Page 46 of Deep In Love
No man has any business looking this sexy with a scowl. The fabric of his ivory button-down pulls taut against his broad chest and his fists flex open and closed as he surveys the board.
I squirm in my seat.
Mateo’s once-infuriating competitive nature is now doing absurd things to my brain chemistry, creating the impulse to maul him with my mouth.
It’s a highly concerning urge.
The game ends, and to no one’s surprise, Jett and Mateo win by a landslide.
“Catan Kings,” Jett yells. “Get this on film, Doug.”
Doug moves around the table, recording the board and Jett’s celebration, before returning to his laptop. The gloating winners clean up the board as Vivian shakes her head in amusement.
“I knew that goober was going to win,” she says, leaning back and running her fingers through her short pixie cut. “My girlfriend, Amber, loves his channel. She’s jealous that I get to spend three weeks with him.”
A shadow falls over me, and I peer up at Shaun, who hovers beside my chair. “I was going to watch the sunset on the deck, if you want to join.”
The words are a suggestive whisper, an invitation to spend time alone, but my stomach roils as I clock Mateo with an incorrigible frown. With a shake of his head, he disappears, and I want to chase him down.
I can’t shake the feeling I’m the cause of his anger, only I don’t know what I did. There’s been no teasing today, no back-and-forth. The morning was productive, the two of us working in a comfortable silence until I earned a piece of chocolate. But something shifted this evening, and while it was hot, now I’m in my head. What did I do to upset him?
I shake my head. “I’m going to head to bed, but thank you for the offer.”
“Next time,” he says, his hand brushing my shoulder, and I wiggle off his touch when he’s out of sight. I wait with bated breath for Mateo’s return, but when it’s clear he’s not coming back, my anxiety takes over.
With a quick goodbye to Sofía and Vivian, I search for Mateo, hoping his mood has nothing to do with me.
My fingers stiffen as my anxiety rages while I wait for Mateo to exit the bathroom. The minutes tick by, and my rogue emotion stake over, tears pressing against my eyelids.
When it all becomes too much, my body short-circuits and I cry. It’s horrifying.
Thedoor finally creaks open and Mateo appears, his shorts slung low on his waist, revealing the sculpted expanse of his chest and a soft peppering of chest hair between his pecs.
When he notices me sitting on the edge of the bed, his jaw clenches.
I ignore the pang beneath my diaphragm.
“I thought you’d be with Shaun,” he mumbles, moving around the room with a storm cloud over his head.
“Why would I be with Shaun?”
Mateo lets out a disbelieving, bitter laugh. “I thought you liked him.”
“He’s nice.” I shrug, then blurt out, “Are you mad at me?”
I never thought I cared about his opinion of me, but maybe it’s the opposite, because as Mateo silently moves around the room, I’m embarrassed by how deeply I want him to like me.
“No.”
So, yes.
The tears I tried to banish spring back as I choke out, “I-I thought we were…changing.”
I don’t have another word to explain the shift between us or to describe how I feel around him. When he’s around, my chest bangs with a sensation similar to the anticipatory fall of a roller coaster. It’s terrifying, the power he holds over me, and I want to hide from it and chase it simultaneously.
“Do you see me, Charlie?”
When the silence stretches and morphs, anguish flares in his eyes, but I don’t understand—the questionorwhy he’s looking at me with despair and resignation.
