“Don’t stop,” I whispered when we were close.
Ricky smiled down at me, dragged his thumb along my bottom lip. He loves me.
“Never,” he said. The most heavenly lie.
His skin was smooth, supple, slick with sweat, and when I dug my nails into his sides, his gasp was enough to push me over the edge. But in the precious seconds before my mind went blissfully blank, a single thought filtered through: This is what it’s supposed to feel like.
*
After it was over, we lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, catching our breath.
“Not going to lie,” Ricky said, “I’m kind of mad that we held out for so long.”
I laughed, walking my fingers up the center of his chest.
“We can make up for lost time,” I said coquettishly. Ricky gave me a rakish grin, then rolled us over so that he was spooned against my back.
“Can do,” he said, pressing a kiss to my bare shoulder. “You’re going to have to give me a few more minutes, though. Got to rally the troops again.”
I snickered, threading our fingers together across my chest. My whole body felt like it was buzzing, like another version of myself was hovering just millimeters above the first. I felt content. He loves me, I reminded myself, as he dragged me closer into his embrace.
A sound like an air horn broke through our comfortable silence, and behind me, I felt Ricky stiffen.
“Hold on a sec,” he said, sliding out from under the covers. I watched him as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, stepping back into his boxers before circling the bed to retrieve his discarded jeans. He pulled out his phone, his expression turning blank as he looked over the caller ID flashing on his screen.
“Hey,” he said. A voice responded on the other end—a woman’s voice. Ricky’s eyes flickered to mine, and then he stepped through my bedroom door, closing it with a decisive thunk.
A chill settled into my bones. I stared at the closed door for a long time, straining my ears to try to hear the conversation on the other side. Ricky was speaking in rapid Spanish, something he did in front of me only rarely, usually during conversations with his grandfather. But those calls were always short, almost transactional, and he’d always felt comfortable having them in my vicinity. For this one, he’d practically leapt out of bed before he could even see who had called.
Why the secrecy? It wasn’t like I could understand much of what he was saying anyway. He could have very well carried on his conversation while under the warmth of our covers. Or better yet, waited until after our post-coitus cuddle to call them back.
Then an idea struck, and my stomach sunk.
Was it Camila? Had Ricky fled because he’d known that I’d be able to make out her high, silvery voice over the phone? Maybe the situation with her wasn’t as settled as he’d made it seem. After all, it was mighty convenient that after five days of providing a shoulder to cry on and coordinating schedules around her obstetrics appointment, Ricky had walked away completely emotionally unattached to his long-term ex. What if Camila found out that, actually, the baby was just small for gestational age,* and now he needed a paternity test? What if his declaration that there was nothing between them was a bit of an exaggeration, and Camila was now calling on the other end, begging for Ricky to take her back? Or worse, what if it was someone different, someone new? What if Tabatha had been right about the “millennial dating rules,” and Ricky’s reticence toward commitment had been because he’d been deciding between me and a handful of other eligible bachelorettes? What if he was talking to one of them now, telling her he was off the market, or worse . . . pretending that he was still on it?
Suddenly, I felt a tidal wave of shame loom over my head. What the hell was I doing? So Ricky said he loved me. So what? Anyone could say those words if they wanted something badly enough. And it wasn’t like Ricky had a great track record when it came to honestly expressing his feelings; he’d sounded just as confident when he’d told me he wasn’t interested in me the night that I ran into him at Rogers. Why was I placing any credence in his words, when there were actions right there that showed me the opposite? Who leaves the Girl They Love in limbo, knowing that they might lose her? Who goes off with their cheating ex-girlfriend to do Lord knows what for Lord knows how long, knowing that the Girl They Love is waiting by the phone for them to call? Not even an hour ago, his reasoning—that he’d been unsure about where I stood, that actually, he was worried that he liked me a bit too much—had been exactly what I wanted to hear. But now, post-nut clarity was settling in, and with it the rising suspicion that I’d been had. Really, I thought, listening to Ricky’s conversation drag on, hearing his voice climb with irritation, you couldn’t have told me all of this at the restaurant? You really had to make me wait? I remembered the expression that had flashed across his face at La Ventana, the same face he’d made after I’d asked him out at the art fair. It hadn’t been an expression full of yearning. It had been full of guilt.