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“Nice,” Dalia said as she ran her hand over the luxurious mohair fabric before sitting down in the plush cream loveseat in the sitting area of Angela’s suite. “Why aren’t you guys staying at his apartment?” She watched Angela pack her photography equipment into a heavily-padded backpack.
Angela looked up at Dalia as she inspected a lens, wiping it with a microfiber cloth. “He has roommates and he likes more privacy when I’m in town,” she said with a meaningful glance at her friend.
“More privacy to have his way with you?” Dalia said with a sly eye.
“Maybe,” she said with a playful wink. “We always stay at a hotel when I’m here. At first I thought it was a bit much, but I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I think anyone could get used to this,” Dalia said as her eyes took in the simple but luxurious surroundings.
Soren had already left for school for the day. He still had a couple of exams and papers due this week, and his family would be arriving today as well. Between school and family, it was going to be work to maximize her time with him.
A knock at the door heralded Kieran’s arrival.
“I’ll get it.” Dalia smoothed her black hair as she got up from the couch and headed to the door. “Hey handsome,” she said gamely at Kieran as she gave him a lingering full body hug.
Angela tried not to stare, trying to focus on packing up her backpack with all the equipment she would need for the day: Fish eye? Check. 55-200mm? Check. Tripod? Check.
“You almost ready?” Kieran asked Angela as he put down his own backpack.
Angela noted it was black. Did he own anything that wasn’t black?
“Yes, just ten more minutes. I didn’t get to finish breakfast.” She waved her hand at the room service cart near the window.
He sat down on the loveseat. “Take your time. We aren’t in a rush.”
She stood up and faced him. He gave her his omnipresent smoldering smile. Why did he always have to look so good? She walked over to the room service cart. “Do you want some?”
“No thanks, I have my coffee here and I grabbed a pastry on the way over,” he said, holding up his cup and paper bag. “The food here is amazing. I haven’t had anything that wasn’t fantastic.”
“Is this your first time to Spain?” Dalia asked languidly.
Kieran shook his head. “No, but I only made it to Madrid. Barcelona is so different.”
“Yeah, they take their food seriously here. But trust me, it’s not all good. The Chinese food here is awful,” Angela said, sticking her tongue out in mock disgust. She took a bite of her whole grain toast.
Kieran smirked.
“So where are you going to shoot today?” Dalia asked.
Angela waved the toast in the air as she spoke. “We are going to the marketplace on La Rambla and to the Cathedral in the Barri Gotic. Wanna come?”
Dalia pursed her lips for a moment. “Nah, you guys are boring when you are taking pictures. It’s all so technical. Maybe I’ll go to the beach or do some shopping.”
Angela was secretly relieved. Dalia had been a lead weight yesterday during their shoot, and that one only lasted an hour. They would be shooting a lot longer today.
Besides, it will be fun to be with Kieran alone.
She scowled at the stray thought.
Angela shot Dalia a rueful look. “That sounds fun. Although it’s a bit cold for a bathing suit.”
It was still Spring in Spain, and the temperature was hovering in the mid-60’s which made it perfect weather for wandering around, but a bit cold for the beach. Angela was dressed in broken in blue jeans, a long-sleeve red shirt, and a light cardigan with a cheetah print. Red ballet flats completed the casual, but put together, look.
Dalia nodded. “Okay then, I’ll start with shopping and then maybe walk to the beach for a seaside stroll. Where are we going for dinner tonight?”
Angela sucked in her breath. “I probably can’t see you guys later tonight. Soren and I have dinner plans.”
“Okay, then you and I will figure something out, right?” Dalia winked flirtatiously as she looked at Kieran.
“Sounds good,” he answered with a big smile.
Angela’s cheeks flushed. It was getting hard to ignore the chemistry between Dalia and Kieran.
Dalia picked up her bag and threw it over her shoulder. “Bye you two, have fun.” She hugged Angela goodbye and then gave Kieran a kiss on the cheek as she headed out the door.
Angela shoved a couple more bites of her scrambled eggs into her mouth and put her tea into a to-go cup. “Let’s go!”
