Page 32 of Indulging Temptation (Tempting the Heart #1)
SANTINO
THE PAST
“ H ow’s he doing?” I ask Lorena as I walk into her mom’s apartment with a tray of cannoli in hand. She takes them from me, kicking the door closed behind her.
“As to be expected. You know how Tomás gets. He sulks, acting like true loves kiss saved him. All while being convinced he’ll never find love again.
As if he had it with Suzy, whatever her name is, in the first place.
” Placing the cannoli on the kitchen table, she lifts the wrapping up to take one.
Powder falls onto her lips with the first bite, and the sight of her tongue swiping to clean it up, creates a flurry of unwholesome thoughts floating around my head.
I swear, it doesn’t seem to matter what she does, or wears, or says, there doesn’t seem to be a situation I find myself in with her that she doesn’t become more alluring than she did the last time.
Needing to look away from her, because the way she’s licking at the cannolo filling is becoming erotic, I decide to slowly make my way out of the kitchen and head towards the hallway leading to Tomás’ room to see how he’s doing.
But I don’t want to come off as rude, so I stop myself and respond.
“Yeah, I mean I didn’t think him and Suzy would get married or anything, but I still feel bad for him.
” And I do. That’s the thing about Tomás, he’s a romantic at heart.
He grew up seeing his father, when he was alive, cherish his mother, and it’s something that he strives to have one day.
He loves hard, and sadly the downside sometimes to being that way is that it creates a vulnerability that when not reciprocated can leave a person feeling crushed.
As is currently the case with Tomás being broken up with by his girlfriend of only a few months.
“He’s better off.” Lorena scoffs, sounding mildly cold.
“How do you figure? He texted me pretty upset while I was at work. They seemed happy.”
The laugh that slips past her lips renders me frozen. It’s dry and sarcastic sounding on the surface, but my god, is it a stark contrast to how sad she looks as she continues to cackle.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s likely Tomás, as Lorena implied, being dramatic. I’m sure he’s wondering why I’m at their apartment but haven’t gone to check on him yet. I’ll see him in a second, but right now I need to unpack this contradiction standing in front of me.
How can she be giggling yet look like she’s about to cry?
Laughing at her brother’s pain, when I know that’s not the person Lorena is.
She’s sarcastic and feisty most times, but she is compassionate, intelligent, and empathetic. None of which I’m seeing right now.
I sit down next to her at the table, as she reaches for another cannolo, offering me half of it.
“Thank you,” I say, taking a bite.
“No, thank you. These are my favorite desserts aside from guava pastelillos.”
“Same actually.”
Silence falls over us as we both take our time finishing the small piece of cannolo.
We have a habit of doing this. Stretching the time when we’re alone by giving ourselves a mundane task or in this case, having a snack together.
Both fully aware that there is an elephant in the room, and that we’re holding back.
What exactly it is we’re actually holding back, I’m not quite sure.
But I feel it. I always do when I’m with her, and I’d like to think she feels it too.
Wanting to know why she looks like she’s on the verge of tears, I decide to circle back to what she said before about Tomás being better off, in the hopes that it will get her to open up a bit. For once.
“Getting back to what you said before…”
She cuts me off. “About Tomás being better off?”
I nod. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, isn’t it obvious? He was happy and now he’s not. All because he let someone in and one of the two things that always happens…happened.”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
Seemingly exasperated, she gets up from the table and grabs two glasses out of the cabinet, resting them on the countertop before heading to the fridge, re-emerging with a pitcher of juice.
She stands by the counter, pouring us each a glass, as she responds. “It’s what is bound to happen when you let someone in, heartbreak by choice or by circumstance. Seeing that they are both alive and kicking, it’s the first option.”
She meets me at the table, handing me a cup of what I can see now is orange juice.
I take a sip, even though orange juice after eating a cannolo feels like it has potential stomachache written all over it, but I don’t think I could ever say no to her.
A smile creeps onto my face because the juice is freshly squeezed, full of pulp, my favorite. “Thank you, it’s delicious.”
“You’re welcome.” A blush flourishes onto her cheeks. “I decided to make some with the oranges my mom got from the market. I remembered you liked your juice this way, and I wanted to be able to make it for you.”
I know I need to bring the conversation back to unpacking this apparent relationship phobia she has, but I can’t help but sit here, drinking the juice she made for me because she remembered how much I love fresh squeezed juice.
The other day when I was over for Sunday breakfast, I shared how my mom used to make us fresh orange juice, and it was something I missed when she passed.
Not that I’m not capable of making it, but there’s just something about the love that goes into something when the person making it does it with joy for those they care about.
See, this is the Lorena I know. Sassy but caring. Not cold and jaded.
Finishing my juice, I play with the cup in my hand, tipping it side to side and putting all my attention on it as I do, not wanting to make eye contact with her while I talk. “It doesn’t always have to be like that.”
I look up quickly at her, but the second I see the glossy haze coating her irises, I chicken out and look down again.
An amused scoff slips past her lips. “I think our current situations are proof that the latter, the circumstance part, is definitely true,” she surmises, since her parents’ marriage ended when her father lost his battle with cancer, and my parents’ marriage ended via a car accident.
“Okay, but what if two people are in a relationship that doesn’t result in either of them breaking the others heart, and no illness or tragedy separates them?
” I can tell the hope — and arguably desperation — in my voice isn’t convincing her.
So, I raise my voice slightly, and hurry to finish my sentence.
“And they die, together, peacefully, in their old age, holding hands. What then? Wouldn’t that be worth the risk? ”
My words hang in the balance as Tomás finally emerges from his room, and from what I can see of him in my limited periphery, he has a blanket draped over him like a cape and a sullen look on his face.
Lorena looks over at him, and then her neck turns the other way, to her mom walking hand and hand in the kitchen with her boyfriend, Adrian.
Tomás groans, saying something inaudible under his breath and then storms out of the kitchen. His mother follows after him, and her boyfriend waves a quick hello to us and sees himself out of the kitchen and into the living room.
Lorena and I both look down at the kitchen table. Not yet looking at each other. Not yet able to say a word. Reality reared its ugly head, showing me, no, slapping me in the face with the reality of what happens after love is lost.
Tension.
Change.
Things shifting and never quite fitting the same.
Seconds bleed into more, my sense of time distorted. Though all I know is that I need to hear her say something, before I get up and assume the role of her brother’s best friend, like I’m always forced to when I’m around her.
Finally, the silence is shattered by the sound of the wooden chair legs skidding across the tile floor. In desperation, my gaze darts upward, to capture hers.
“In an ideal world, the scenario you dreamt up would eliminate the two from happening. But that’s entering fairytale territory.
It’s best not to believe in them. It only sets you up for disappointment, same way giving into love does.
Why fall in love to only have it taken away at some point, in some way, shape, or form? It feels so pointless.”
With that she leaves me alone in the kitchen, feeling absolutely restless, ruminating on what she just said. The pitcher of juice creeps into my line of sight, same way her words replay in my head.
“I remembered you liked it, and I wanted to be able to make it for you.”
It’s not that she doesn’t believe in fairytales. She’s afraid of gaining the happiness they promise, only to lose it.
I want to chase after her. I want to tell her that love is worth the risk.
But then if I tell her that, she’d believe it.
And seeing how we could never be together, that means she’d find that love with someone else.
I want nothing more than for her to be happy and in love someday.
Same way I want nothing more than for that to someday, by some miracle, be with me.
I’ll find a way to soften her heart. Even if it means I’d be sacrificing my happiness for hers.
She needs to experience love.
She deserves to.