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‘I’ll have a martini. Dry please.’
‘Gin and tonic for me.’
A vintage umber ambience permeates the bar. The leather stools are a homely maroon, matching the redwood floor and counter. Old-school R&B plays like background music under the hubbub of the half full room—or half empty, depending on your interpretation. News headlines run on the flatscreen behind the bar, its glow neon. Warm lighting highlights russet tints in the kinks of Teresa’s hair and sets off a luminous sheen from within her skin. There’s a simple luxury about the place, the polar opposite of Camila’s nightclub in which a person’s face is shadowed, morphed and distorted by unnatural carmine hues. James decides he likes it.
They have two rounds of drinks in silence, both wordlessly agreeing the mellowing suffusion of alcohol in their blood is necessary to break from the rigid seriousness of their earlier job. Camila had sent them packing to Minneapolis to (unsuccessfully) broach a relationship with a potential buyer, Michael Bailey, a beefy, remarkably round creature, fair-skinned, long-eyelashed, pink-cheeked. They’d met him at an exclusive cocktail party held by the CEO of an eminent travel firm. Camila and James had jointly managed to get them in as her representatives under a banner of legitimacy. The party ended with Bailey turning them down with painstakingly polite vehemence, leaving them with nothing else to do but return to their hotel. Still in their dress clothes, Teresa in an asymmetric linen slip dress, James in a charcoal suit, they opted for drinks at the hotel bar before retiring to their respective rooms for the night.
Teresa sips on her second martini as James asks for his third gin and tonic. Each muscle on his face has relaxed almost imperceptibly, lending him a truly laidback quality he wholly lacks when sober. His glassy eyes catch Teresa’s, and a bashful something passes between them, causing the corners of his lips to lift, one significantly more than the other. She’s sure she’s never seen that small, crooked smile before and questions whether she would find it as endearing if not quite so tipsy.
After the bartender presents him with his refill, James lifts and tilts the glass towards Teresa, the universal gesture to celebrate their descent to drunkenness.
‘Salud,’ he says.
‘Salud.’
Even the chime of their glasses clinking against one another has a layer of sloppiness to it, and Teresa hears light laughter seconds before registering it’s her own. If asked to, James wouldn’t be able to say with absolute surety what is so funny (but would venture to guess it has something to do with the unusualness of their having drinks together like two seemingly normal people). He can’t deny, however, that the sound of Teresa’s laughter spreads a pleasurable flush through him. But maybe, he thinks as that once pleasurable feeling sloshes through his veins and arteries, seeps into his organs, and filters out into something less comfortable, more dangerous, maybe drinks with Teresa isn’t the smartest idea I’ve ever had. Was it even his idea? Either way, he’d agreed to it.
His sight lathers her like a thick lotion, travelling over her, up and down. Minute details are thrown into relief. Long, slender fingers. Neat, polish-free nails. Beauty marks are sparsely scattered over her skin so that finding a new one feels like a subdued form of exhilaration. They seem to signify something special. As she reaches for her glass, James notices a faint, Poland-shaped birthmark on the side of her torso, partially hidden by the feathery tendrils of her hair. Teresa sits with her back straight and her chin held up, accentuating the smooth dip and curve of her neckline. Her leg, exposed by the side split of her dress, is crossed over the other, and James counts four white, jagged stretch marks on her knee.
The danger lurks in his fingers, which are itching to touch, to trace those stretch marks and slide up the softness of her inner thigh. The danger is buried in the knot of words in his sternum, formed by his swallowing everything he knows he can’t say. But as he opens his mouth to take another sip of his drink, those words regurgitate upwards. It becomes a race to close his mouth before they spill out.
He knows he’s staring, but after trying mightily not to do that very thing all day, he now feels powerless to stop himself. Teresa, too, knows he’s staring, can feel the weight of his eyes on her, but she finds she enjoys the burden of it, so she lets him continue unhindered and doesn’t let on.