“Vamonos,” answered Kieran, as he held the door open for her.
“Wow. It’s gorgeous.” Kieran stared up at the elaborate Art Deco gate of colored glass and cast iron that graced the entrance to their first destination of the day. He’d never seen anything like it. It reminded him of the stiff, jeweled hoods worn by Tudor women like Queen Catherine of Aragon.
“Isn’t it amazing? This structure dates from the early 1900’s a period known as Modernisme here in Barcelona which is the same as Art Deco or Art Nouveau in other parts of the world. But La Boqueria, the food market, dates back to the early 1200’s,” she said with awe in her voice. “You are going to love this place.”
He already did. It surprised him how well she knew him. “Where did you learn all that?”
She shrugged. “My dad gave me this book about Barcelona that I read before I came here for school. It traces the history of the city back to the Romans. It was so fun to walk this city with that book in my mind all the time. It made every day a treasure hunt.
“This area here is the oldest part of Barcelona, and La Rambla marks one of the borders of the original town,” she said, gesturing with her hand to the street behind them. “So all the country people would bring their meat and vegetables here to sell to the city folk. It’s hard to believe this used to be the border of the city. It’s grown so much since then.”
They wandered around the quasi-indoor marketplace with its soaring shell of a ceiling that provided just the barest protection from extreme elements, but still maintained an outdoor feeling.
Kieran had never seen food so artfully arranged. It reminded him of the markets he visited with his mother when they would go back to Lima to visit family, but here they took it to another level. He started examining which stalls would provide the best images for Angela’s book. A vendor with red and white checked paper cones filled with manchego cheese and thinly-shaved jamón looked like a frontrunner. “Get your camera out,” he said to Angela.
“One step ahead of you,” she answered as she snapped a photograph of hand-sized mushrooms displayed with their long stems and fluted undersides facing up, looking like brown earthenware vases.
“Nice,” he said. “Get that one too,” he said, pointing to the jamón.
She shot off a few frames.
Each stall sold something different from butchers with rabbits and quail, to vast arrays of cheese, to fruit arranged in the colors of the rainbow, to rows of Spanish olives and olive oil; and everything was gorgeous.
La Boqueria wasn’t a market; it was an art gallery and the subject was food. Kieran could see why Angela loved it so much.
After a couple hours of shooting, Angela turned to Kieran, her eyes bright. “Are you hungry? One of my favorite tapas bars is a short walk away and it’s right next to our next location.”
Kieran scanned the market quickly, making sure they hadn’t missed any shots. He gave her a thumbs up. “Let’s go.”
They crossed over La Rambla and headed east going deeper into the old part of Barcelona into a neighborhood known as the Barri Gotic or Gothic Quarter. The streets between buildings became so narrow that they only allowed for pedestrian traffic. Kieran followed Angela through the twists and turns, quickly becoming lost in the maze of the old city.
He tapped her shoulder. “Look up. See how the pre-steel construction means the buildings are leaning away from each other? Take a picture of the sky and see if you can capture that.”
She nodded, her camera glued to her eye as she talked. “There is a straighter way to get to the restaurant, but I just can’t resist exploring all these old nooks and crannies,” Angela said as she lifted her camera to take a picture of an intricate doorway festooned with plaster vines and fruit.
Kieran admired Angela’s eye for subjects and the way she held her camera confidently. It was a turn on for him to see her working. He cleared his throat to clear his mind. “What’s your favorite thing about this city?”
Angela paused thoughtfully with her camera still lifted. “I couldn’t pick just one thing. I love the lifestyle, the architecture, the food, the dancing, the weather, the location. I love everything about it. It’s my perfect city. If all my friends and family were here, I could live here. But the thing I love most about it is what it did for me personally,” she said snapping a window display of intricate candies in a rainbow of pastel colors.
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Before coming to Spain I knew I wanted to create children’s books, but part of me felt like it wasn’t ‘serious’ enough to be a business. But living here really fed my love for art and design. Being exposed to all of this beauty made me serious about my photography and convinced me that children’s books, and the combination of art and business inherent in it, were what I wanted to do, and for that I will be forever grateful.”
