Leave the Night On Pt. 05

"You are the same," he says, wrapping every syllable in the lasciviousness of his accent.

"Knowing you, I'll wager that's the highest of compliments."

"Sigues siendo la misma," he says, lending the words an indecent allure with his accent. "Beautiful. Nothing is different from before."

"H-how are you here?" I stammer, ignoring his boldness and the heat it has put on my cheeks.

He throws a glance over his shoulder and my mother, who's been watching us this whole time, rushes towards us. "Didn't I promise you a surprise, child!" She says, wrapping me in her arms. "Oh, mi hija, I can feel your bones poking me!"

"Hello to you, too, Mama," I say with a ball of emotion lodged in my throat.

She kisses both my cheeks, then holds me at arm's length while her glassy light brown eyes sweep me from head to toe. "You look so beautiful!" she says, complimenting me as soon as she's all but called me a sack of bones. "Look at her, cariño!" She turns to my dad, and once my eyes land on him I lose the battle against tears.

"Papa!" Regaining control of my legs, I walk into my father's open arms. His sturdy body is a safe haven to me. Differently from my mother's orange blossom scent, he smells like cigars, cedar wood and something I can only call love.

"Te he extrañado mucho, hija," he whispers on top of my head.

"Ooh, I've missed you too, Daddy." I hold on to him for a little while longer, until the tears grip on my throat eases.

My dad gently pushes me off his chest and wipes the tears off my cheek. "You look so very beautiful, Perlita." Perlita. Dad has never called me anything else. It used to drive my teenage-self mad until I understood the nickname actually meant love.

I take my father in. There is more silver in his hair than there was last time I saw him. He's tall and stout, solid as a bull. Impeccably dressed in a tailored suit, he is the same loving man with the same wide, perpetual smile on his face.

"I have missed you guys so much!" I croak, teary eyed. "I'm so glad you're here."

"We've missed you too, honey," my mother says. "I'm still mad you didn't come home for Christmas."

I knew she would mention my absence at Christmas, that's why I came prepared with an infallible excuse. "I know, Mama. I've apologized, but I couldn't leave Lil alone and before you say she was welcomed too," I say, rushing to add, "she had too much work to travel."

She scoffs the exact same way I usually do, but Dad comes to my rescue. "She's apologized, Marisa. The important thing is that we are together now. So, shall we sit? Perlita? Gael?"

The sound of his name is a shock anew. I was half expecting him to be a fantasy only I could see. I'm proved wrong by my own mother. Gael is real enough when she takes him by the arm and ushers him to take a seat next to me. He takes the chair on my left, inured to my mother's brazen and meddling nature.

"What do you think of our new sommelier, honey?" My mother asks, eyebrows wiggling over her sparkling excited eyes.

Confused, I glance from my mother's sly grin to my father's subtle smirk and understanding dawns on me. "You're kidding," I babble, turning to Gael.

Time runs backwards. The last time Gael and I saw each other must have been some seven years ago when I'd gone home for a few days after graduating college. Then, we were already broken up, having decided that maintaining a long-distance relationship while I attended college was infeasible. Even so, that mere convention didn't keep me from his bed. The day I left was the same day he bought a plane ticket to Paris to fulfill his dream of becoming a sommelier.

Pulling back to the moment, he leans in towards me, laying a casual hand on my thigh. It's that Latin thing, that confident comfortability with skin contact I've lost somewhere along the years. I put my hand over his in a shock of muscle memory. In truth, I have always known how to touch him and will never forget it.

The warmth of his breath precedes his words. "I told you I would come back."

He did say it. The last day we had together. He promised he'd come back. This place is my home, he'd said. I'll come back because I belong here.

My alarm must be evident because he lets out a soft laugh. "Are you still showing every feeling with your face, Perla?"

From now on, every time I travel back home, he's going to be there. He's a fundamental fragment of who I am. He is part of my family. He is part of me. Were those things not enough, from now on, he'll be a permanent, living ghost of my past inhabiting my present life.

I stare at our joined hands, searching for the inexistent impulse to pry my skin from his. Gael puts a knuckle under my chin and his thumb caresses the dimple close to the corner of my mouth.

"I'm not a ghost," he says.

He might as well be, because I'm scared of his presence.

***

WE EAT, WE DRINK, WE LAUGH until my throat is burning and my belly is aching. There's a soft thudding in my left temple that I'm ignoring. It might be caused by my constant attempts to deviate the issue from my current personal drama or the excess of Dad's Malbec.

