The Rain in Spain by Amy Jo Cousins Read Free Book Online Page B

house like it belonged to you and not like you’ve moved in with a roommate. I wish you’d make more of an effort to talk to me or message me when you’re gone.” He reached out with one hand and pushed her hair back behind her ear. “But I don’t want you to change who you are. I get lost in my research sometimes too, you know. I used to go under for weeks at a time, lose track of my life entirely. But keeping tabs on you, hearing what you’re doing, wondering what new thing you’ve discovered, that keeps me connected to you. Even if you’re far away.” She tried to hold still but shivered as he traced the curve of her cheek with a fingertip. “And I worry too, you know, that you’ll get tired of coming back to me.” He tucked his head down, avoiding her gaze now.
    “Never.” The block on her chest was dissolving, had melted with his words, so different from what she’d expected. From the words she’d been so very afraid to hear. She closed her eyes. “I thought you would grow to hate me.”
    “Never.” He echoed her, lips ghosting over her face.
    The promise and his featherlight touches unlocked the words she’d been holding in for so long now. “Why haven’t you taken me home to meet your family?”
    He lifted his head. “Is that what this is about?”
    “No. Sort of.” She tried not to stutter, but couldn’t help it. “I-I don’t know how to do family, Javi. And I’ve lost mine because of it. Now I’m keeping you from your family too, because I’m bad at that. Staying close to people when I’m far away from them. It feels like you’re losing them because of me.”
    Javi rolled over and pulled her on top of his chest, his belly shaking under her as he laughed. “I call my mom every Sunday. You know that. Is it awkward that I haven’t been home to visit in a year? Yes. But I told her that you’re like, like . . . a butterfly. I have to hold still for now, so you know it’s safe to land.”
    “A mariposa .” She’d learned that one, the delicate syllables finishing on a puff of air and a sigh.
    The silhouette of Javi’s cheek curved. “I did think about describing you as a wild ass I was trying to tame with carrots, but I figured we’d have this conversation someday and I wanted to suck up in advance.”
    She buried her face in the crease between his arm and his chest and breathed deep. God, she loved him so hard.
    He stroked a hand down over her tangled hair, smoothing it from the crown of her head to her shoulders.
    “I can be that for you, Magdalena. I can be the person who anchors you with family. We will go see my mamá , who will feed you and lecture you and tell you that when you are at home you should make tamales and freeze them for me so I can eat them when you are gone and think of you.”
    Her laugh hitched in her throat, sounding more like a sob.
    But it was easier somehow, now, to dig for those last tiny, bitter words she’d buried so deep and bring them to the tip of her tongue. She’d been right about this at least. They were too good at talking for the truth not to come out.
    “About that list . . .”
    “Yeah?”
    She spread her fingers against his chest. Maybe she would feel it, if he flinched.
    “Do you want to have kids some day?”
    No flinching, no hesitation. “Yes.” The word she’d feared was so tiny, and it didn’t feel like it hurt. “Does that frighten you?”
    A siren’s bleat, never the same anywhere she traveled, revved louder as the emergency vehicle neared and then faded away. She waited until the noise was long gone.
    “Yes. I’m not ready.”
    “Okay.”
    “What if I’m never ready?” She hadn’t meant to ask that. Had figured they’d burned through enough relationship goodwill for one night and tomorrow’s problems were sufficient unto the day. But the floodgates were opened and she couldn’t help herself.
    “Then I would be sad. But I wouldn’t stop loving you.” Javi ran his hand down her back and snugged it