Page 15 of Winning Match
Frustration blazes in his eyes as his lips twist. “Don’t tell me shit like that, Marli.”
Nerves scatter through me. “Why not?”
He sighs, dropping his forehead to mine. “Because I’m…I’m trying to do right by you.” His eyes shift to where Gerard was standing earlier. “Mission accomplished.”
I start to turn but Ale grips my chin, growling, “Don’t look at him. Don’t waste another second of your time on that cabrón.”
I hold his gaze, noting the intensity in his irises. Lifting my face slightly, my lips catch his. He murmurs a swear in Spanish but doesn’t push me away.
So, I close my eyes and kiss him again.
Wholly, deeply, desperately. Right now, I don’t want to come up for air. I want to stay in this moment. I want to embrace this version of myself and keep her.
At least until sunrise.
The rest of the night is a blur in the best way possible. Ale makes sure I hydrate with water, passing me bottles of San Pellegrino to keep me steady on my feet.
“You don’t want to wake up with a hangover,” he advises as Bianca rolls her eyes.
Deep down, I know he’s right and I chug the water in between the DJ’s sets, clearing my head so my decision to embrace the night is a conscious one.
I stop worrying about Gerard and what he’s doing with other women. I stop caring about my responsibilities and keeping all the balls in the air as the master juggler.
Instead, I dance. I lose myself in the center of the dance floor pulsing with strangers, save for Ale. He dances like men in movies—smooth and suave and natural. He spins and dips me like I’m an extension of him—each flick of his wrist and step of his feet part of a pattern that comes to him as easily as breathing.
His steadiness allows me to follow effortlessly. With him, I’m a version of myself I didn’t know existed. We cut across the dance floor like partners who have been together for years. It’s as if we’ve memorized each other’s bodies and have intimate knowledge of each other’s thoughts. For a handful of hours, I belong to Ale in a way I’ve never belonged to a man before. And he claims me fully.
It’s a heady, complicated, thrilling knowledge and part of me wants to keep the night going infinitely so I don’t have to lose this, him, in the morning.
As the club winds down, Bianca pulls me into the women’s bathroom. We clutch each other’s arms, giggling and talking, as we reapply our smudged lipstick and twist our hair, sweaty from dancing, into low, messy buns.
There’s a camaraderie between us that I haven’t felt since college. Since Hazel.
“Here.” Bianca passes me a travel-sized cylinder of perfume.
“Oh, thanks,” I say, spritzing some onto my neck and wrists.
“We’ll get breakfast now,” she explains.
“Breakfast?”
Bianca grins. “How else will we sleep?”
“What time is it?”
Bianca glances at her watch. “Almost five thirty.”
My mouth drops open and my new friend laughs.
“I’ve never stayed out this late in my life,” I admit. I understand the Sewing Circle’s urging now. I have been missing out. I’ve been omitting entire portions of the life I could have been embracing and enjoying if I wasn’t tied to Gerard and exhausted from keeping Dad’s diagnosis concealed while trying to save the business.
“Really? Girl, it’s about time,” Bianca says, taking the lip gloss I set down on the ledge of the sink and swiping some across her lips. She smacks her lips together and pouts in the mirror. “I like this color.”
“Keep it.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “No, I didn’t mean?—”
“Keep it,” I repeat, grinning at her. “I had fun tonight.”
