Love, in English

Mateo had asked me just as I was leaving if I’d go with him to the doctor in Salamanca in a few days but before I could say yes or no, Jerry reminded him that I needed to work and do my job and that Peter would be happy to take him.

I couldn’t say I wasn’t relieved.

Chapter Fourteen

It took three days for Mateo to be able to walk again without needing a person or a crutch to lean on, and another two days for him to be able to do it with less of a limp. The tear in his knee was a grade one, which meant his recovery would be fast, and it was amazing to see him go from on the ground, writhing in pain, to walking slowly, but easily, everywhere in a matter of five days. He told me the doctor said it was because he kept himself in great shape and was still “young,” something that pleased Mateo quite a bit.

Because he was stationary for a lot of the time, he was often parked out by the reception patio in the wicker chairs, and while I had a session or a chance to talk to him every day, we weren’t going off on our long walks down country lanes or chatting on my balcony. There were always people around, which was fine…nothing to hide here. And yet I felt like we were hiding.

The weather had also turned to shit for most of the days, pounding the area with torrential rain which flowed down the hill in rivers and made a mess of everyone’s shoes. Jerry said that once it stopped, it wouldn’t rain for the rest of the summer.

I was holed up in Claudia’s apartment on the night the rain stopped, lazing around on the couch with Polly and Beatriz as we drank wine and looked over women’s magazines. I had brought a whole bunch with me from home and from London, and earlier in the day had done a one-on-one session with Eduardo that consisted of doing all the quizzes. Turns out that, according to Cosmo UK, Eduardo is an “attention slut.”

“I can’t believe we won’t be here next week,” Polly moaned despondently as she tossed a Glamour magazine at Beatriz. Beatriz was so enamoured with her Spanish gossip magazine, Diez Minutos, that she didn’t even look up when it hit her.

It took me a second to realize what Polly said. “Wait, what?”

She brushed back her bangs and gave me a lazy-eyed look. “Yeah. Think about it. This time next week, we’ll all be home.”

“Wow, time has really flown fast,” Claudia commented. She looked around her at all of us, her lips twisting wistfully. “I am going to miss you guys.”

I gave her an absent nod and murmured the same, but even though I really was going to miss them, miss everything about this place, I couldn’t quite handle the idea that I wouldn’t see Mateo again. This time next week, I would be on a plane back home. Home. I’d be back with my mom and Josh and Mercy and back to my own cold, dead universe, and I wouldn’t have Mateo to make me feel alive.

My chest constricted painfully. Just the thought of not seeing him ever again, not having this world that I clung to, was heartbreaking. All this time I had been keeping my distance because I didn’t want to get hurt, but it was already happening. The heart had no regard for time, no regard for pain.

I felt like I had to cling to every moment, every second, make it count. I feared it was already too late.

A gasp from Beatriz brought me out of my funk. I glanced over at her to see her reading her magazine with her mouth open. Her eyes immediately darted over to me.

“What?” I asked.

She made a clucking sound and showed whatever was in the magazine to Claudia and then to Polly. Polly made a little squeal but Claudia grimaced and then covered it up with an awkward smile.

“What is it?!” I asked again, louder. I started to reach across to snatch it from her but she handed it to me.

I took it in my hands, the front half of the magazine folded behind it, and stared. At first all I saw was a bunch of gibberish (aka Spanish) and a picture of pretty, smiling women eating food. But when my eyes fell to the bottom half of the page, I may have gasped too.

I may have nearly choked.

It was a picture of Mateo, taken at night with a flash. He was walking, an insincere smile on his startlingly clean-shaven face, wearing a slim silver-grey suit and tie. He was holding the hand of a woman. She was wearing a black sparkly shift dress that looked very expensive, had a wide toothy smile, great eyebrows, dark eyes, and short blonde hair.

Below them I recognized the word Mateo and Isabel Casalles and Sin Horquillas, which I knew was the name of his restaurant.

Just…holy shit. Kill me fucking now.

Not only was his wife very pretty, almost Scandinavian looking with her Mia Farrow haircut and high cheekbones, but…she really existed. She now had a face. She was real.

I was in love with her husband. The same man who had told me that he wasn’t in love with her.

The man who would be just a memory in less than a week.

“Are you okay?” Polly asked, sounding genuinely concerned. “You did know he was married, didn’t you?”

I stared blankly at her and managed to nod. I looked to Beatriz. “Why the picture? What is the article about?”

Beatriz took the magazine back. I was glad. I never wanted to see it again.

She sca

“What the fuck?” I exclaimed.

“Holyyyyy,” Polly said breathily.

A sly smile came across Beatriz’s face. “You don’t really talk about her very much, do you?”

“Mateo doesn’t like to.”

“Well, I don’t blame him,” she said.

I gave her a sharp look. “Why? Is she a bitch?” And suddenly I was super hopeful that she was some raging psycho bitch so that I’d feel better about having feelings for her husband.

“Not really,” Beatriz said carefully. “People say she is quite nice and pleasant. Polite. Though she probably wouldn’t be with you. Understandably.”

Damn. “So she’s royalty?”

“More or less,” Beatriz said with a one-shouldered shrug. “Isabel’s mother, Paloma, was in line to be heir or something, but then Paloma’s mother, Penelope, renounced her claim to the Spanish throne. I can’t remember why. Something political at the time. I do think her grandmother is still called a Duchess though, but it probably is just a formality.”

“Wow,” I said. Great. So she’s pretty, polite, and quasi-royalty? I could never, ever compete with that.

“Yes,” she said, studying me. “But there have always been rumors and talk about those two.”

I didn’t want to ask but my eyes did it for me.

Beatriz went on. “You see, Isabel is very nice and pretty, but she is not perfect. The rumor, according to Atletico’s owner, was that Mateo was fine to return to play. He was only thirty at the time—he was in great shape, at his peak, as you say. The tear wasn’t all that bad, the one in his knee. But Isabel convinced him to give it all up. To get away from the lifestyle she considered too wild.”

“Wild?”

She smirked. “Oh yes. Our players are known for being a little wild and crazy. Lots of sex and fights and drinking. Mateo was no different than the rest. And Isabel, with her Duchess grandmother and her socialite status, she didn’t want that. The team called her Yoko Ono, for stealing Mateo away from them.”

I had forgotten that Beatriz was a sports reporter, no wonder she knew so much. I looked down at my hands. “But he went along with it. He married her.”

“I know. Everyone found that to be a surprise. I think Mateo lost himself a little after the injury and didn’t know what to do. She showed up at the right time and told him what to do. Soon they were married, and then they had a child. She helped in investing the restaurants. Her brother is chef, so I feel like she had something to do with that.”