Page 3 of Caught Looking
When he didn’t answer, worry started to worm into the desire I was feeling. I had to get over myself and focus on Yariel. I could hear him doing the deep breathing his therapist had taught him to do for the moments when he was overwhelmed. Which, since he started playing in the majors, seemed to happen all the time. No good was coming from him getting more wound up; I had to interrupt whatever was happening.
“Let’s switch to video call.” I knew that seeing his face would help me, and maybe it could do the same for him.
Without saying a word, he started the video call. His beautiful, familiar face filled the screen. He was still him, but different, and he did not look happy. Smooth brown skin like caramel. Strong jaw clenched, those light gray eyes unhappy. I wanted to reach out and run the pads of my finger over that furrowed brow. Coax him in for a kiss so I could, now in the light of the day, get to taste that mouth. Pull on those lips I’d barely gotten to savor.
Yeah, there was no undoing this. There was no stopping that dark and sharp thing pulsing in my chest with the words mine, mine,mio.
My heart lurched when I saw the worry lines around his mouth. “Hablame, Yariel.” His eyes were all over the place, as if he was taking inventory that all my parts were still there. I lifted my hand, and then switched so I could show him the other. “All my limbs are still attached. I’d show you my feet, but I know my pinky toe creeps you out.”
That got a very tiny lift from the right side of his mouth. “It doesn’t have a nail,” he explained with a grunt for the seven hundredth time. I smiled, still worried about how serious he looked, as he continued to examine every inch of my face. “We can get past this. This won’t hurt us,” he assured me as his eyes did another scan of whatever parts of my torso he could see through the screen.
Ah, Dictator Yariel, not my favorite of his moods. There was no talking to Yariel when he was like this. He just passed out edicts and the rest of us had to go with it.
It cut that he didn’t seem to even want to discuss what happened last night, but I also knew Yariel couldn’t handle feeling like his personal life was in disarray. He always said it came from growing up watching his parents struggle with the pressures of immigrant life in the States. Of feeling like their lives were not in their control for so many years when they were undocumented. So if anything slipped even an inch outside of Yariel’s master plan, he forced it back to its place. And it seemed I was currently very much outside the spot where I belonged. That was not the headspace I wanted to work with.
His breathing was still coming fast, and despite the tension of the moment, my eyes roamed hungrily over his bare, smooth chest. He was vain and waxed the little of bit of chest hair he had—all the better for those many candid workout shots he put on social media. Fuck, I wanted to lick him, and he was going to make us struggle to get back to that every step of the way.
“Of course we’re fine,” I snapped, my own temper rising, as his nostrils flared. I sat there in silence, waiting for it.
“Why did you leave this morning then? Were you hurt and didn’t want me to know?” He shook that hard head of his, eyes shut tight. “I should’ve never let this happen, forced myself on you.”
That was enough of that bullshit.
“I literally threw myself at you,” I said harshly, as I struggled to find a way to get through to him. I could just say I’d had my own moment of panic this morning. Or I could say the other truth: that I needed my own space to quietly have my entire world rocked by what I was feeling. By the truth he’d given me last night and I now had to finally face up to. That I’d retreated to think on what this meant, if I was ready to say this to myself, or out loud to the world, to my family.
When I looked up, I found Yari’s flinty stare, and the set to his jaw promised wrongheaded bullshit coming my way. “No. You were upset about the date. We were drinking—
I put my hand up in protest, because he was not going there. “Yariel, we each had two beers.” I raised the phone so he had a very clear view of my face. “I,” I said, pointing a finger to my chest, “kissedyou.”
He flinched like I’d slapped him, and once again I dearly wished I’d had the guts to stay at his house this morning.
He ran a hand over the top of his fade like he did on those rare occasions he was unsure of himself. Yariel Cabral always knew what to do, and if he didn’t, he pretended he did. I was the only person who ever seemed to trip him up.
But when he looked up, I knew he was going to piss me off before he even opened his mouth. “I did it. I’m fully responsible and I will make sure it never happens again.”
Not fucking likely, motherfucker.
“No. Asi no, Yariel,” I said with a roll of my neck, trying to talk some sense into him. “This is not how any of this works, you asshole.” Dammit, cursing him out was not going to help. Fuck.
He shook his head hard, like he wanted to knock whatever was in it right out. “I can’t do this with you. This is not how it’s supposed to be.” He looked pale, like he was about to be sick, and for the first time I wondered ifI’dpushedhimtoo far. Maybe he was trying to let me down easy or not make it more awkward.
Oh god.
“Yari, did I pressure you?” I asked, mortified at the idea of Yariel going along with this, because he didn’t want to embarrass me. “Did I make you do something you didn’t want?”
He didn’t let me continue. “You know you don’t ever have to ask me that.” Every word was like an ember lighting up in my chest, the need in his eyes turning me inside out. “That’s not the issue here, Hatuey, and never will be.”
The relief of knowing we’d both been into what had happened was absolute, and so was the frustration of knowing he was just being a stubborn ass.
I turned my head to the side, trying not to speak in the heat of the moment even though I was certainly feeling hot. “So if that’s not the issue…if you want me, and I want to try—”
More head shaking. “I’m not trying anything like that. No repeat. We go back to normal. To how we are, Hatuey.” He had his hand up in his signature sanctimonious move, and I was starting to think not being close enough to rip it off was probably for the best. “We have a trip this week, and we can’t be playing games.”
Who was playing games?
I was about to protest, to tell him he was being an asshole, that this wasourlife. That this was ourfucking future. That nothing had ever been less of a game than the possibility that we could be more to each other.
But the way the he pursed his mouth, the fear in his eyes, gave me pause. Something was way off.
