Page 70 of Deep In Love
She repeats the word, testing it on her tongue, and my cheeks twitch. If I want to pull this off, I need to protest—convince her I would rather keel over than have her call me the endearment.
“I don’t really think we should—”
“It’s perfect!”
Huh, that took less acting than I thought. Her smile is feral, pleased she’s one-upped me, or so she thinks.
She returns to her work, and her energy remains for the rest of the day, all the way until we go to bed, when she whispers into the darkness, “Goodnight, cariño.”
It’s the perfect ending to a long day.
Chapter 21
Charlie
“You have to tell me everything,” Amy says, her voice filling the cabin. “You ignored my messages—rude, by the way—so now you’re obligated by the best-friend code to spare no detail.”
I fall back onto the bed, laying the phone beside my head.
Amy called when Mateo and I were getting ready to head to one of the common areas to get some work done before the ROV deploys this afternoon. Vivian hopes we can catch species moving into shallower waters if we deploy around sunset, so the plan was to catch up on PhD work, until Amy called.
Now I’m being interrogated.
What does she want me to say? A lot has happened in the last ten days, and I don’t know how to unpack it with myself, let alone with her.
“It’s been…good,” I offer.
“Charles,” Amy groans, “I need you to give me more than that. Have you frolicked between the sheets? Are you having fun? Is your chest fluttering? This is what I want to know, not ‘good.’”
“No. Yes.And yes.”
“Ugh, you’re giving menothing!”
“I let him see my scars,” I admit quietly. “I let him see, and…”
“And?” she presses. When I’m silent, she adds, “Let me guess, he proved you wrong because you thought he would turn away after he saw them.”Well, fuck. She hit the fucking bullseye with that one. “You never did give Mateo enough credit.”
“What?”
My stomach grows queasy at the accusation in her voice.
“It’s just…” She sighs. “He asked me for your coffee order once so he could memorize it. And every time he orders at the shop, he asks about you. He’s done it since the day he realized we were roommates. Mateo has always been kind to you, even if he teased you and called you that silly nickname. He’s always cared for you.”
“I never knew.”
“Would it have made a difference if you did?”
An uncomfortable sense of guilt weighs heavily on my chest, because no, I don’t think it would have made a difference, and the realization leaves me unsettled.
Ashamed with myself, really.
It wouldn’t have made a difference because I didn’t want to see Mateo any other way than a rival. It was easiest if that was the box I placed him in—the one that kept me safe because I didn’t have to acknowledge how I felt differently around him.
A tear slips out.
“I’m a horrible person,” I mutter.
“No, Charles, you’re afraid. Have been since the day we met. You’re terrified people are going to get too close and then decide they don’t like what they discover.”