Throughout the night, seated between Gael and my mother, I've sensed their attention on me. My mother's gaze is full of her inherent concern and Gael's full of something I'm not keen on examining. My Dad is the only one of them who allows me the luxury to merely be here.

Once my Dad excuses himself from the table, my mother takes the chance to interrogate me. "Have you heard anything from your father?"

"My father was just here, Mom," I say.

She huffs, annoyed. "Don't be cheeky, child."

She knows I hate talking about him. She knows I don't know much about him. He hurt her so much, yet she always asks. "Jason called me a few months ago saying he wasn't well, so I went to see him." I tell my mother about the visit I paid my biological father and my half-brother some time ago when I took a Friday to drive hours on end only to find a broken, lonely man who's out of his mind. "He didn't even recognize me, Mama. He doesn't remember me. He doesn't know who I am."

The man that fathered me is drowning under the mistakes of the past, his mind playing tricks on him. He kept calling me by my mother's name and apologizing profusely for the mistakes he's haunted by.

Well, Jesus forgives. Too bad for him, I'm not Jesus.

"And Jason?" Gael asks.

I turn to him with a sympathetic smile. My half-brother is another person who has no presence in my life. When we were younger, I tried to bond with him. This one time I even brought him down to Guillermo's villa in San Juan. The only good thing that came out of his visit was Gael. Jason befriended him, who was then a boy working the fields alongside his family, and brought him into my life.

"Jason is well," I answer. "He has a wife, a kid, and a good job. What he doesn't have is a sister. He doesn't want one. You know that."

Again, Gael's hand finds mine under the table. "Perdón. I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't," I say, squeezing his hand before detangling our fingers.

The band comes to my rescue and starts playing a familiar tune that tugs everyone's attention away from harder topics. I glance around the restaurant realizing it is mostly empty. "Mom, isn't that..."

My Dad appears by her side, offering my mother his hand. "Would you grace me with a dance, my love?"

My parents saunter to the middle of the salon, where the space is clear of tables or chairs. They start waltzing to the sound of their song, an old Italian ballad they danced to at their wedding.

I twist in my chain, leaning my chin on the back of it, watching my maudlin parents parade their love in swirls and spins. "Oh, they're ridiculous," I murmur absentmindedly.

"Don't you wish you could have something like that one day?"

I glance at Gael, slightly startled. Returning my attention to my parents, I consider his question. He knows my mother's history. He knows what she endured before she met Guillermo. Most of my life, their relationship has been my paragon of romantic love. "I suppose I do," I say and Julian's face flashes in my mind uninvited.

"You miss home, no?" Gael says, surmising my expression means a longing for home.

To some extent, he is right. I do miss home. Around this time of year, the air must be redolent of summer in San Juan. More than ever, I wish I could take refuge from the wintry northern weather in the southern hemisphere. That far away, perhaps I could forget everything and everyone here.

"My life is here."

"You know he dreams of you taking over the place," Gael says, indicating my father with his chin.

I turn in my chair so I'm facing him. "It's not my right, Gael."

"It is," he argues. "You're his daughter."

I don't deny it. Guillermo considers me to be his, and he is my father. "I'm not good enough. Or deserving. I don't have a mind for business."

The right corner of Gael's lips curls. It's always the right corner. "What?" I ask, suspecting his smirk.

He signals for the waiter who comes in, balancing two glasses of wine on a silver platter. He places them in front of me and leaves with a nod of Gael's head. "What is this?" I ask, suspicious.

He points to the glasses with his chin. "You tell me."

I lift an eyebrow.

"I want you to taste it," he says in his smooth voice, pushing the first glass closer to my hand.

A weight settles low in my belly. I've already had too much to drink tonight.

Ignoring the cold anxiety swirling in my stomach, I lift the glass to my nose, inhaling the tangy, burning warmth of the dark ruby liquid. I take the smallest of sips, swishing it around in my mouth. Instantly, I know he's trying to trick me. I swallow the wine, because spitting it is sinful.

"So?" he prompts. His eyes are eager, anxiously watching my reaction.

I gulp some water. "It's fruity," I say, teasingly. "And hot."

Gael only rolls his honeyed eyes.

"Okay." I take another sip of his wine. "It's smoother than I'd expect. Medium acidity. Blackberries? Plums, maybe. Some cocoa and..."

