AIDEN
We ride the elevator back to the suite. Fallon was right. She’s still here. But she’s only here because she forgot her phone.
Still, seeing her, being around her, fills me with a strange satisfaction. Comfort. I might have been tipsy last night, but right now, I’m stone-cold sober.
Faith is stunning. Her hair is rumpled and her mouth is plump and pink from all of the kissing we did.
I so badly want to kiss her again, but I don’t know how she feels after last night. Does she regret it? Does she want to keep running? Does she want to laugh in my face?
My life’s work is being able to know how to talk to women. How to say the right things to make them happy, make their days better, make them feel like I’m worth the price tag.
Then why is it so hard to find a way to talk to Faith?
I know if Fallon were here, he’d tell me some woo-woo shit about being honest with my feelings.
Feelings get you hurt. It ends in breaking the people around you.
“I’m sorry I left this morning,” I blurt out anyway. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Plus you thought it would be easier to make a clean break,” she tells me. She doesn’t look at me, but at the numbers lighting up as we climb to the top.
This elevator ride is less fun than last night’s. But there’s something about being in the same space with her that makes me want to stay right where I am.
Of course, that’s when the doors open and we walk back to my suite. Ginny’s suite.
“Are you having a party so early?” she chuckles.
“Hm? Oh, this?” I let us in and lead the way to the living room. “I wasn’t sure what kind of coffee you liked. Just in case you were still here.”
I set the greasy bag of beignets and tray of coffee on the table. She sits down on the armchair, and I busy myself with putting the sofa bed away.
“Milk and sugar,” she says.
I sit across from her. Why am I so fucking awkward right now? I grab the black coffee and add a packet of sugar to it. I make a face when I drink it.
“You don’t like chicory coffee?”
I chuckle. The stuff is slightly sweet with a burnt aftertaste. “I’m more used to the Colombian coffee my mom always bought.”
“Is that where she’s from?” She helps herself to the bag of basically donuts. Her hands are graceful. Long fingers. I can picture her now wrapping those same fingers around my dick. As she brings the beignet to her lips, I am fully erect.
Then, I frown. She shouldn’t be here. She should go about her day so I can go about mine. I haven’t been to the gym in two days. Ginny could come back. Housekeeping could barge in.
But when I picture her leaving, I feel irrationally angry.
“She was from Medellín,” I say. I look into my coffee. What is it with this city that it has me spilling all the things I never share? No, not people. Just Faith. “My mom left for New York when she was twenty and met my father there. He was Colombian too but from Barranquilla.”
She licks her lips. I wonder what she’s thinking. “You were born in Colombia?”
“It’s actually a crazy situation.”
“Tell me.”
And I do. My mouth opens, and this thing I have locked in my chest climbs out. “This was right before I was born. My parents were together for about six months and he’d just put a ring on her finger. But, he had to go back to Barranquilla to visit his ailing mother. Then he went missing.”
Faith watches me, her rapt attention giving me the feeling that I’m telling someone else’s story instead of the series of events that led to my mother’s heartache.
I clear my throat and continue. “So my mom went to Barranquilla with her brothers, and my grandfather drove all the way from Medellín to see what was up. Like showed up with machetes in case he’d been taken or whatever. My dad always seemed to owe someone money. But when they got there, they found that he was totally fine. My grandmother was the picture of health. He just wasn’t planning on coming back because my mom was pregnant.”
Faith’s mouth is a perfect O with surprise. It’s not the right time, but the image of her wriggling against my mouth last night pops into my mind. I’m the most fucked up, if that’s what I’m thinking of while reliving my family history.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Well, my grandfather wouldn’t have it.”
“Shotgun wedding?”
“Machete wedding more like it.”
She shakes her head but smiles at my twisted humor. “And I thought my family had stories. Is that why you were born there?”
“Yup,” I say. “We were supposed to go back to New York but my mom went into labor a month early. Then we just stayed for about nine years.” I clear my throat and then drink more of the bittersweet coffee. “That’s my origin story in a nutshell.”
