Constant Craving: Book Two, page 6
Since the rental isn’t far from the paper, I shower, throw on some jeans and a T-shirt, and head over. Diana’s walking out as I’m going in. She air-kisses my cheek in the lobby as the old security guy looks on. It seems like it’s the same guard every time I come to the paper—does he live here? I think he was here fifteen years ago, too, and he was ancient back then.
“You shouldn’t be working on a Saturday,” I tell Diana.
“Eh, I’d rather be here than home.”
I tilt my head. “And that’s because? Shouldn’t you be preparing for the baby? Assembling a crib or something?”
She grimaces. “My husband’s in a mood. He was laid off yesterday from his job as a cameraman at a TV station.”
“Oh.” I swallow. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too. So I’m now the breadwinner. At least until I pop out the kid. I just want to make sure Justine’s all set for when I’m on maternity leave.” She pats her stomach. “And what are you doing here, anyway? I kind of wondered if you’d go back to Miami on the weekends. Unless you’ve got plans here in St. Augustine…”
I can’t ignore the twinkle in Diana’s eyes, and I chuckle. “I am probably not supposed to confirm or deny whether I have plans here in St. Augustine.”
She makes a zipping motion at her mouth. “Understood. It’s all off the record with me. Anyway, check out that file and let me know if you need anything more. I gotta run because I’ve gotta pee.” Diana gives me a sheepish grin and a wave and waddles away.
My stomach constricts at the idea of leaving her without a job. I’ll have to offer people buyouts before closing the paper if that’s the course I decide to take. I can’t leave innocent people destitute because of my plan for revenge.
Inside the office I’m now sharing with Justine, I do a quick scan of the paper’s revenue for the last couple of months. Since Justine took over, she has done a remarkable job of trying to cut corners wherever possible. But before that, her father was a mess.
He’d slapped the paper’s name on every festival in the city, spending money the business didn’t have to sponsor meaningless events that earned no return. I smirk. So Edward Lavoie wasn’t as good of a businessman as he’d pretended to be.
No surprise, considering his not-so-small monetary offer to me at the end of my relationship with Justine. How could anyone offer a guy two million dollars to stay away from his daughter? To this day, that letter he’d written leaves me incredulous.
I glance over at a photo of him and Justine and realize I was the one who’d taken it, on the day Justine graduated. Edward looked like he’d smelled something rotten, while Justine was staring at me, grinning, looking coltish and eager.
Looking like she loved me, because that was back when she did.
If I knew then what I knew now, I’d have eloped with Justine that very day and moved far from Florida. Away from that racist bastard and this terrible newspaper.
No, that would have been a disaster. He would’ve meddled in our lives and undermined me every chance he got. The deck was stacked against me from the moment I met Edward. Bile still bubbled in my throat every time I saw the man’s image.
Soon, that feeling, those shitty memories, will be all in the past. Just seeing his photo gives me new resolve to make a profit on this business and then close it.
“Rafa?”
I look up when I hear the creaky voice. It’s Caroline, and I grin. She’d always treated me with an affection that I hadn’t experienced since I was little. The way she smiled and hugged me when I saw her the other day in the newsroom left me with a lump in my throat. Similar to how I feel now that she’s beaming at me.
“What are you doing here? I didn’t expect to see you.” I rise and hug her.
“I stopped by to get a book that I’m reviewing for next Sunday’s paper.”
“Well, how about I take you to lunch? You have time? Is today better than next week?”
She looks at me with a chiding glance. “Promise you won’t tell Justine? She asked me not to spend too much time with you.”
I chuckle. Justine knows me too well. She assumes I’ll pump anyone and everyone for information about the paper—and for details about her.
“I promise. C’mon. I’m parked out front.” I grab Diana’s file, and Caroline threads her arm into the crook of my elbow. I’d made an instant connection with the older woman when I’d first met Justine. Somehow, she’d reminded me of my mother. I wasn’t sure how or why since Caroline was a quintessential Southern lady with blonde hair, and my mom was Cuban, but I felt the maternal pull to Caroline almost immediately.
