Heartbreaker Breaks (A Bittersweet Lottery Love Story) (Tangled Hearts & Broken Vows: Tales of Infidelity Book 1) (17 page)

  “I don’t want to hear about you and another man.”

  “It’s not like that. I mean that’s what happened, but that wasn’t the point.”

  “Why don’t we just lay next to each other and enjoy our last moments together?”

  “No.”

  “I missed your one word answers.”

  “Thank you. I hadn’t seen Theodora in such a long time. She lives in Paris, which isn’t too far away, but our plans never worked out. Her Dad was having a show in Barcelona. We met for a week at the most beautiful hotel overlooking the Marina. We should... never mind. Every morning we went down to the cafe for breakfast and the waiter.”

  “A waiter Zelda? You had sex with a waiter?” I didn’t want to hear another word of her story.

  “Shush where was I? He would stand over me as I ate my breakfast, making sure I liked it, checking that my orange juice was topped off, that kind of thing. On the last morning before I was to go back to Madrid a group of German tourists tried to sit with us. They were very aggressive about it. He kicked them out. I took a good look at him after that, he was a dark version of you. He looked exactly like you Danny,” She sat up with a big smile on her face, excited as if she thought I would be too. “But with brown eyes instead of your beautiful blue.”

  “Please don’t finish your story.”

  “Stop that. I looked at him and I missed you so much. It hurt my heart badly. I hadn’t thought of you in that way in so long.” She sighed and shook her head.

“After breakfast I handed him my room card and told him my room number. He was up with me within the hour. He was quick and mannish like a bull, nothing like you in the end. That’s my story.”

  “I don’t know why you had to tell me that.” I had an urge to fly into Barcelona, find the waiter, destroy him.

  “It felt like a secret. I don’t want to have any secrets with you.” Squeeze my heart a little tighter next time Zelda. I wrapped my arms tightly around her, forcing my mind to find an angle to keep her with me.

  “Have you ever thought that you had a father complex? Forget about me wanting you to stay. Why go back to that old man? Stay with me.”

  “You just said to forget about you wanting me to stay.” She kissed my chest, running her lips downward. I pulled her up.

  “No. We are not doing that again. You’re making a mistake. You’re only 25. That’s too young to marry anyone.”

  “It’s my birthday today. I’m 26.” She ran her lips down my chest again.

  Eleven years she had been on my mind, in my heart. I wasn’t even going to bother adding all the years I watched her, wanting to be with her. It felt like my entire life.

  “Will you drive me to the airport?” She crawled back up to me and rested her head on my chest.

  “No but I’ll walk you back up to your parents house. My car is up there anyway.” I willed myself to let go of her.

  “You’re walking me up there because your cars is there? I can walk myself, thank you.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Letting go? It wasn’t working.

  “I know I was kidding.” She put her clothes back on, “Time to get up Danny. What are we going to say to your parents if we see them? I feel like a teenager again.”

  “We’ll say good morning. Zelda I don’t want you to go. You’re making a mistake. Stay with me. We’ll figure it out.” Didn’t work at all.

  “Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

  We made it out of my house and to hers in silence without seeing anyone.

  “I’ll try to come out more often,” She said as we stood on the doorstep of her parent’s home.

  “Every three years instead of five?” She was breaking me in two.

  “I could come home for the holidays.” She carried on, not getting it at all.

  “Do you hear yourself? What kind of life are you planning? Fly out for your annual Danny fuck? I’m not going to see you again. I don’t understand you. I don’t think you understand yourself. You can’t have it both ways. Nobody can.” I kissed her for what I thought would be the last time.

  “You’re right. I lost my head for a moment. Good-bye Danny.” She closed the door, leaving me alone on her doorstep. I stood for a moment frozen, lost. With a powerful shake of my head, I turned and walked down to my car. I headed down Sunset at lightning speed, turned right on PCH and drove straight up the coast to Marin County to visit my brother.

An excerpt from Book Three by Paloma Meir

  I stopped in the hallway to watch Zelda pace back and forth while texting. She had an exasperated expression on her face and threw her phone on the bed and shoved a box with her foot towards the door.

“Zelda, what’s wrong?” I asked as I made my way down the hallway.

  “Why has it taken you so long? Nobody cares that I’m leaving. I’ve been texting you all day. My bag is stuck. Danny left this morning, so he wouldn’t be tired for his first day back at school. Can you believe he did that? Why couldn’t he be tired for one day? And now Anthony wants my room, and I have to pack up all of my things and send them to my storage unit. I won’t have a home anymore. Nobody cares.” She threw her hands up in the air.

  “Zelda could you put one of your robes on?” I hadn’t noticed in the hallway, but she was wearing a long t-shirt that must have been washed hundreds of times because it was transparent. It was too much even for her.  “Here, I’ll help you with your bag.”  I made a move to pick it up, but she continued with her hysterics distracting me.