When Faith smiles it feels like sunshine after a long bout of rain. “I bet there’s a lot more to your origin story.”
“What about you?”
“My parents didn’t have a machete wedding. They almost didn’t have a wedding at all because my mom is so stubborn.”
I hold the coffee in my hands because I have the impulse to pick her up and gather her in my arms. Relive the kiss we shared on the balcony. She looks down at my mouth, and I know, I know, she’s thinking the same thing.
“So what happened?” I ask.
“My dad was in environmental law. He comes from a long line of lawyers.”
I chuckle. “I knew it.”
“I’m not a lawyer,” she says defensively. “Anyway, my mom’s side comes from farmers in North Carolina, but they lost everything when my uncle sold his plot to land developers. My mom was the only daughter and they left her nothing. So she moved here at sixteen. Started waitressing, cleaning, doing it all. She met my dad when he was lost trying to take the bus. Can you believe a twenty-one-year-old man hadn’t been on the bus before? Love at first sight, but I never believed that.”
“Yeah, I say. Me neither.” But when I look at her, really look at her, I feel a strange sensation beneath my ribs. If it’s not love at first sight, it’s definitely a deep want. Or heartburn.
I should ask her to leave.
But when she drains her coffee, I say, “Help yourself to another one.”
Her laugh is as sweet as the sugar packets she takes and pours into the second coffee with milk. “I’m actually going to need something with sustenance.”
“Do you have any plans today?” I ask. I shove two beignets in my mouth because maybe food will shut me up.
She seems to consider this. She’s thinking about how to get out of here. This is it. She’s going to leave, and I’m going to take another cold shower because breathing the same air around her makes me hard, and I’m going to crawl into bed and think about how amazing and beautiful this woman is as I jerk myself off.
“I do,” she says.
I swallow the lump of sugary dough. “Yeah, me too.”
“Oh yeah, what?” The tilt of her head and the smile on her lips tell me she doesn’t believe me.
“Let’s see, get breakfast. That’s it. That’s my whole plan for today. I suppose I should walk around and see what the big deal is about, but I doubt I’d be impressed.”
She knows I’m fucking with her. That’s why her eyes beam like lasers and she makes a tiny grumbling sound. I want to kiss the pout of her mouth and lick the remnants of powdered sugar that cling to the left corner.
She looks out the window, like she’s considering her options. Then, at her purse open on the floor. I realize the pink bunch at the center is her underwear. Then that means she’s sitting there wearing nothing. My heart spikes to my throat, and my traitorous dick threatens to rip through the fabric of my sweats.
“Aiden?”
“Yes, Faith?” I’m startled by her voice because I am so hard I can’t see straight.
“I asked, would you like to have breakfast with me?”
* * *
Cafe Fleur De Lis is on the relatively quiet Chartres Street. Packs of brunchgoers gather outside different restaurants. Some of them still wear purple, green, and gold beads. Some of them look like they never sobered up from last night.
Bars are wide open, and small strip clubs are rocking the day shift. It makes me think of my boys of Mayhem City. I wonder if they’re touring yet. I take out my phone with the thought that I should text Ricky. But that’s not what today is about. Today is about having a nice brunch with Faith. After I accepted her breakfast invitation, she went home to change. But I saw those panties in her purse, and I know she needed to go and clean up and so did I, though I’m not sure if she had quite as much fun as I did. I covered myself in so many suds I had to stand under the rain shower for five minutes before I was soap-free. A series of images flashed before my eyes. Faith on the balcony biting her lip. Her dress slipping off her shoulder and onto the floor. My tongue parting her lips. Her mouth on the swollen head of my cock.
I grabbed my dick. Each stroke dedicated to a memory of Faith. Her mouth, her nails raking my neck, her sexy fucking laughter, those eyes looking only at me, that precious little freckle on her jaw. I rode those memories as I came into the shower drain.