‘Fucking Mexicans,’ gruffs a cigarette-smoke-hewn voice beside Teresa. There’s a loud, cluttered crash of glass coming into forceful contact with the counter. It’s a wonder it doesn’t shatter. Scotch splashes. The burly man with shrivelled, prickly-looking skin and salt-and-pepper hair aims his insults toward the television. On the signature yellow ribbon of the breaking news headline, the white lettering applauds the DEA for the seizure of a half-ton of fentanyl at the Mexican border in San Diego.
‘You seeing this shit Jared? Look at this—fucking mess,’ slurs the drunkard, spittle projecting from his white lips. ‘The only thing, the only fucking thing these no-good thugs are good for is turning our kids into pill-popping, coke-snorting lunatics. You seeing this shit Miss?’
James leans forward, body stiffening, hands balling.
‘I’m seeing it,’ Teresa says, still with her back straight and her chin up. To James, she appears completely unfazed.
‘Those devils are ruining our country. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss?’
Teresa takes a long, elegant sip of her martini before acknowledging the older man.
‘Now,’ the man puts up his large hands in a gesture of surrender and gives a slightly nervous chuckle, a warning that something obnoxious is about to be said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a racist. But I’m not afraid to speak the truth either.’
‘Free speech,’ says Teresa, shrugging, earning her a pair of raised eyebrows from James.
‘Exactly darling. That’s exactly right. Freedom to say whatever the fuck I want. Now, you not Mexican are you Miss? I notice you got yourself a little accent there.’
Teresa smiles at the man indulgently, ignoring the subtle menace in his tone.
‘Portuguese.’
‘Ah, Portugal. Beautiful place. A bit like yourself.’
James is unable to suppress an eye roll. His skin feels taut from straining so hard, alert for any symptom of distress in Teresa’s body language. Without that, he refrains from acting on his annoyance, never one to perform the part of Knight in Shining Armour, more than clued onto the fact that Teresa’s the farthest thing from a damsel. She’s proven to be her own hero time and again. Without a clear indication from her, James doesn’t feel it’s his place even to interrupt. If she wanted to, it would be well within her rights to flirt back with the old asshole. At least, James could have no say in the matter. His disgust wouldn’t be of any account.
Right now, though she seems content to humour him, it’s clear to James that Teresa is ridiculing her neighbour. While he continues to cajole her, insisting he buy her a drink with a persistence James finds harassing, Teresa excuses herself. Once she’s standing, she places her hand on James’s arm, making the older man aware of his presence possibly for the first time. James believes he may be gawking up at her. She suddenly feels too close.
‘I’m goin’ to the ladies’ room.’
James merely nods and watches her leave. Despite her composure, there’s a new sway to her step, betraying her growing inebriation. When she’s fairly out of sight, James glares at the prickly-skinned man who visibly cowers. After a couple of minutes, he and his companion lumber away, much to James’s relief.
The warm, gentle pressure of Teresa’s hand on his arm is still on his mind. To steady herself, she had distributed some of her weight on him. It makes James’s heart flutter embarrassingly to remember how nice it’d felt. His eyes circle the concentric grain pattern in the wooden counter before him, thinking about the obvious conclusion the other man had made after seeing James. Worse still is his belief that Teresa wanted the man to come to that conclusion. He curses himself for the wash of sweat that coats the palms of his hands.
Leaning into James the way she had done had been deliberate. It had given them the uncanny appearance of a couple. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time someone assumed such a thing. But it was the first time Teresa herself had insinuated it.
In all likelihood, he was making too much of an insignificant action. She had wanted to be left alone. Implying that she was a taken woman was a means to that desired end. Simple as that. Nothing more to it. It’s futile to pamper and pet scenarios that have no place in reality.
With such morose convictions preoccupying him, James fails to regard the increasingly loud sounds of clicking heels until the soft voice accompanying them speaks.
‘Excuse me.’
*
When Teresa makes her way back, she is pleased to see the bar is emptier now than when she left it. There’s a buzz thrumming through her, buoying her back to her seat beside James.
