Page 82 of A Follow-Through in Faking
“You would have gotten sick of me by now,” she replies with a laugh, but it sounds as unamused as I feel.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to get sick of you, Catalina. You’re my favorite person in the whole world.”
Fuck me, why the hell did I say that?
Why would I bring up something so deep after we’ve just had sex for the first time?
She’s not going to believe me, something her next words prove.
“Tell me that again after your post-orgasm high disappears,” she says, bringing her lips back down to mine for one last, sweet kiss. She gets off my spent cock, but my limbs are still jello, so I don’t move a centimeter. “Until then, let's get this stupid press conference over with so I can go see my family.” She picks up her clothes and dresses in record time, and I make a mental note to tell her she’s my favorite person again when we have a quiet moment.
Because it’ll be as true then as it is now, if not more.
Chapter 34
Catalina
Ihaven’tfoundaway to stop hugging Hernanda and stare at Sami with tears in my eyes. They both have grown so much since I last saw them, and the fact that I’m missing it makes me never want to let them out of my sight again.
“You’re suffocating me,” Hernanda says when I squeeze her a little harder, making Sami laugh.
“You have to deal with it for a little longer,” I reply against the crown of her head where her dark blonde hair tickles my nose.
“Can you go bother Samuel?” she asks, pushing against me to get me to stop hugging her.
“I already did for half an hour. It’s your turn now,” I reply, and even though I know she doesn’t want to, she giggles in my arms.
“Okay, Lina, come here. Let’s give your siblings some space,” I hear Dad say, so I turn my head just enough to see him standing behind us with open arms. I kiss Hernanda’s head one more time before releasing her, grinning as she runs away to makesure I don’t hold her captive in my hug again. Then, Dad’s arms wrap around me, and I melt into his chest.
“I missed you,” I say as the tears finally drop, my arms flinging around him as he holds me close.
“I know. We missed you so much, too, Catalina.” With my face buried in his chest, I let more tears fall.
Nothing could help me hold them back.
Ever since Mamá’s passing, I’ve held the rest of my family so much closer in my heart because I don’t ever want to have to regret not loving them enough, not loudly enough. They mean everything to me, and I don’t want them to doubt that fact, no matter how far away I am. No matter how long I am gone from home.
They are my reason for everything. The reason I do the things I do. Mamá was what got me started in tennis, but I keep going for my family. To keep earning the money that will make sure my father doesn’t have to work as much as he used to, to afford Sami’s and Hernanda’s hobbies, medical bills, or anything else they need. Ori has been sustaining herself for a long time, but taking care of my other two siblings brings me joy, and I’m going to keep doing so until they either don’t need me to anymore or I physically can’t.
“You played so, so well today, my darling girl. I’m so proud of you,” Dad says before pressing his lips to my forehead and stepping back.
He squeezes my arms one last time before nudging my chin with the back of his fingers and stepping toward where Hernanda flopped down on the couch in my hotel room. I move over to Sami, stroking his hair once as he looks up at me with that big, bright smile he’s had ever since he was a baby. He’s always been such a happy kid, through all the tough and sad times, his smile has never faded, not in the way it did for Hernanda when she was old enough to understandwhat it meant to have met your mother but be incapable of remembering more than perhaps the smallest of memories about her. All they know are the stories we share, and that knowledge hardened her a little in a way that I wish I could undo.
I don’t want my siblings to know that type of pain. I know it inside out. I breathe it most days. Being in tennis makes me so painfully aware of everything I’ll never get to share with her, everything she wished for me in the sport we both loved, and I know my siblings feel the same about their accomplishments. Whenever Sami or Hernanda win a trophy, they go with Dad to where Mamá is buried just so they can show it to her. Whenever Ori has a breakthrough in her work, she talks to Mamá in her room.
I…
Well, I haven’t found a way to feel connected to her in that way. To speak to her. To feel like she’s listening.
Ori and Santi step back into the room right as Sami tells me about the new robot he’s working on for another science fair, but he cuts off to clap excitedly.
My brother loves food more than he loves me, I’m sure of it.
“Catalina, can you come help us?” Ori says, and I notice Santi’s pale face as he walks silently beside her.
Uh oh.
I rush toward the kitchen area of the suite where Ori and Santi put the food they went out to get, feeling my heart race. My older sister usually doesn’t get involved in my business unless I ask her to, but I have a feeling that is exactly what is about to happen.