“I get it. I love the combination of art and business in children’s books too. It works both sides of my brain,” he smiled, pointing to his head.
She smiled back in appreciation.
As they rounded a corner, a restaurant with tables and umbrellas came into view. “Here we are,” Angela said, pointing to a wall of windows encased in dark wood displaying a bustle of activity within. The sign in the window read “Bilbao Berria.”
Kieran held the door open for Angela. “Thank you kind sir,” she said with a twinkling smile that made his heart skip a beat.
Once inside, Kieran and Angela stood in front of the bar surveying the amazing assortment of tapas before them. Each delicious morsel had been artfully arranged on top of a small slice of French bread and stuck through with a wooden stick. There were ribbons of bacon topped with half a hardboiled egg and a dash of roasted bell pepper; beautiful golden brown croquettes of potato filled with ham and cheese; bell pepper topped with white fish, smoked salmon, and a sprinkle of roe. The display was a feast for the eyes.
“Okay, my mind is officially blown.” Kieran ran a hand through his curls as he surveyed the spread before him. “Why doesn’t everyone make their food this beautiful?”
She shrugged. “Who knows.” She handed him a small, white plate. “Just grab whatever you want and keep the wooden sticks on your plate. When we are done eating they will charge us based on the number of sticks.”
He shook his head. “That’s brilliant.”
“Right?” She turned to the bartender and held up two fingers. “Dos Estrellas por favor.”
Kieran’s ears perked up at the sound of Angela speaking Spanish. The romance language gave her voice a seductive quality and was a natural aphrodisiac to Kieran since it was his first language. “Since when do you drink beer?”
She shrugged. “Well, there’s no sake here, plus Estrella’s flavors really complement the tapas. I love the combination.”
The bartender put down their beers in bulbous-footed glasses that felt as festive as they looked. Angela picked hers up. “Salud!” she said, as she clinked her glass to Kieran’s.
They both tipped the cold, golden liquid back. Angela was right, Estrella was light and smooth; perfect for their gourmet bites.
Kieran grabbed a tapa with a small disc of soft cheese branded with grill marks and drizzled with honey. “Oh, that’s amazing,” he said enjoying the ripe flavor of the brie mellowed by the sweetness of the honey.
“Try this.” Angela held out a crostini covered with something that looked like angel hair pasta, but the color was wrong. The noodles were a silvery color and they were drizzled with oil and topped with minced cucumbers and peppers. He gave her an uncertain look. “Trust me, these are amazing, just try it,” she said holding the bite up to his mouth. “Careful or it will spill.”
Angela was feeding him?
Not that he was complaining. In fact, he rather liked the idea.
He took a deep breath, leaned forward, and took a hesitant bite; careful not to graze her fingers with his mouth—as much as he wanted to. The tapa tasted of oil, sweet pickled vegetables, and the sea. The “noodles” had a pleasing meaty texture to them. He chewed as he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It’s not pasta.”
She put the other half of the tapa into her mouth. As she chewed, she shook her head and smiled. “No, they are teeny tiny eels. Isn’t it good? I’ve never seen them anywhere but here in Spain. They are called angulas.”
“Incredible,” he said, as much about Angela as about the food. He studied her face, admiring the way her cheeks were flushed with energy and her eyes sparkled intelligently. He was having one of the best meals of his life—strike that—one of the best times of his life.
He inhaled deeply. If only she was his to have.
They had a leisurely lunch, exploring the many flavors surrounding them as the crowd at the bar ebbed and flowed with the passing of time. Some people stayed only long enough to wash down a few tapas with a glass of beer, others lingered like Angela and Kieran. After two hours, each of them had amassed about a dozen sticks on their plates and Angela had taken a few dozen pictures.
She gave her camera a chagrined look. “The film developing is going to be expensive.”
Kieran waved his hand. “It’s a tax write off.”