I thought I was done.
Here, in the middle of the street, I see her turn the corner, and my body lights up like New Year’s at midnight, and I know I’ve only just gotten started.
Faith is in a bright yellow dress that gives her light-brown skin a golden sheen. Her heels are a deep-red leather. Even on the uneven paved streets, her powerful legs strut toward me with the confidence of a reigning queen.
Her shoulders are bare, a simple gold necklace catches the light at the center of her chest. Her hair is half up and half down, pinned in an old-fashioned look. Her hands are covered in white lace gloves.
“Wow, you—” How do I even finish this sentence? You look like a dream I didn’t even know I had? You look like ice cream on a hot summer day? You look like the thing that might break me if I let it?
“You too,” she says, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “I have to go to church after this.”
“Aren’t you and your mom fighting?”
“Still have to show.” She keeps her hands to herself and so do I. It’s like we both know that when we’re too close, we won’t stop until we’re pushed together. But maybe the streets of New Orleans are used to people devouring each other in public.
I go in for a kiss on her cheek, but she turns her face, and I catch the corner of her mouth.
She backs away quickly. “Did you get a table?”
“No, just got here.”
She’s unusually skittish. Though I’ve known her for about a day, so I’m not sure what her usual is. It was the same at the bar last night, like she was afraid of being caught. Before we walk into the restaurant, she gives the street a good once-over. I can’t think why she’s that suspicious. Maybe she’s just paranoid. Or she’s truly married and I have a type.
“Good morning!” a pretty hostess with several nose piercings greets us. She grins at me, her dark-brown skin like polished stone. “Two?”
“Yes, please.”
When the hostess’s eyes fall to Faith standing behind me, they widen. Faith smiles but gives the girl a small shake of her head.
“Do you two know each other?” I ask.
The girl’s eyes ping-pong between Faith and me. But whatever girl-code is going on, the girl only smiles a wide white smile and leads us to a small corner table in the back.
The crowd here is mostly tourists with lobster-burnt skin. Though, I feel like I wouldn’t be able to recognize what a local from New Orleans would look like.
“Are you some sort of celebrity?” I ask Faith. “You seem to know everyone.”
She laughs. “Please.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s part of an answer.”
A waitress rolls around and sets down two giant mimosas with the fattest strawberries I’ve ever seen. “On the house.”
“Thank you,” Faith says, and gives the girl a small squeeze on her arm.
I pretend to gasp. “Are you local mafia? Am I on a date with a mafia princess?”
Faith rolls her eyes and playfully bats my shoulder with her gloved hand. It stays here. Why does one touch from her ignite something in me I didn’t think I was capable of? It’s like I can feel her, through the fabric of my shirt and that of her gloves. She looks at her hand and removes it.
“It’s nothing like that.”
I rest my chin on my knuckles and watch her. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Not yet. We just met.”
I grab hold of my drink and smirk. I lean into her, my nose and lips inches from her ear. “I know you well enough to remember the way you taste.”
She swallows hard and lifts her drink to mine. “What should we toast to?”
“To mafia royalty,” I say. “And generous waitresses.”
Speaking of, the young waitress swings back around. “Miss Charles. What’re you having?”
Faith Charles.
I could google her. I could go behind her back and go into a deep dive of an Internet wormhole and never come out because I want to know everything about her.
But I won’t. Because I can’t see her after today. Shouldn’t see her . . .
“I’ll have the Seafood Benedict.” Faith looks at me. “How do you feel about pancakes for the table?”
“I feel like it’s everything I’ve been missing all my life.” I hand the waitress the menu back. “I’ll have the Big Easy Breakfast.”
She jots it down with a wink. “What flavor pancakes?”
“Banana chocolate chip,” we say at the exact same time. The waitress grins because we’re probably ridiculous.
“Faith Charles,” I say. It’s like learning a new language. The language of her.