He parts his lips, unconsciously leaning forward as if ready to catch the next words that will be spilled out of my mouth. I marvel at the luscious fullness of his lips, at the pinkish natural tint of them that contrasts beautifully with that caramel of his skin. I remember the softness of them, too.

I swallow dryly, sensing the aroma of the wine in the back of my throat.

"Vamos, Perla," he prompts, impatient with my sudden silence. "Amuse me."

I give him my best smug look, reading to show off. "It's full bodied enough, but..."

He licks his lips. "But?"

I laugh at the expense of his expectancy. His eyes are shining. "But what?"

"It's not ready," I say, giving him my diagnosis.

He narrows his eyes.

"It needs a little more time to balance the tannins. Maybe a little time in-"

"I've ordered new ones."

"Oak?" I ask.

"Cedar, too."

His gaze lingers, curious yet knowing. I get the feeling of being prodded from the inside out, like he wants to figure me out, peel away all of my secrets so as to check if I'm what he remembers. His attention rises the little hairs on my neck with an electric current that descends my spine.

"You know, Guillermo used to say you're an ambitious young man who could either ruin his family's legacy or eternalize it," I say, shaking off the effects of his presence. "He is very dramatic about your talents, but he believes in you."

"He's been very generous in giving me this chance," Gael says, grinning at me for whatever reason.

"I believe in you, too. Just give me a ripe wine," I say, pointing to the second glass.

He graces me with his characteristic wide-mouthed smile when I hum in appreciation. "Enough tannins for you?"

"Perfect," I say, smacking my lips together. I take another hearty gulp, washing my mouth of all that food and replacing the bitterness with nostalgia. Gael is staring at my mouth, and maybe it's a reflex but I lick my lips and taste oak, raspberries and first kisses.

"Your lips," he says, sounding aloof.

"Hum?"

He reaches a hand and I still. The warm weight of his thumb brushes feather like over my mouth. "Stained," he murmurs, his touch lingering and his eyes following the dance his thumb does. Back and forth. Left and right.

My reaction is mindless. Old as day. Parting my mouth, I exhale a shuddering breath that makes us both all too aware of the sudden ecstatic buzz that ignites feelings and sensations that I believed dead.

It's the easiest thing to give in to his touch when I'm vulnerable, heartbroken, dejected. However, I wonder if that's all that this is. Distant longing, a yearning for that love past that seemed so much simpler in hindsight. Here's a man who I once loved, who loved me back and who looks at me in a way that suggests he hasn't forgotten what that felt like.

This easiness of being around someone who knows you, who accepts you is druglike. I can't help being drawn to him. Yet, I wrap my fingers around his wrist and gently pry his touch from my lips

"You're different," he remarks, retrieving his hand

"What do you mean?" I ask, playing at misunderstanding. "You said I hadn't changed."

"You don't look different. You are different."

"Gael, it's been seven years."

"Exactamente. I haven't seen you in years and now you're afraid of me," he says. Direct. No preambles. No sugarcoating his words.

Every time this boy came into the room my heart sped up, he sucked up all the air in my lungs, boiled my blood. I longed for the moment he'd leave so I'd get that fleeting relief only to be annoyed at his absence the next second.

Now I don't know what I feel. I know I'm sad, and maudlin, and Gael is looking at me the way he used to. And it scares me.

"I am afraid of you," I confess through a sigh.

His smirk is immediate. "Why?"

"Because you confuse me."

"You know me too well for that."

"Do I still?"

"No one knows me as well as you."

"As well as I used to," I retort.

When he knew me, I didn't know myself. His attention was a privilege. I was flattered to be his chosen one out of all the girls who made eyes at him. I loved him, yes. I'd also loved that he loved me.

He takes my hand in his, engulfing it in heat, and places it on his chest's left side. The steady beats of his heart flutter against my palm. "Nothing here has changed," he half-whispers.

I don't pull my hand away. "Wasn't there anyone in France?"

He nods, solemnly. "There was."

"And?"

"They were not you." he says, trapping me in the intensity of his gaze. "No one can compare. Not to me."

"I feel like I'm seventeen when you're around, Gael." The narrow space between us is permeated with his cologne. He's so close. He's always been close.

"I already loved you when you were seventeen."

"I'm afraid I'm grown now."

His eyes alight, mouth smiling ahead of the joke I sense coming. "You're better with time. Like fine wine."

The wine has loosened my tongue, and my next words flow out unabashedly. "You can't know what you haven't tasted."