She smiled. “Oh right!” then looked around Kieran out the window. She glanced at her watch. “We better get going or we’ll lose the light,” she said, referring to that golden period before sunset when anything photographed outside looked like it was bathed in liquid honey. “Plus I have to get ready to go out to an early dinner. I’m meeting Soren’s family.” She pursed her lips.
Kieran waved to the waiter and handed him his credit card, stopping Angela’s arm as she reached into her bag for her own wallet. “It’s on me, this was a business lunch.” He could see the nervousness in her face, and he fought the urge to run his finger down her jaw. “Why are you worried? They are going to love you.”
She looked away, hesitating, and then turned back to him, leaning against the bar.
They were sandwiched between other diners standing at the bar, occasionally being jostled by people for access to the tapas plates in front of them. Kieran was sure this was the closest they’d ever been on purpose, besides the time he comforted her in her apartment.
His arms ached at the memory.
He was intimately aware of just how close her right breast was to his left elbow as she leaned against the bar. He tried to block out everything but her face, but was failing.
Angela sighed. “It’s intimidating to have to meet all six of them at once.”
He frowned. He came from a family of six. He knew how intimidating a big, tight family could seem to an outsider.
She continued, “It’s just weird to be meeting his family so soon, you know? I mean, we haven’t been dating that long. The only reason it’s happening is because of his graduation.”
He nodded. “Long distance relationships are a different animal.”
She gave him a weak smile. “It’s strange, because when we see each other we are together for these long, unbroken stretches of time. So in some ways it feels like we’ve dated for a long time because we’ve spent a lot of hours together. But in reality, we’ve only been in the same location physically about twenty-five days since we started dating last July—” She cut herself off, her fingertips touching her lips. “Oh God, have I said too much? Is this weird?”
Kieran was surprised at how not weird it was to be talking about this. Over the last seven months, they had spent so much time together that they had become true friends. It did strike him as odd that he was pretty sure he had logged even more hours with Angela than Soren had, but he wasn’t about to say that to her. “No, it’s fine. Please go on.”
He watched her rosy lips move as she continued to speak, the plump contours highlighting the gleaming white of her teeth. The sight of the tip of her tongue made him moan inwardly.
He sighed.
He couldn’t remember ever being this attracted to a woman and only having a friendship with her. Then again, he used to be a very different person back in the days when he was a touring musician with a successful rock band.
His band, Entre Dos, had toured all over the Southern half of the United States, from California to Texas to Florida, down through Mexico, and parts of South America.
But that was all before—
The waiter handed Kieran his credit card, knocking him back into reality. He left a generous tip, signed the slip, and lightly touched Angela’s back, directing her to the door.
A sizzle of electricity shot up his fingers.
Angela continued talking as they walked. “We’ve never had a regular relationship where you go on a 4-hour date and then you don’t see the person for a few days. So even though we’ve been dating for a while in terms of the calendar, it feels very disjointed, you know? Like we are starting over every time we see each other.” She pointed directly across the square at a large, gothic church. “That’s our next location.”
He nodded. “Yeah, well, it probably feels disjointed because it’s not an experience humans are really designed to have I guess.” He took a deep breath, enjoying the feeling of the crisp air expanding his lungs.
She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, look at it this way. It’s only because of modern technology that you and Soren are able to have a relationship. Plane travel is what makes it possible, and the phone is what keeps it alive. Just fifty years ago your relationship would have been impossible.” He paused, glad that they were walking side by side and not looking each other in the face.
He didn’t want her to see his eyes.
He was afraid he’d give away too much.
He remembered his mother’s words about the human heart and continued, “It’s not like humans have evolved to be in love with people who live far away. We develop relationships with those we come into close daily contact with. It’s natural.”
He shrugged his shoulders with forced casualness, hoping that she wouldn’t see he was talking about himself.
Angela stopped and hung her head. She looked like she was studying the street, but he couldn’t be sure. She took a deep breath and when she raised her head, her eyes were unreadable. “Let’s go shoot. We’re running out of time.”
He wasn’t sure if she was talking about the light, or talking about them.
He nodded. “Sure. Let’s go.”