‘Another, please,’ she says to the bartender, proffering her empty glass. ‘Oh, and—James’—she makes to touch James’s arm to get his attention but ends up holding onto it gently instead, for support, she reassures her eyebrow-cocking sober self—‘do you want another?’
Upon looking at him, she immediately releases his arm, realising with some self-derision that she’s unwittingly intruded on a conversation James appears to be having with a beautiful, auburn-haired woman. Before Teresa can dole out an apology, the woman, now red-faced, blinks rapidly and tries to retreat.
‘I’m sorry, I had no idea—’
‘Oh, I’m not—’ Teresa shakes her head, hoping it’ll provide some validity to her statement. ‘We’re not together. We’re just colleagues.’
The woman, still blushing, looks down, tucking a lock of her billowy hair behind her ear as she laughs prettily. Teresa notes her glossy red nail polish.
‘I see. I’m Sara.’
Teresa smiles in greeting. To James, who is subconsciously dissecting and analysing every turn of Teresa’s manner, it evokes her kindly smile to Kim, when he’d first introduced them. There’s a hurried politeness to it, perfectly good-willed but a little hasty, as if she’s been side-tracked from something much more intense. Back then, it was from her intense aggravation with James. Now, rather than aggravation, it’s excitement, lingering from her hold on his arm, buried in the suggestive casualness of such a touch.
‘I’m Teresa.’
The bartender slides a now full martini glass Teresa’s way, and she mutters a gracious ‘Thank you’.
‘I don’t usually do this,’ Sara says, a charmingly self-conscious lilt to her soft voice. ‘My friends have been pushing me to put myself out there. So . . . here I am’—she turns her hazel eyes down to James, her look textured with nerves, expectation and sensuality—‘making my move.’
Teresa knows that Sara’s explanation doesn’t warrant a reply. At least, not one from her. She’s grateful in a way, knowing she wouldn’t have had a clue what to say.
Standing behind the pair, making a discreet (as discreet as she can manage, anyway) survey of the scene, she feels an onset of awkwardness. James’s fingers are making a show of tapping his thigh, then the counter. He oozes agitation, and Teresa can’t help but suspect she’s the reason. If the tables were turned, and it was James witnessing Teresa being romanced by an attractive man, she reckons she’d feel the same. She does feel the same, often nowadays, when with Guero, and she finds herself shying away from any exhibition of affection—something that’s always been so habitual to them—in James’s presence.
When Guero first gate-crashed his way inside Camila’s sphere and made his indisputable aliveness public knowledge, James’s reaction was one she’d dreaded most. She keenly recalls the pointed look he’d shot at her in that vacant parking lot at Galveston, assault rifle levelled at Guero, freshly killed DEA agent lying amidst them. There had been a spark of accusation to it, a charge of betrayal. Instinctively, Teresa had known it had nothing to do with her harboured secret. It had nothing to do with how she’d played a part in endangering the business, nothing to do with cheating Camila’s trust. It had purely been about the two of them, and all that had been flourishing between them. It had been about James’s sacrifice, mere minutes before. And his sacrifice mere days before that, after he’d half-carried her poison-ridden body across a desert. It had been about his gift to Tony, and the way he’d held her as she grieved Brenda’s loss.
But she also remembers how fast he’d stowed those unsaid allegations away, both of them knowing it wasn’t Teresa’s guilt to carry. Protecting Guero isn’t betrayal, or if it is, it’s too reasonable a betrayal to take a stand against. Still, sometimes when she snatches a glance James’s way and sees him watching them, she all but feels sorry for still loving Guero. On more than one occasion, she’s caught herself much too deep in a daydream of hypotheticals. What would’ve happened if Guero hadn’t been there that day? What would it be like if . . .
Still, reality invariably comes crashing before those reveries can mature and thrive. Constant danger makes any prospect of them infeasible, so they repeat ad nauseam that it’s just business to those who declare there’s something more. It’s not a lie, yet it feels like one. A bad one at that, for no one ever seems to believe them.
