Page 22 of Under His Sheets
“Filla, call me Papa. You know better.”
Cecilia blushed and nodded. “It’s true. Randall was here on tour with his band from America and he decided to finally heed his calling as a teacher and stay a while.”
“They’re really quite good,” Felip said. “They’ve played all over the world, and even on BBC and Telecinco.”
Mr. Segura rubbed his hands together. “Then we must go up to the house. Since my eldest son moved away and doesn’t play guitar with me anymore, you will play with me.”
Felip groaned as he pushed back from the table. Everyone else started to get up, with the exception of June and Mateu, who excused themselves to help the staff clean up after the meal. I pushed my chair back, preoccupied, thinking about playing music for this man, when I stumbled and the sleeve of my sweater caught on my chair, tearing one of the small holes into a cavern.
“Aw, man.” I deflated. I didn’t want to be finished with my favorite sweater.
Alonso grabbed my elbow, and I flinched.
“Are you okay?” he asked, low so only I would hear him.
“Not really, no.”
He pulled back, still holding my arm, and placed his other arm around my back. “What do you need?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “The. Whys.”
He nodded and looked down. “Later. I promise. Just please, don’t say anything to my family, not until I have a chance to explain.”
I pulled away from him and straightened my clothes, feeling silly with a gaping hole in my sleeve. I frowned at him, but of course I would do as he asked. I didn’t want to upset these nice people, but I damn sure didn’t want my friend Cecilia in themiddle of something dangerous. He better have a good fucking explanation for everything.
SEVEN
Saturday9:08 PM Cava Segura Winery, Pènedes, Catalonia, Spain
The Segura house was lovely and much homier than the winery’s fancy dining room. It felt like an appropriate abode for a family with four sons, sons that ran around inside even if they knew they shouldn’t, who wrestled, argued, but who banded together when it counted.
From what I learned tonight, that was exactly what it was like. Cecilia told me on the walk over that the brothers were close, but Alonso hadn’t been around much and Felip had been worried about him.
No shit.
“I was an only child so it took a bit for me to understand their bickering. Now I get it. I feel like I’ll be getting three brothers when we get married.”
“And when will that be?” I asked her.
She held a finger to her lips and pointed for us to get inside the house.
The living room had three big couches and two chairs. Mr. Segura gestured for me to take one of the latter and he handed me an acoustic guitar.
“You play, huh?”
I smiled. “Not flamenco, I’m afraid, but guitar, yes. Since I was twelve.”
He took the chair closest to me and gestured for me to play something.
Carefully, I adjusted the tuning, loving the way the strings felt under my fingertips. I felt so emotional, having a guitar in my hands again after everything that happened, I had to just breathe for a moment, afraid I would cry in front of all these people.
I blew out a breath and looked to Cecilia for strength.
“Oh! Play ‘My Heart’ would you? That’s my favorite one.”
Everyone was staring. Mrs. Segura stood beside her husband, her hands on his shoulders. She leaned down to kiss him and then asked if anyone wanted coffee or tea. Mateu had just come in with June and he went to go help her.
I began to play the first song I ever wrote, the one that I recorded on the four-track that I bought with the money from my first job at a pizza joint in Grass Valley. The song made it onto our first album and was even one of the singles that made it onto radio. Satellite radio played it on their hits station and it went viral when some kids did a dance challenge to it on social media.
