Page 26 of Deep In Love
“Look everyone, Charlie is stomping.”
That’s it. I cannot deal with Mateo’s snarky bullshit before the sun rises, especially when his smile sends me into a tizzy and his words bobble around my mind. I turn around, ready to…I don’t know, yell at him, I guess, when Mateo shoves the to-go cup into my hand, peels the duffel bag from my grip, and saunters into the open elevator in three swift moves.
I stand, dumbfounded, with an iced latte in my grip.
Mateo watches triumphantly in the elevator. “C’mon, bruja.We’re going to be late.”
“No, no, no, no,no,” I chant, hoping the more I say it, the less real this nightmare becomes. “No.”
When Sofía handed us our room keys, Mateo disappeared, but I stayed behind to talk to her. I needed space from Mateo and thewild emotions racing around my mind, and I needed to establish a BSF: Best Sea Friend.
Sofía reminds me of Amy: soft, kind, outgoing, confident in herself.
She was easy to talk to last night at the bar, offering small details about everyone at the table. In return, I told her about our advisors and our unorthodox dynamic.
Solidifying her as my BSF went splendidly. Sometimes you just know when you click with someone, the same way you know you hate something with your whole soul.
I redirect my attention to the very thing I currently hate with every fiber of my being: Mateo lounging onmybed. Theonlybed. In the center of the cabin. The one meant for me and my body. Alone.
He is sprawled out over the maroon sheets, his arms thrown behind his head. “Maybe try saying it in Spanish.” Mateo raises a brow. “No.”
I blink.
Asshole.
“What are you doing?”
“Relaxing in my room. What are you doing? Here to finally admit you’re madly in love with me?”
I choke on any coherent response, and my face flames a thousand degrees when he raises a brow. He’s stunned me into silence, and he knows it.
My duffel bag slumps to the ground.
This is my worst nightmare realized. We cannot share this tiny room, and we definitely cannot share the bed. There’s only a sliver of space on each side of the queen-sized mattress, and a small nightstand hangs off the wall on the right side beneath an ornate gold sconce.
A faux-marble desk and an upholstered chair sit against the left wall, paired with a large mirror mounted against swirling tanwallpaper. There’s a closet across from the bathroom and a cubby with two shelves. It’s smaller than Cheryl’s office.
I need more space from Mateo, not less, to squash the odd feelings in my chest.
Whipping the door open, I storm from the room. Mateo’s laughter chases me down the hallway as I search for Sofía to fix this minor mishap and assign me my own quarters, free of tall, charming, attractive men whom I want to throttle with the full force of my body.
Terror is the wind beneath my wings as I try to navigate the vessel, my dread-filled body blindly guiding me down empty hallways and into storage rooms. Fall in love with him? Please. He’ll be lucky if he makes it through the trip without me flinging him overboard.
Sofía is in the galley, speaking with the chef, when I find her.
“Can I speak with you for a moment?” I try to prevent the panic from creeping into the question, but it’s bubbling closer to the surface by the second.
“What’s up?”
“There’s been a mistake with Mateo’s room and mine.”
Her brow furrows as she flips through her paperwork. “Room 209?” At my nod, she says, “No mistake. That’s your room.”
“Yeah…” Annoyance creeps into my tone. “So why is Mateo claiming it as his room also?”
“Because it is?” Sofía’s face morphs from confusion to shock, then disbelief. “Your advisors didn’t tell you that you had to share a room?”
Oh, I am going to kill Cheryl and Dan. In my mind. I could never tell Cheryl I was upset with her; it would give me an ulcer.