With booze-assisted clarity, Teresa realises it’s that—the looming, covert, infeasible, yet impossibly intense prospect of them—that has James fidgeting in discomfort. She decides it’d be best to dismiss herself by claiming she’s tired. Not because the idea of James being with another woman particularly bothers her. It doesn’t. In truth, part of her is curious to watch him in action, see a side to him that has been inaccessible to her. She wonders how he flirts, and for his sake, she hopes it’s better than You always smell like cinnamon gum, though the possibility of James’s only incompetence being flirting becomes more adorable the more she ponders over it. However, maybe her very curiosity speaks to the privacy of such an act, small in the wider scheme of things, but too substantial for them, and that thought reinforces her will to leave. No one likes a third wheel, and Teresa doesn’t want to be an obstacle to James getting laid.
Clearing her throat faintly, she prepares her Goodnights, but just as she begins to say something, she’s beaten to it.
‘Look, I appreciate it,’ James tells Sara. ‘But I’m sorry. I’m not interested.’
Sara’s face deflates, her matte red pout downturning into a frown. Her cheeks colour again, blotchy, this time, with unmistakable humiliation. She plays with the ends of a piece of her hair, shrinking in on herself. Teresa feels her heart tighten in sympathy. Decorously, Sara paints on a small, wounded smile.
‘Right. I apologise for wasting your time.’
Teresa expects a word of kindness from James, something to ease the pain of an unceremonious rejection. Instead, he barely nods before swivelling on his stool, orienting himself away from Sara, effectively dismissing her. The look Sara sends him now is filled with bewilderment and poorly disguised anger as she wonders at his rudeness. She struts away without another word, back to her posse. They huddle together, screwing their faces in exaggerated sorrow and revulsion as Sara relates her experience. At one point, they all look up to fling some decidedly dirty looks Teresa’s way.
James raises his hand, finger pointed to catch the bartender’s notice and request a refill.
‘Why did you do that?’ Teresa asks, incredulous.
James’s tongue darts out slightly to wet his lips before he rubs them together. Then, he turns to Teresa. She watches as his eyes leisurely settle on her own, then move up, down, around her face, then back to her eyes. This time she finds his stare unnerving.
‘Do what?’
‘You know what.’
‘It’s like I said. I wasn’t interested.’
‘Why?’ Teresa asks, unconvinced. She wants to know what it’ll take for him to shed his aloof outer layer, what it’ll take for him to let himself have a bit of fun.
He continues looking at her. Silently. Too long for Teresa’s liking.
‘Out of everyone, I’d’ve thought you would agree that getting involved with a civilian is probably not the best idea.’
He studies her reaction with watchful eyes over the rim of his glass. Teresa lets his words sink between them long enough for him to perceive that she’s grasped his meaning. She knows he’s referring to her situation with Guero, as much as, if not more than, he’s talking about the relationship he had with Kim.
‘Who said anything about getting involved?’
At this, James’s eyebrows lift, a tell-tale sign that he’s caught off guard. It makes her shake her head, and she only remembers to suppress her eye-roll when they’re already halfway to the back of her head. Despite it mildly annoying her, she feels a burst of fondness at these characteristic expressions she’s come to be so familiar with. And it is laughable that mere allusions to sex around James feel so scandalous, given their day jobs. It also spurs her to say something that will later have her questioning her boldness.
‘Haven’t you ever had a one-night stand?’
If it’s possible, James’s already raised brows rise impossibly higher. He prays the heat erupting up his neck and smouldering through his ears doesn’t leave a trail of bright pink skin in its wake, plain for Teresa to see. Much to his misfortune and Teresa’s satisfaction, his prayers go unanswered. When he speaks, the rasp of his voice penetrates straight through her, leaving her clenching in her seat.
‘I don’t tend to do that, no. Besides, she’s not my type.’
In bids to camouflage the swell of energised blood churning low in her belly, Teresa crosses her right leg over her left, leans down to scratch her calf, ruffles her fingers through her scalp, then entirely ignores the former half of his answer. Instead, she focuses on the latter part of what he said and settles for a hefty scoff, it being the only appropriate response. She conjures up her recollection of Kim. Slender. Pillowy features. Soft manners.