“Aiden Peñaflor,” she says.
It’s cute the way she pronounces it. Pen-ya-floor. But after a moment, the name sends a red flag up in my head because I haven’t gone by that name since I was eighteen.
“I’m sorry, I saw your ID. Remember?”
“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Charles.” I lean back and admire the way she smiles when I say her name. “Now, will you please tell me why everyone seems to know you?”
She folds her hands in front of her. She could be a local model. But her beauty is not small town. “Angie and I have this game where we guess who people are and what they do whenever we go out. She spoiled you for me, though.”
I envy the straw that gets to rest in her clever mouth. “I’ll play. But I’ll have you know that I’m coming up with all sorts of ideas.”
“Let’s hear one.”
Telling her I think she’s a model sounds cheesy as fuck. She’s so witty that I do think she’s some sort of law professional. Her teeth are perfectly straight. “Dentist.”
She shivers. “You mean mouth torturer? Wrong. You get two more guesses.”
“We didn’t agree to that.” I cross my arms over my chest.
“I make the rules.”
God, I want her to say that to me while we’re both naked. “Hotel owner.”
She sighs, and I almost feel like she’s disappointed. “Not even close.”
What’s the opposite of hotels? Or cities? I remember she said her dad was in environmental law. And then it hits me, I’m trying to figure out why everyone knows her, but what I should be doing is guessing who she is—deep inside. I go with the wildest, most random thing a classy, sexy woman like her might be. “Park ranger?”
She laughs, the stiffness from before melting away. I love making her laugh. I shouldn’t love this the way I do. “Close, but no.”
“You have to give me another shot.”
Her chin juts out in the most adorable way, a playful turn to her lips. “I think this already is your second shot.”
I palm my chest to my heart, like she landed an arrow there. “Solid burn. I was hoping you didn’t remember that part.”
She lowers her eyes and edges close to me. Her voice drops an octave as she whispers, “I liked knowing I made you feel that way.”
I lick my lips and my eyes flick to the bulge straining against my thigh. “You still do.”
Maybe that was too much, because she clears her throat, signaling a subject change. “Your weekend in NOLA is coming to an end. Where are you off to next? Ibiza? Santa Monica?”
I adjust my seat to give my hands something to do. “Actually, I’m here until Friday. Then I’m out. Not sure where yet.”
My contract with Ginny will be up. She made it clear that it was the last time she could ever see me. It was a little strange, actually, but lots of my clients are.
As long as I get paid, it shouldn’t matter.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. Is every drink in this city just strong? Because I can’t seem to stop the words flowing out of my mouth. “A part of me wants to go back to Vegas. Beg my friends to take me back. But I messed up so badly and then instead of being an adult, I just split.”
Faith’s eyes are so full of patience as I speak. Something inside of me feels like it’s been cracked, like a fissure in glass. I think it’s going to keep spreading the more I’m with her.
Tell her you can’t see her again.
“Faith, I—”
“Pancakes for the table!” the waitress says, dropping the massive stack in front of us.
“Yes?” Faith asks once we’re alone. Or as alone as two people in a restaurant can ever be.
“I—I’m glad you brought me here. I haven’t had pancakes in forever.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those no-carb people,” she teases, cutting a triangle out of the stack.
“I guess now that I’m not in the show anymore I can eat whatever I want.”
I stuff pancake into my mouth. I don’t like this oversharing I do with Faith. It’s too vulnerable. Too much like letting someone inside your house and begging them to look into your closet. Not like regular closets, either. The closets where you keep your sex toys and dirty magazines.
“Well, I’m glad you feel like you can finally have pancakes. My daddy used to say that life isn’t worth living without good food. Of course, he grew up comfortable, so he could say that.”
“If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would you eat?”
She thinks on this for a little while. “Mangos.”
I joke-smash the table. “Mangos? You could go with pizza or triple-bacon cheeseburgers and you go with fruit? I don’t think you get the point of this game.”