I hold the door of my car open, and Caroline eases in. She’s less steady now, in her seventies and seemingly frail. But still a spitfire, from the way she grins wide as we speed off in the Tesla.
“How about the Blue Rooster for lunch? Is that a decent place?” I ask. I’d scanned the paper’s restaurant guide the other day, thinking about where I could take Justine over the next month.
She laughs. “I think you’ve done your homework, young man. I can’t imagine why or how you know about that place or whom you were going to take there. It’s the best lunch place in town.”
The Blue Rooster is done up in a Key West-style, with faded, painted blue walls, kitschy signs with slogans, and tin roosters everywhere. Kind of frilly and country. Not my thing, but Caroline’s eyes light up when we walk in. We make small talk while looking over the Southern brunch menu of chicken and biscuits, gumbo, and, strangely, a BBQ Cuban sandwich.
“Is that too sacrilegious for a real Cuban man?” She points to the menu.
I grimace. “Perhaps. I think I’ll stick to the gumbo. And I’ll be having Cuban later with Justine—” I stop short, not knowing how much to say. I trust Caroline implicitly, but I’m not sure if Justine wants anyone to know we’re spending time together outside of work. And this is the first time I’ve spoken Justine’s name to anyone other than David—well, other than my nocturnal mumblings when I was with Christina that night.
At one time, when we were together, I talked about Justine to anyone who would listen. My voice feels rusty saying her name aloud now.
Caroline eyes me with a knowing stare, and I feel compelled to explain.
“I’ve rented a place, and I’ve invited Justine over tonight.” Of course, I decline to explain that I’ve basically propositioned Justine for sex.
Caroline doesn’t blink.
I clear my throat. “I’m flying in food from her favorite Cuban restaurant in Miami.”
Caroline, who’s wearing a hot pink sweater, folds her arms. I notice her nails match her sweater. “You are, are you?” She draws out the final you, so it seemingly has five syllables in her Southern accent.
Normally under these circumstances, I’d grin or play coy, but with Caroline, I can’t get away with shit.
I nod gravely.
“And what precisely do you think will happen if you invite my dear Justine to your house? Forgive the questions, Rafael, but I want to cut through the crap here. What are your intentions with her?”
My eyebrows shoot up. This feels strangely like asking for permission to go to prom. “I…I just want to spend time with her.”
I fight the urge to let out a string of Spanish swear words. I should just hand in my alpha male card now.
Caroline fixes me with a stare. “You know what that will do to her, right?”
I arrange my silverware in a tight line. There are only two people on the planet who can safely question my relationship with Justine without me getting pissed: David and Caroline. “She doesn’t seem all that affected by much these days. I think she can handle it.” I shrug.
Truth be told, I don’t know if Justine will be able to handle this. I don’t know if I will. I don’t know anything at this point, only that I miss her and I can’t wait to see her and I’m also still fucking pissed that she left me.
“Justine’s been through a lot, honey.”
“In what way?” I gulp my water, hoping it dissolves that sour feeling that’s taken over my stomach. Why does everyone keep talking about how fragile she is? I never saw her that way. Jesus, I thought this was going to be a casual lunch.
“Well, her dad dying, for one thing. She found him, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Justine had to be taken to the hospital a week after the funeral because she passed out. She’d gotten a headache so bad she thought she was having a stroke. Turns out she was dehydrated.”
I clench my jaw. It was so like Justine to ignore her health and give in to stress. “And now? Is she handling everything better?”
“Not really. Not like before. Before Edward’s death, she was doing pretty well as managing editor of the paper. Living a good life, going out with her girlfriends, working at the paper, spending time with that boyfriend of hers. I didn’t like him much, but I just thought he wasn’t as bright as her. He was a decent enough guy.”
The sour feeling inside has turned to flames. “Did he love her?”