"Who says I haven't?" His heart rate picks up. I remember my hand on his chest only when he lifts it to his mouth. He kisses my palm, his lips soft and wet, the tickling feel of it raises goosebumps all over my skin. "I remember you being sweet," he says, honey eyes holding mine.

"Gael." I betray myself with his name. I say it how I feel. Full of lust, out of breath.

"Perla."

The pressure slowly increases as I feel him inching forward until the air I'm breathing it's his.

I don't dare close my eyes. I'm too scared to. Behind my eyelids, my past is a movie, and a scene that's seared in my memory is about to be replayed.

My Dad's booming voice interrupts us. "Could I have the honor of this dance?"

I blink and I'm back in my body, back to my present. My father is offering a hand I gladly take. My mother rejoins Gael at the table and I throw him an apologetic look over my shoulder and let my father guide me to the dancefloor.

"The poor boy is awestruck," Dad says, easily swaying me to the rhythm of the band playing a Gino Paoli song.

He was the one who taught me how to dance. In the wee small hours of the morning, once sleep had eluded me, he'd rise from bed to keep me company. He taught me how to dance, lectured me in Italian and taught me all about wine making in those precious hours before dawn.

"Gael?" I ask, frowning.

"He can't stop looking at you."

I try to gloss over the issue with a cheeky comment. "Well, I look good, Dad."

He smiles that smile that puts dimples on his cheeks. "You're beautiful like your mother."

I stand on my tiptoes and give him a kiss on his smooth cheek. He smells like his fancy aftershave. "You know I love you very, very much, don't you?" I say and he nods, smile stretching. "You know my life is here now. There are too many things I can't leave behind."

He plants a kiss on my forehead. "Io se, cariño." His wise brown eyes lower to study me. I don't try to hide anything from him. I learned many years ago that I can't.

"Is he a good man?" He asks out of the blue. My entire face reveals my shock, confirming his suspicion. He grins knowingly. "You're my daughter. I know you better than you think."

I sigh. "Am I that obvious? You think Mama knows?"

"Mama is busy playing matchmaker tonight."

"Entonces?"

"He is, Papa," I say. Julian is a good man. Whatever's happened between us doesn't change his nature. "He has a daughter. Hannah. She was one of mine."

"Is he a good father? That can tell a lot about a man."

"He is wonderful. Almost as good as you."

"Almost?"

I lay my head on his chest, following his footsteps to the rhythm of his heart. "He can't beat the best dad in the world."

***

"I CAN DRIVE HER HOME," Gael offers to abate my mother's exaggerated concerns. She believes every Uber driver out there is either a rapist or involved with organ trafficking.

I utter a huff of annoyance. "I'll be okay, Mama. I don't need to be escorted home."

She wraps me in her arms, smothering in her loving worries. "Gael will drive you. He can take our rental." And there's her end of story tone. "We'll be expecting you and the girls for brunch tomorrow. I want more time with you."

"I was selfish," Gael says. "I wanted Perla all for myself tonight."

My meddling mother lays a hand on his shoulders and says, "Oh, honey, you had a lot to catch up to. You haven't seen each other in such a long time."

Dad and I exchange a knowing look. Mom's intentions in bringing Gael here are painfully obvious. Part of me almost regrets not telling her about Julian. Although, to be honest, I doubt it would make a difference. If anything, her knowing of Julian's rebuff of my pathetic affections would only make her more determined to find me a rebound.

"Let him drive you, cariño," Dad says, drawing me into his chest. "You know it doesn't do to contradict your Mama."

Wrong he isn't. Mama always gets what Mama wants.

Not half as unwilling as I put on the pretense to be, I accept Gael's offer to drive me home. I'm blatantly ignoring the warning bells sounding in my head, or the electrifying fear that has been running over my skin since the moment my eyes fell on him.

Mostly, I'm afraid of myself around him. My grip on my restraint is loose and the longer this man is close to me, the harder it gets to fight the wave of memories he invokes.

On our way out through the luxurious lobby, Gael stops at the hotel's reception to retrieve the rental's keys. I stand back in order to enjoy an opportunity to study him. Strangely, he is unaltered. He's a perfect, vivid living memory that's simultaneously new. Wearing a tuxedo, he seems intangible and at odds with my mental image of him; that boy I knew inhabiting this gorgeous man's body. He's always been beautiful, now he is devastatingly handsome.