“Mangos are delicious. Plus you can eat them sweet or salty. When I was in college I went to Mexico for the first time.”
“Spring break?”
She gives me a little shove, and I have to resist the urge to take that hand and hold it.
“Studying the effects of marine pollution in the Yucatán.”
“So, no wet T-shirt contests and margaritas.”
“I mean, you’ve never been around a bunch of science nerds. Things get pretty wild.” She takes a drink of her mimosa. “Anyway. This might sound ridiculous but up until that point I couldn’t remember ever having, like, a whole mango. It’s always in concentrate or mango flavored or in juice. And across the street from where we were staying this lady had a tiny cart where she peeled them and put them in a bag with salt and hot sauce. I ate that every day. Pretty sure that’s why I can’t have spicy foods anymore. But it was worth it.”
“In Colombia we had a mango tree.” I don’t talk about Colombia this much. Not to my friends, not even when my tía Ceci wants to go to dinner and catch up. But I’m talking about it with Faith and I know that I should stop but I can’t. “My mom used to cut it up for me and squeeze a whole lemon over it and a little bit of salt. But when she wasn’t looking, I’d add so much salt my mouth would be like prunes when I was done.”
Faith laughs and sets her hand down. “You can’t choose mangos for yours, too.”
I brush my finger across hers. My heart is racing because she doesn’t pull away. She hooks her index finger around mine.
“Banana chocolate chip pancakes,” I say.
FAITH
Do you ever feel happy watching someone eat? Not in a sexual way. It’s more of a “wow, you love my city” kind of way. Aiden enjoys life’s pleasures. Does he enjoy them too much? Does it matter?
“I’ve never had a shot for breakfast,” he comments on the bourbon that comes with the breakfast special. “It’s not as bad as the stuff my friend Fallon likes. Want to taste?”
It’s early, but it’s Saturday and we’re in the best city in the world. So I take a sip, pressing my lips right where his just were. The bourbon burns smoky and sweet.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks me.
“I’m thinking that I’ve never met someone who enjoys things the way you do.”
Aiden arches a thick black brow, a sensual smirk on that heavenly face of his. “There’s so much to love in this life. Food. Sunshine. Drinks. Sex. I’ve always done what I wanted. Now I realize things can backfire, though.”
When he says sex, his eyes are intense on me. “That’s a very long way of saying YOLO.”
He leans close to me. “No one says that anymore. But basically. My mom didn’t have a lot to give me, but she always made sure that what we did have—food, books, whatever—that I appreciated it. I wish she were here now so I could give her everything we didn’t have.”
I suck in a tiny breath. Pieces of Aiden start to come together. The way he always speaks about his mother in the past tense. The sadness in his eyes when he was sitting at the bar alone on his birthday. It wasn’t just the birthday. It couldn’t have been.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“I don’t know why I said that.” His jaw clenches like he’s trying to not cry, so he frowns instead.
I rest my hand on top of his and I feel him ease. “Thanks for letting me be the one.”
He shakes his head and tries to smile, tries to be the guy that loves life and does whatever he wants. I glance at the time on my watch and realize I have about fifteen minutes to get to church.
“Shit,” I mutter. “I have to go.”
He nods, understandingly, a smile tugging on his lips. Then, he finishes his morning whiskey and grimaces.
“Thanks for having breakfast with me, Faith,” he says.
I watch him for a moment—this fascinating, lovely, sexy man. Even the thought of walking out of this restaurant without him pulls at my heartstrings in a painful way. “Have you ever been to a swamp?”
He chuckles, then realizes I’m serious. “I can’t say I have.”
“I’m visiting a friend tomorrow. Would you like to come with me?”
“To the swamp?”
“It’s a national wildlife refuge, but yes, the swamp.”
Without hesitation he says, “Yes.”
Before I throw myself on top of him in front of a restaurant full of brunchgoers, I ask for the check. He tries to pay, like really tries to take the bill from me, but I don’t let him.
