the ground below him and the net-holding grandpa grabs a small pack of beer. His eyes are skeptical, not exactly happy to see me, but I wave to Mateo, andhe smiles warmly at me, waving back. The little old man follows Mateo’s behavior and manages a smile for me. Whatever anger Mateo has toward my mother isn’t present on this dock, and I couldn’t be more relieved.

“Soparem per a dues persones,” Julián tells them, and they nod, grinning, leaving us just as quickly as they appeared.

“Did we take their dinner space? They could have joined us. I feel bad,” I tell him.

He turns around to me with a small smile. “They’re fine. It’s not dinner yet and they just finished work, so they were coming here to drink. They got their drinks and now they’ll be out of our sight.” He kisses my forehead, reassuring me.

“After everything my mom and SetCorp have done, the last thing I want is to be any more of a burden or intrude on anyone else’s space here.”

He takes my face between his hands, brushing a gentle kiss against my temple.

“This is my space, and you will be intruding on it every single day if it’s up to me. Got it?” His voice is soft and playful, nothing but a murmur on my skin. I can feel his smile and breath, warm against my own, and that quickly, we’re back to our own world again. Just a woman and a man and a dock, wishing and pleading to have all the time in the world.

Chapter Twenty-Six

What’s running through that brain of yours, Ry?” Julián mumbles, his lips brushing against the curve of my ear. I shiver.

“How long did you know I was awake?” I ask, somewhat avoiding his question, not wanting to ruin his morning by telling him that I’ve been thinking about my mom, that I might have a little separation anxiety from being under her finger for so long that now that I’ve had what feels like months of freedom, and I kind of miss her? It’s fucked-up and doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I keep finding myself wondering if she’s alright, if she’s lonely… even more than her usual loneliness.

“A while.” He nuzzles his face into the crook of my neck, the stubble gently brushing against my skin. I shiver once more. “Are you okay?” he questions, breath warm against my bare flesh.

My mom continues her stay in my head. The thousands upon thousands of times she’s asked me that very question, but never once did she mean it the way Julián does. He’s asking about my mental health, not physical. It warms me from the inside out. Last night as we stayed up late, staring and counting the stars, making wishes on them, some out loud and some silently, I wished my mom would find loveagain. Even if that meant finding peace and love for herself. I woke up thinking about her again, how her life played out, how I wish I knew more about her past but knowing she will never share it.

“Actually, if you really want to know, I’ve been thinking about my mom. Thinking about how much of her life I know nothing about. How much of myself I know nothing about because of the way she tucked her own history away. Her pain must have been so unbearable that she just shut it off, literally, and decided to never care again. She was so young, younger than me, when she not only moved across the globe, but had me.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time when I’ve thought of her as a young girl alone determined to make something of herself while raising a child completely on her own. I’ve never once stopped being resentful toward her long enough to consider that she’s been working herself to death for me. Not to say she’s not addicted to the power and has a scarcity complex when it comes to money, but what started as a drive for more ended in a miserable, lonely life, and how unfair is it that the only person she has in her life, who she can’t fire, is me? When I’m gone, she’s not going to have anyone. The only person she’s ever loved is your dad… which I still can’t wrap my head around and imagine a world where her and your dad were in love…”

Julián’s hand runs along the side of the opposite cheek, tucking my hair behind my ear and nuzzling further into the crook of my neck.

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