Page 9 of Breakaway Heart
Then the warm sun on my skin was replaced by a dark shadow, and when I looked up, he was standing over me.
There wasn’t much to see between the hoodie and dark glasses, but I could see that he was well built, in a lithe kind of way, maybe late-20s, and already annoying as heck.
“Hey! Can you please explain to that woman I want the unicorn floaty?”
I looked back at him blankly, wondering if I could passmyself off as a local who didn’t understand what he was saying.
“C’mon, I’ll pay for your…” He peered into my cup with a look of disgust, “Coffee? What the hell even is that!?”
As he lowered his sunglasses and leaned over to take a better look at the spices floating on my drink, I saw his sparkling blue eyes for the first time.
Wait. I knew those eyes… Didn’t I?
Beneath them, a gold chain hung from his neck, the letters spelling out the word‘Randy’.
Oh, God. No! Surely not?
His eyes rose to meet mine, and we stared at each other as he waited for my response. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say to ward him off. Then, and not for the first time in my life, my politeness got the better of me.
“Okay, fine. I’ll help you.”
A wide grin, one that I had seen many times over the past few weeks, appeared on his face, which seemed even larger in real life.
“Great!” He bellowed as I reluctantly rose to my feet, trying to ignore the attention that was now drawn to us. Red-faced, I brushed past him and toward the stand, hissing at him quietly, “Let’s just get this over with.”
The owner of the stall tutted and looked to the heavens at his return, as if asking why God wanted him to suffer so much.
After trying and failing to find the word for unicorn in my barely passable Spanish vocabulary, I did my best at explaining.
“El estúpido quiere el caballo de fantasía multicolor.”
I received a frown in return, then a lightbulb moment of recognition.
“Unicornio?”
“Sí! Unicornio.”
“Para el hombre estúpido?” She said, motioning her head toward him.
“Sí. Que pague el doble.”
We smiled at each other, and she gave me a knowing wink.
“En dólares, veinticinco.”
He leaned over me and asked, “So, how much is it?”
“If you pay in dollars, it’s sixty,” I told him.
“Sixty! What is it, magical or something?”
“I mean, itisa unicorn, so in a way…”
“Okay, okay. Could you haggle?”
I turned back to the shopkeeper and told her in my best efforts at Spanish, “I lied and said it was sixty dollars, and now he wants me to haggle.”
She laughed back and shook her head.