Caroline shrugs. “I don’t know if Jared loves anyone but himself. He loved that Justine was bright and accomplished and beautiful. He loved her magnetism. But I don’t think he admired her true qualities. Not like…” Her voice trails off, and she waves a hand in my direction.
I know what she was going to say.
Not like me.
“And now? What’s going on with her now?”
“Now, all I can say is that she’s unbalanced. Maybe a little out of control. She practically lives at the office, and it’s eating her alive that she can’t work her way out of bankruptcy.” Caroline takes a sip of her sweet tea and leaves a stain of pink lipstick on the clear glass. How someone can be covered in pink and so intimidating is beyond me. “She can’t seem to get it into her thick skull that the paper’s problems have nothing to do with her. That it’s the entire newspaper industry that’s dying. It’s not a reflection of her competence.”
“She always took things very personally. Back in school, Justine made an error in a headline in the college paper. She flipped out then.”
We’d only been dating a few months, and she was still living in the UM dorm. She’d called me, wailing, so inconsolable that I’d gone to her room, only to find her with mascara running down her cheeks, babbling about how she’d never make it as a journalist. I’d kissed her and reminded her how special and talented she was.
Caroline sighs. “I also think Diana’s pregnancy has hit Justine hard. I don’t think she believes she has a lot of time left to have a baby and feels like her life has gone off the rails. I shouldn’t be telling you all of this, but I think you need to know. You should be aware of this in case all you want to do is have a good time with her.”
Hearing that is like taking a hard, unexpected uppercut. “I don’t know what I want from Justine.”
Caroline slowly drums her pink nails on the wooden table. She lifts an eyebrow. “Well, I think you should figure it out.” I’ve never seen Caroline look or sound this stern, and frankly, I’m starting to perspire. Me, intimidated by a seventysomething-year-old woman who I haven’t seen in more than a decade.
Coño.
I gulp my water.
“Especially after what happened between you two. Your loss.”
Her words explode every bit of air from my lungs, and I cough. Caroline’s become very protective of Justine. “Did she tell you about the…”
“The miscarriage? Yes.”
I nod and stare at the floor. I didn’t know Justine had told anyone about what had happened. I’d never told anyone—not David, not my uncle, not God himself.
“I wanted the baby, too.” I jiggle my knee. I can’t believe I’m getting into this at a place called the Blue Rooster. “It was a shock of course, but we were excited…” My voice trails off.
Here’s what I don’t say: we’d been too young, but that brief moment when we were going to be a family, when we started planning the kid’s room and everything, somehow had made me grow up fast. I’d aged ten years in a week.
I became a man.
“I’m sure you did. But it’s different for a woman, to lose a child. Justine thought it was her fault.”
“It was no one’s fault,” I say brusquely, and then the waiter comes with our lunch and I’m left with a stomach filled with shards of regret and no appetite.
Caroline changes the subject, and I can only think one thing as she chatters on about the unseasonably warm weather.
Our breakup wasn’t my fault. Wasn’t my fault. Wasn’t.
But then again, maybe it was.
9
Moments of Pleasure
Justine loves the luxurious villa and the Cuban food I’ve flown in from Miami. Her happiness is embedded in every squeal, every smile, every batted eyelash.
“Oh God, it’s ground beef,” she moans, all sexy. My brain disappears every time she does this, and it’s as if I’m ruled by yearning and lust, not revenge and money.
What she doesn’t seem to love is the idea of a thirty-day agreement. It does violate all sanity and sensibility, but so what? I don’t care. This is the best night I’ve had in years. I watch her eat, and I play with her silky hair and touch her naked legs and know I’m close to getting exactly what I want. I trail the back of my finger down her cheek, and she stills.
“So this is for a month? What if we want more?”
I drop my hand from her face and stare at her. If she’d wanted more with me, why had she left me in the first place? I will never understand this woman. “A month. That’s all. Only sex.”
“Let’s not crush each other’s hearts, okay?”
