Page 37 of A Lot Like Adiós
And she was right. Gabe had been working his dimples since he was a teenager. Senior year, he’d taken a second job as a valet for an Italian restaurant. Most of the other guys had adopted a bored, lazy air, but Gabe had smiled at every single person who pulled into the lot. He asked about their day when they arrived, and when they left, he asked if they’d enjoyed the meal. Those tips had contributed to his “Get Out of the Bronx” savings fund.
The annoying thing was, it was something he’d learned from his dad. “A smile is your best customer service skill,” Esteban Aguilar used to say, and Gabe had spent years watching his father charm customers into buying more than they’d planned on when they walked in.
Too bad Esteban used up all that good humor at work. By the time he’d gotten home every night, he’d been tired and unapproachable.
“They told us not to smile,” Gabe said, gesturing at the picture.
Michelle shook her head. “They were wrong.”
If Gabe had previously harbored any doubt that Michelle was the right person for this job, it vanished in that moment. Hiding a grin, he went back to clearing out his inbox.
ANOTHER FIFTEEN EMAILSappeared and Gabe closed the browser tab. He couldn’t concentrate like this—sitting in the Amato house across from Michelle and her low-cut shirt, inundated by admin work. He usually got in a workout first thing in the morning, and while sex counted, he still had too much pent-up energy to sit here answering branding questions and vendor emails.
Besides, there were still things left unsaid between them, and the words were piling up in his throat. Things likeI used to love you and maybe I still do.
He shot to his feet. “You said there’s a weight bench downstairs?”
Michelle glanced up from her screen. “Yeah. Plus an elliptical and a rowing machine.”
They would have to do. “Thanks. I’m going to take a break.”
She shrugged, so he went upstairs to change. When he came back down in basketball shorts and a loose tank top, Michelle slapped her pen down on the table and glared at him.
“Okay, now you’re just showing off.”
Gabe froze. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” She picked up the pen and used it like a pointer, indicating his attire. “Who’s being distracting now, huh?”
His lips twitched as he glanced down at his outfit. “Oh, this old thing?”
She shook her head and returned her attention to the laptop, but as he headed down the stairs, Gabe heard her mutter, “Two can play at that game.”
Downstairs, he paused for a second to take in the changes. The last time he’d been here, it had been Michelle’s bedroom, with her bed against one wall and posters of the Gorillaz andStar Warstacked up above it. She’d had a desk with an oval mirror over it. Photos of the two of them at various ages had been tucked into the frame of the mirror, along with pictures of Michelle’s older siblings, her cousins, and both sets of her Italian and Puerto Rican grandparents. Gabe wondered where those photos were now, and if she kept them on display in her apartment.
Even when everyone started using digital cameras, Michelle had still made an effort to get pictures printed, sometimes dragging Gabe along with her to the one-hour photo booth at the local pharmacy.
She’d made a framed collage of the two of them, for him to remember her by while she was away at school. At the time, she’d thought he was staying at home in the Bronx, but it turned out he was the first to leave.
He still had that collage, in a drawer in his apartment in LA. As much as it hurt to look at it, and despite his commitment to minimalism, it had never occurred to him to throw it away.
Now, the basement was a man cave. A leather sofa sat where Michelle’s bed once had, and a huge flat-screen TV hung on the wall over the place where Michelle’s boxy little screen had been. She’d had a cable box and a DVD player, and they’d watched the one and only season ofBeyond the Starscountless times on that TV, putting it on in the background while doing homework, along with hours of music videos and raunchy cartoons. As they’d gotten older, they’d smoked weed in her backyard while all of their parents were at work, huddling against the sliding doors, hidden from view by the deck stairs.
Teenage Gabe had needed to be diligent about his smoking schedule because of his baseball plans, but he’d gotten akick out of watching Michelle roll a blunt. Even the way she’d licked the paper to seal it was sexy. They’d pass a joint back and forth, giggling, the distance between them narrowing the higher they got.
On the far end of the basement, a home gym had been created in one corner. Interlocking foam mats made the floor, and as Michelle had advertised, there were a couple machines and a weight bench, along with some adjustable weights that might get heavy enough for his purposes. A narrow mirror, probably the one Michelle had used in high school, was fixed to the wall behind the bench.
Starting on the elliptical to get his heart rate up, Gabe then moved to the rowing machine. He was on the weight bench doing curls when the basement door opened.
Gabe glanced up and almost dropped the weight on his foot as Michelle jogged down the steps in an outfit that had him instantly going hard.
He’d seen a lot of sports bras in his day. Most were functional, but not fashionable. Some were cheap spandex that didn’t do the job. And some were designed to support while still looking fantastic. Michelle’s was the latter. Her sports bra gave her an impressive amount of uplift and cleavage, and her yoga pants clung to her curves, emphasizing her hips and butt.
She crossed the room and began to unfurl a yoga mat on the floor right in front of him.
Setting the weights down, Gabe dropped his head into his hands and groaned out her name.
“Micheeeeeeeelle.”
