Episode 4

...Val...

Nati looked at me over her margarita with that face that said, I know you're lying.

"Say that again," she said. "But without the part where you pretend you don't care."

"I don't care."

"Valentina."

"I don't."

Natalia Torres had been my best friend since we were fifteen, and she was the only person who could dismantle me with one raised eyebrow. Lawyer. Human lie detector. Infinite patience for my disasters. She was also the only one who knew about my mother, my father, Camila. Everything. And now she was going to know about Sebastián del Fuego.

Because I made the mistake of telling her.

"Okay." Nati lifted one finger. "You got drunk on a Thursday. You slept with your high school enemy. It turns out he's a pilot at your airport. You tried to pay him one hundred thousand pesos, he tore the money up in your face, and now he's texting you about an ID. And you're saying you don't care?"

"No."

"Val, I love you, but you're the worst liar I know."

We were at Bar Vuelo Nocturno. The same bar. Nati's idea: "You need to exorcise the place." I thought what I needed was to never come back here again, but Nati had a way of convincing you to do stupid things that sounded reasonable when she said them.

"And the ID?" she asked, biting into her lime. "Did you ask him for it?"

"I told him to leave it at airport reception."

"And?"

"He said he'd rather give it to me in person. To make sure it got into my hands." A pause. "With an airplane emoji."

"Oh my God, he likes you."

"He doesn't like me. He hates me. He always hated me."

"Val, men who hate you take the money and leave. They don't tear it up to make a point."

I had no answer. I drank my sparkling lemonade and wished it were tequila. But I'd learned my lesson: no alcohol in this bar.

"Tell me about him," Nati said, settling into her I'm-not-moving-until-you-spill-everything posture. "From high school. You always told me there was a guy who drove you insane, but you never told me who he was."

I closed my eyes.

Sebastián del Fuego sat beside me on the first day of senior year. Not because he wanted to. Our physics teacher assigned seats after the diagnostic exam and decided to put the two highest scores together.

He was the only one who could beat me. At everything. Math, physics, literature. Every test was a war between us no one else understood, but to me it was everything. Because I needed to be the best. I needed my father to see my grades and, for once, say something that wasn't "your sister would have done better."

And then Del Fuego would show up with that crooked smile and beat me by half a point in integral calculus, and I wanted to rip it right off his face.

But I also wanted him to look at me. All the time. And that made me angrier than losing any exam.

"So you did like him?" Nati interrupted.

"No. He was unbearable. Arrogant. Thought he owned the world."

"That wasn't what I asked."

The bar door opened.

Rodrigo Zamora came in first, with the energy of a dog that had just been let loose at the park, looking around for the best table. Behind him, hands in his pockets and wearing the same black jacket I remembered in far too much detail, the same one I'd taken off him before he took off my blouse, the same one that smelled like his cologne and that I'd thrown onto the hotel floor without thinking, came Seb.

He saw me at the same time I saw him.

He smiled. Not the full smile. Just one corner of his mouth. Enough for me to know he knew exactly what his presence did here.

"That's him," I hissed, sinking down in my seat.

"That's who?" Nati turned her head with zero subtlety. "The one in the jacket? The tall one?"

"Don't look at him."

"Val, he's gorgeous."

"Don't look at him."

Too late. Rodri had already spotted us and was coming toward our table with his arms open.

"The controller of my heart!" He reached our table. "How are you? Did you get your ID back yet? The captain carries it everywhere. I think he sleeps with it."

"Rodri." Seb's voice came from behind him. Low, warning. "Shut up."

"What? I'm just being friendly." Rodri turned to Nati, and his whole face transformed. Instant crush. "Hi. I'm Rodrigo. My friends call me Rodri. You can call me anything you want."

Nati laughed.

"Natalia. My friends call me Nati. Sit down if you want."

"May I? Captain, sit, we've been invited."

"Nobody invited anybody," I said, but Seb was already sitting beside me because Rodri had taken the other chair.

His arm brushed mine as he settled in. I felt the current all the way to my fingertips. He smelled like the same cologne. The same one. And my body reacted before my head did, my skin heating, something tightening low in my belly, and I had to cross my legs under the table because his nearness was affecting me in a way that had nothing professional about it.

