Chapter Text
June 5th.
Andres had a shit day.
His favorite powder-blue cabriolet, his beloved Pegaso Z-102 from Saoutchik got its windshield cracked and needed immediate repairs. That car was his most proud possession, bought from a private collector in Monaco, and brought to Madrid. It cost him a fortune but after a few successful attacks on jewelry stores, he had enough money to buy this car and even more.
He despised truck drivers for those stones that flew right into his windshield but more importantly he despised Violet, his ex-fiance who made him drive three hours all the way to Alacant, San Juan Playa just to break off their engagement. He left that bitch there, standing alone on the white sand and drove back to Madrid most definitely breaking a speed limit more than a couple of times. His reservation for a week in Lucas de Catedral went up in flames and he honestly couldn’t care less.
And now he was standing in his new flat, bought for his post-wedding bliss with Violet, which is not going to happen now, cursing every single deity he knew. Everything reminded him of her: endless photos on the walls and the white marble fireplace in the middle of the living room. The bright colors of furniture she chose were like splashes of life in the overall ‘muted’ flat. Retro turquoise of the fridge and a microwave, breathtaking burgundy of leather armchairs, lively yellow carpet in the middle of ‘their’ bathroom, and the elegant purple of the silk bedsheets.
He cusses and swears while taking off his shoes in the hallway and strides into the living room, collecting all his photos with Violet and throws them in the trash. He is not a 14-year-old virgin after her first heartbreak but this shit still hurts like hell. He really needs a drink.
Whiskey sears his throat when he swallows, the burn expected but not unwelcome. 16YO Lagavulin Malt is fruity but not sickeningly so. He sits on the high chair, elbows resting on the intricate carvings of the dark wood of the bar counter. He plays with the glass, hazel splashing left to right, ice tinkling.
He muses, thinking about Violet. She was a nice distraction from his myopathy — charming, her beauty suffocating, proud and elegant — but she wasn’t what he needed. Too suffocating, too meddling, too old even. She wasn’t old per se but her inner spark was not enough to support them both. He, however, wasn’t ready to let her go and their parting came as a surprise.
He was angry. Andres was not the type to be caught off guard, not the type to be dumped by some no-name opera singer, not the type to drown his sorrows in whiskey. But apparently, all of it happened in one day. So he drinks more until he starts feeling lightheaded until his shitty day doesn’t affect him anymore.
He goes to sleep early, sleeping on top of the covers just so he doesn’t see those purple bedsheets.
***
He wakes up at his normal time, a bit later than 9 am. Makes an espresso with the help of his fancy coffee machine and adds a few drops of brandy. He doesn’t have much appetite so he takes one of the shiny grapefruits from a fruit bowl and cuts into it with a sharp knife. The juice splashes everywhere, a couple of drops ending on his expensive gown, but most of it going down his fingers, running lower past his wrist and stopping at some point above his elbow. Andres eats slowly, keeping his dignity and then cleans the table and washes his hands from the sticky juice.
Bottle of brandy goes back to one of the shelves but not before he collects several drops from the neck of the bottle with his finger and then quickly licks off the alcohol.
He decides to spend his day lounging in one of the deck chairs on his balcony just to compensate for all the sun he could have had on San Juan Playa with Violet. The air outside is fresh and he basks in sunlight occasionally napping a few times, sometimes going back to make himself one more glass of a disgustingly healthy smoothie Sergio recommended him. More like threatened, actually.
At some point when the sun is close to rolling over the horizon, he feels familiar shakes in his arms and goes back inside, collecting all empty glasses and tightly closes the balcony door. The sting of the syringe is bad but the hotness he feels when the steroids spill under his skin is much worse. He hisses, opens-and-closes his palm a few times, and throws everything in the trash.
He doesn’t feel like doing anything. Illness makes it hard for him — it is never easy to understand that he doesn’t have much time left. His only passion is robberies but he hasn’t had one in a while. His wives, his ‘arm candies’ don’t interest him for more than a couple of months and he usually had another one already waiting for him by the time he divorced. This time it didn’t work out like that and left him feeling empty and maybe a bit betrayed.
He desperately needs someone to share their spark with him and he most definitely needs a heist to make everything better.