“Way too late for that.” I try to make it come out as a joke, but I know it sounds bitter. She tries to engage me, trap me into a conversation about sex—I want to have it, not talk about it—and I get up so I can bring out the flan.
Flan first, then fucking.
I know it’s her favorite, and it’s one of the many tricks I have up my sleeve.
When I return with the dessert, her eyes get big. I chuckle and settle in next to her, then carve out a spoonful so I can feed her.
“Ohh, Rafa. You are so good.” Another satisfied moan. ”Aren’t you going to have some? It’s delicious.”
No, I’m planning on having her for dessert. I can’t stop thinking about her naked, how I’m going to unzip that black dress, how I’ll peel off her lingerie, how I’ll stroke and lick every inch of her. And how her ass will have a red mark in the shape of my hand. Just as I’m thinking about how we’re going to fuck all night, she’s baited me into bickering again. She says I didn’t try to stop her from going to Central America. God, I wish she would be quiet and just enjoy the tense sensuality.
“I didn’t care about you? I didn’t try to stop you? Well, that’s news to me.” I had tried to stop her. I’d asked her not to leave, and the next day, I’d gotten the letter, and the check, from her father. That’s when I’d stopped asking her to do anything. I wasn’t sure what I wanted at that point. But I can’t tell Justine that, because she doesn’t know her father tried to pay me to stay away from her. Or, if she does, she’s being purposefully manipulative.
“Usually people liberally use the L-word if they’ve been with someone for four years. I don’t recall hearing that from you in the final months of our relationship when I really needed it. Do I need to remind you what happened back then? Have you forgotten?”
Have I forgotten that we were going to have a child? Have I forgotten that I made the choice that would allow you to continue to have a relationship with your father? Have I forgotten that you broke my heart?
I snort. “I have a perfect memory for painful events.”
I’m hoping she’s done beating me up. I want to stop talking altogether and let our bodies communicate. But no, she’s now asking all sorts of questions. Making demands. So I make a few demands of my own. “Mark, the café guy, wants to take you to dinner. I’m asking politely for you to decline, at least until I’ve left town.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine.” Her voice is annoyed enough that I suspect she wants to go out with him.
“Also, are you on birth control? I can provide you a copy of my recent health tests. I’m completely clean. Was just tested before I came here.”
She studies my face for a few seconds. “Oh, so you did anticipate sleeping with me before you came here.”
I smirk. “I wanted to be prepared, yes.”
“I went to the doctor two months ago for my annual check-up. I’ll give you the records from that.”
I hate that this is what we’ve been reduced to. Discussing sex as if it’s a business proposition. Disgusting. We loved each other once, I want to shout.
“I don’t want to talk about who you’ve been with over the past decade. I’m going to trust that you’re clean, but if you’re not, now’s the time to tell me. I don’t want to be exposed to anything. I’m not trying to be crass, but I don’t know where you’ve been over the years.”
I know that will piss her off. I casually swipe a finger of flan and lick it off.
“Do you want to know where I’ve been and who I’ve been with, Rafa?”
She’s being cruel and cutting. I can’t look at her because I don’t want to say or do anything I’ll regret. My heart pounds angrily. “I don’t need to know about your past. I don’t want to know. I know enough, anyway. That you dated some anchorman.” I clench my jaw so hard that I can feel it in my sinuses.
“Ask me. Ask me when I last had sex.”
“Stop it.” Why can’t she leave this alone?
“I think you’ll be interested in the answer.”
I whisper a vulgarity and stare at the floor. It’s a terrible phrase in Spanish and one I don’t use often.
“Rafa, I haven’t had sex in more than a year.”
What does she want? A medal? When I stare at her, I try to remain emotionless. I sneer a little as I play with her hair, stroke her cheek. “Want to hear about my sex life, Justine?” I think about how I screwed Christina the night after my uncle died. Christina had tried so hard to kiss and snuggle with me, get cozy and romantic, and all I’d wanted was to flip her over and fuck her from behind.