  “Why? It’s too hot in here. Anthony keeps turning the heat up.” She pushed past me to the doorway and yelled out “Anthony, turn down the heat.” She turned very quickly to me. “He can’t hear me. That’s why he shouldn’t have my room. It’s too cut off. No one can hear you down here. I don’t even know how they heard Danny and me that one time... Never mind. Anthony isn’t like how he used to be. He’s always getting into trouble. They should put him in the guesthouse.”

  “You’re not making any sense. The guesthouse is across from the pool. He’ll be even...”

  “You know the worst part, Serge? You won’t even believe this.” She moved back to her bed and folded a sweater, “My lipstick. I ordered the color a month ago. I can’t believe they did this to me.” She threw the sweater back on the bed and turned to face me. I was having problems not laughing at this point.

  “They sent me the wrong color. It’s pale pink like I wanted, but it’s a warm pink, not the cool pink. I can’t wear warm colors Serge. Look at my skin. I would look like a clown. Can you believe they did that to me? I’m going to have to travel across the world homeless with the wrong lipstick.” She screamed, back to waving her arms, her ridiculous t-shirt lifting up to lengths shorter than one of her mini-skirts. “I’m just not going to wear lipstick.”

  I thought of Carolina telling me how Danny had tapped her shoulders making her fall backwards all those years ago as she stood ranting about her inconsequential problems. I lifted my arms up, pointed my fingers and poked her very lightly on the shoulders. She fell onto her bed, and I jumped on top of her, shushing her.

  “Zelda, calm down,” I allowed myself to laugh. “You don’t need to be so nervous. You’re going to Spain. You don’t need to be scared.”

  “I’m not scared,” she yelled while thrashing around beneath me.

  “Really? Your lipstick is the problem?” I ran my hand through her hair and decided to be serious with her and not mock her make-up problems. “You’ll be safe,” I paused overwhelmed by the beauty of her face, the large dark eyes, the delicate rounded tip of her nose, the defined cheekbones that almost had a masculine quality, and her lips the same color and shape as mine.

  “I’ve never been alone before.” Her body relaxed under mine as she turned her head away.

  “You’re not going to be alone. You’ll be with your friends and busy with your fabrics.” I moved her head back, so she was looking at me.

  “What if I get scared again?” She moved her head away, “I haven’t had any problems in at least a year but what if...”

  “You’ll take your breaths like you always do, and then you’ll be okay again.”

  “What if it gets really bad? What if I can’t be alone?” she whispered.

  “Then you’ll call Danny, and he’ll go get you.” Not ideal, but true.

  “You don’t understand. I don’t want him to have to save me.”

  “Then I’ll come and get you.” I calculated in my head. I had a little over sixteen thousand dollars in my bank account saved up from summer jobs and part-time tutoring in Boston. I assumed I could find a round trip ticket for less than eight hundred dollars. I could stay in her room. Food couldn’t be that much around the University. I got excited as if I were planning a trip, and not going to help a friend. “That would be great. I’ve never been to Europe. We could get a Eurail Pass and travel around. Head up to Cern, see the LHC. Every summer a group from school go for the internship, but I always have to work. The particle accelerator...” I stopped talking because she was laughing.

  “I don’t want anyone to have to come and get me.” She moved her hand across my face, and I realized that I had the beginnings of an erection and rolled off of her. “All my therapy, Danny making all of my decisions. Sometimes I feel like I can’t even think.” She rolled on top of me, not helping me with my problem. “I could send you to Cern. You don’t always have to work so hard.” She leaned up on me making me very aware of her breasts pressed against my chest. I had a full erection. I rolled her off of me and stood up and tried to think of war and famine.

  “Call me whenever you want, text me all the time, okay? Anytime you feel nervous.” I ignored her offer. “Let me fix your bag, and then I have to get going. Movie with Marianne.” I picked the bag up and zipped it closed easily. “Fixed.” I turned to her door.

  “Serge don’t go, wait.” She picked her purse up off the floor and took out a tiny rectangular box. “Give the lipstick to Marianne. She can wear warm colors. She’ll like it. The brand is very hard to get. It's from England, and it’s made in small batches.”  She tried to it hand to me while I thought of The Battle of Okinawa.

  “That’s sweet but no.” I leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, but she shook away from me.

  “Give this to her.” She thrust the package into my hands. “It’s very exclusive. I want her to have it.” She was getting that wild look in her eyes again, so I took the box.

  “Okay, bye Zelda.”

  “I’m leaving for five months.” She grabbed my arm forcefully. “Why are you acting like this?”

  I gave up and pulled her in for a hug, making sure to keep my hips far away from her. She was having it at all, pulling me very close to her and rubbing her cheek against mine.

  “Serge," she lifted her face away from mine, looked into my eyes, placed her hands on my cheeks, pressed her lips against mine, and that’s how we stood for either one minute or a hundred years.

  I peeled her off of me, almost mad at her and all of her innocence. I could have opened my mouth, and we would have been kissing. She was right, not much thinking going on in her head. Easier than zipping up the bag, I could have taken her to her bed, taken off her t-shirt and done things to her I didn’t even want to think about.