“I’ll pick you up at nine in the morning,” I say as we step out of the restaurant.
“See you—” I watch him reach for me, then a body mass comes out of nowhere. He collides into someone. She yelps, losing her balance, but Aiden is fast and grabs hold of her.
My body runs cold when I realize who it is. Dread pools into the pit of my stomach, and I know I can’t run in these heels.
“Faith!” Maribelle says, brushing her curls out of her face.
“Maribelle,” I say with a guilty smile.
Aiden looks back and forth between us, trying to sense the tone. He tries to hang back but Maribelle’s wide brown eyes look him up and down. I wonder what kind of stories she’s making up in the painfully long seconds we stand staring at each other.
“We missed you this morning,” Maribelle says, always one to fill in awkward silences with chitchat. She’s holding a stack of pamphlets about my mother’s campaign, which she’s probably papering the town with. “Your mother’s worried because you weren’t answering our messages.”
“I’m sure I’ll hear about it in a few minutes.”
Aiden is just standing there. I know I should introduce him, but I don’t want to because he’s been mine since yesterday and I don’t want to expose him to the circus of the campaign. I know he’s not mine-mine, but he’s the only space that I have that isn’t part of politics. I don’t want to let that go just yet.
“Hi, I’m Maribelle Suarez,” she says, holding her hand out to Aiden.
“Aiden Peñaflor,” he says.
“Peñaflor?” Maribelle smiles wide. She even pronounces his name better than I can. “My roommate at LSU was a Peñaflor.”
Aiden’s so good at meeting new people. How does he do it? Maribelle’s usual hyper energy seems tapered down. “No relation. I’m the first generation to live in the States.”
“Oh cool,” Maribelle says. “Me too. My parents moved to Florida from Puerto Rico, but I’ve always wanted to live in New Orleans. It’s been my dream for forever.”
I didn’t know that about her. A voice that sounds strangely like my dad’s says, You never asked.
“Faith has been trying to sell me on New Orleans hard,” he chuckles. “But New York has Colombian food.”
A tiny bolt of jealousy strikes my thoughts. It’s not that I think that Aiden is trying to get with Maribelle. It’s that he’s sharing things about himself that I want for me. Ridiculous, I know. Selfish. Bratty.
“Yeah, when I’m older I want to open a Latin restaurant somewhere here. Right now I’m concentrating on politics. Of course, you know all about it.”
And there it is. The thing that I’ve been trying to keep out of this thing—whatever it is—that Aiden and I have. It’s gone.
Aiden looks to me to fill in the blanks.
“I have to go,” I tell Maribelle. “And I’m sure Aiden is busy, so—”
“It was nice to meet you,” Aiden says, and because he’s himself, he hugs her and kisses her on the cheek.
“Maybe I’ll see you around?” she asks, with a shy, significant look at me.
I can practically feel the machinations in Maribelle’s mind working. She’s going to tell my mother that she saw me with a guy on the street before church. A man she has never heard about or seen.
Self-preservation. That’s what I’m going with. That’s what’s making me wrap my arm around Aiden’s. Because for some reason this is safer, easier than trying to lie to my mother about who this man is.
“You will,” I say. “He’s my date to the masquerade ball.”
“I am?” he asks for a moment. Then he repeats, but confidently, “I am.”
Maribelle’s shock lasts until she waves good-bye and continues down the shops.
“Masquerade ball?” Aiden says, but he doesn’t seem upset.
“It’s in two weeks. I know you’re leaving so you can’t come. Maribelle’s just going to run off and tell my mom she saw me with you and I panicked.”
“Could be fun,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “What’s it for?”
I take a deep breath. “It’s an election fund-raiser. Both candidates host and raise money for the city.”
“Mafia princess.” Aiden smiles and cocks his head to the side. “You know the candidates?”
I hand him the pamphlet. Vote Charles for Change.
“My mother is a mayoral candidate.”