"Mendoza," he said.

"Del Fuego," I answered without looking at him.

"How's your ID doing without you? Does it miss you?"

"How's your ego doing without an audience? Surviving?"

Nati watched us like she was watching a tennis match. I saw the exact moment she connected every dot.

"Oh, God," she murmured behind her margarita.

The conversation loosened in spite of me. Rodri filled every silence with flight stories that ranged from absurd to ridiculous. Nati laughed at everything he said, and it wasn't politeness.

Seb talked little, but everything he said carried weight. He listened well, answered directly, and sometimes said something so unexpectedly funny that he dragged a laugh out of me before I could stop it. When he laughed, his leg pressed against mine under the table and he didn't move it, and I didn't move mine either, and that was worse than any direct flirting.

"Where do you two know each other from?" Rodri asked, pointing at us.

"High school," Seb said. "Desk mates."

"Rivals," I corrected.

"That too." He looked at me. And what was in his eyes wasn't mockery. "She was the only one who could beat me on an exam. And the only one who cared."

"Because you cheated," I shot back.

"I never cheated, Mendoza. You were the one checking my exam over my shoulder and thinking I didn't notice."

"Liar."

"Third physics test, second semester. You leaned over so far your hair brushed my arm. You smelled like green apple."

I went quiet. Because I remembered. The shame of being caught. And that he had kept writing without saying a word. As if he didn't care. Or as if he liked it.

Ten years later, and the man still remembered what my shampoo had smelled like. That did something to my chest I didn't want to examine.

"Well." Nati stood with a smile far too innocent. "Rodri, will you come with me to the bar? I want another margarita."

"It would be an honor, Miss Natalia."

They left. And we were alone.

"Why did you come?" I asked bluntly.

"Rodri wanted to go out. I didn't choose the place."

"And the ID?"

He slid a hand into the pocket of his jacket and pulled it out. My airport ID, with my awful six-in-the-morning photo. VALENTINA MENDOZA ARANDA.

He set it on the table but didn't let go. He held it by one corner. If I wanted it, I had to bring my hand close to his.

"Let go."

"Why did you run that morning?" he asked, ignoring me.

"I didn't run. I left."

"You left without saying anything, tore up my note, and then tried to pay me. That's running with extra steps."

"Because it was a mistake," I said, and the word tasted ugly. "I was drunk."

"Liar." His voice dropped. "You were drunk, yes. But you knew what you were doing. Same as I did."

We stared at each other. The bar was still there, with its music and its people. But it was as if someone had turned the volume down on everything and left only us. And I remembered far too well what it was like to be closer to him than this. No clothes. No excuses. No volume on anything.

I snatched the ID from him. Our fingers brushed, and neither of us pretended otherwise.

"Thanks," I murmured.

"You're welcome. You owe me a favor."

"I don't owe you anything."

"Yes, you do. I covered for you when you got to the airport without your ID. I told your supervisor you lent it to a passenger who mistook it for theirs."

"You did what?"

"You're welcome," he repeated, and this time he truly smiled.

Nati and Rodri came back with drinks for everyone. Lemonade for me, whiskey for Seb, two margaritas for them that were going to end in something that was not my problem.

The night moved on. I relaxed without meaning to. And when Seb told a story about an emergency landing in Cancún that made us laugh until it hurt, something loosened inside me. A knot that had been tight for years.

It was dangerous. I knew that. Because how easy it was to be with him, how natural it felt after ten years, was exactly the kind of thing that could destroy me if I gave it space.

At midnight, we said goodbye. Rodri kissed Nati's hand with a ridiculous bow that made her blush. Seb only said:

"Good night, Mendoza."

"Good night, Del Fuego."

In the car, Nati waited thirty seconds.

"Val."

"No."

"That man looks at you like you're the only person in the bar. And he doesn't look at your face, Val. He looks at all of you. Like he already knows what's under your clothes."

"We're coworkers."

"He doesn't look at you like a coworker. He looks at you like someone who's already had you and wants another round."

I didn't answer. I turned the radio up loud and drove home with my jaw clenched and my body hot in all the wrong places.

Damn Del Fuego.

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