Page 16 of Meet You Half Way
“Another vodka soda then?”
“That would be great.”
I ordered another round of drinks and then waited until Mateo had taken a seat on the sofa before I sat beside him, leaving a respectable gap between us.
“You seem really different from your friends,” I probed.
“How so?”
“Well, they look more like the kind of guys I’d expect to see down here on the coast. You look more like you should be on a runway,” I offered, trying to gauge his reaction.
He just shrugged one elegant shoulder, the motion casual but seductive enough just like everything else he did. “I was not born here. In case that was not obvious.”
“No, I picked that up,” I laughed. “You’re from Italy?”
“Originally, yes,” he said. He gave me nothing more but I waited it out, hoping to prompt him into offering something without me having to extract it. He took the hint. “My parents moved here when I was thirteen. My dad had lost his job and there was no other work available around where we lived. We knew of some people who had made the move out here to Australia. Dante and Giulia among them. I knew basic English when we arrived but Rob and Nick took me in the moment I set foot in high school.”
“You’re lucky,” I told him. “And have you always had a thing for Nick?”
“What?” he asked, panic tracking across that breathtaking face. I hadn’t meant to be so blunt but I kind of wanted to know too. Wanted to know how deep what he felt for Nick was. Whether I should walk away now. Or whether I should maybe stick around for a bit and see.
“I’m not judging,” I quickly amended. “I could just … tell.”
“You could?” he asked, that panic only rising.
“Relax. Only because I was looking closely.”
“Oh,” he said, those slim shoulders drooping. “It’s just … well, I don’t know. I don’t know what it is.”
“Were you and him together?” I asked gently.
Mateo sighed and looked away, that pain on his face like a fresh wound. “Yeah. We were.”
“Ah.” I had not actually expected that. I had assumed it was an unrequited type of longing, not one where they had actually been together. I couldn’t help but wonder how their friendship had survived something like that. Unless it had just been casual but the way Mateo had been looking at Nick did not suggest that.
“How long ago?” I prompted.
“We broke up six months ago,” he told me. Six months? That was a long time to still be pining over someone. “And then he got with his new boyfriend recently.”
“Ah. So it still feels fairly fresh then I guess?”
“Something like that,” he agreed, those shoulders still slumped.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” I said, shifting closer towards him but hesitating before I put my arm around his shoulder. “I didn’t mean anything by asking.”
“It’s okay. It just is what it is.”
“You want another one of those vodka sodas or you want me to take you home?”
“I’ve probably had enough. I have an architect firm to run tomorrow after all,” he said.
I could see he was trying for a smile but it all seemed a bit too much for him right then and I couldn’t help my heart hurting for him a little. I guess even someone as beautiful as Mateo could still get their heart broken at the end of the day. Nobody was immune from that.
“All right then. Let me take you home,” I said, standing and leading him out the front door.
CHAPTER 7
Mateo