Not his type, my ass.
‘I thought you liked redheads.’
Something about this assumption delights James. Instead of answering, he gives her an informative look, and it’s enough for Teresa to comprehend that he means to tell her she’s wrong.
‘Then what exactly is your type?’
James blows out a huff of laughter through his nose, an amused, daring half-smirk on his lips.
‘What, you want me to describe her?’
Thrown by his wording, it takes Teresa a beat to respond. For a second, she thinks she heard him emphasise the word ‘her’, though she’s quick to disregard the thought, deeming it a drunken mistake.
The glint in his eyes is taunting, and the alcohol is making Teresa playful. She meets his undeclared challenge head-on and decides to raise her own.
She takes a sip of her drink, never breaking from James’s gaze.
‘If you describe your type to me, James, maybe I can find someone for you.’
Surprise flashes across his face, but it is quickly chased by something more mischievous. He still looks like he knows he has the upper hand. Though in what exactly, Teresa doesn’t know.
‘For your information, I like brunettes.’
Teresa raises her eyebrow in compound mocking disbelief and as a prompt for him to continue. He lists off descriptions with a robotic lack of emotion.
‘Long hair. Brown eyes. Olive skin.’
He lifts his glass to his lips, and before drinking, says, ‘Oh, and petite.’
Heat abruptly ripples over Teresa in waves. She begins to feel clammy but tries to control her facial muscles so they don’t betray how disconcerted she’s suddenly become.
‘Okay,’ she says, wishing for a fan or just a cool gust of wind.
‘Okay?’ James replies, voice glaringly smug.
By looking away, she knows she’s capitulating. Their stare-down is a pre-battle, a minor tussle. The first to break the deadlock of their eyes will lose, Teresa knows, and yet the need to avert her gaze overpowers her will to win. To save face, she pretends to be engaged in searching the room, convincing herself that she’ll find someone who matches the description. She spends a few minutes scanning the tables around her for brunettes.
‘What about her?’ Teresa asks, pointing discreetly.
James inclines his head in the required direction and proceeds to scrutinise the lady in question with satirical thoroughness.
‘Her hair’s too short,’ he concludes.
Teresa looks daggers at him.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Deadly.’
‘Fine. What about her?’
They shift in their seats.
‘Hmm. Nah. Too fair.’
‘Her?’
The leather makes a jarring squeal as they shuffle around.
‘Too tall.’
If looks could kill, James would be in a morgue already.
‘What?’ He says, an honest-to-god, unrestricted laugh escaping him. Teresa melts instantly.
In an audacious move spurred by the alcohol wreaking havoc on his inhibitions, James reaches to brush a few stray tendrils back into place, away from Teresa’s face. ‘What?’ he repeats, this time in a breathy whisper, letting the tips of his middle and index fingers tickle down her cheekbone, following the sharp curve of her jawline. He wants to brush his thumb over her lips. Reluctantly—damn near forcefully—he lets his hand fall. The pull he feels to her passed dangerous a while ago and is now teetering over hazardous.
He is hazardously in love with her.
Drinks was a really fucking bad idea.
‘Why do you care, anyway?’ he asks, part of him scared to know the answer, the other part thrilled by the reciprocation he reads in the smoothness of her worry lines, in the way her body is angled towards him, in the anticipatory sparkle of her eyes.
‘Because it’s important to have someone.’
‘Yeah? And who do you have?’
Please don’t say Guero.
She doesn’t. She doesn’t say anything.
‘Come on,’ James says, standing from his stool, using his glass as a paperweight for a sizeable wad of bills. ‘Let’s go.’
With a nod of his head, he indicates the direction to the lobby. They walk side by side, closer than usual, James tracking Teresa’s every vague stagger. He sees men leering. If he wasn’t so meticulous, he probably would have missed it. But he also notices how cautious these men are, a stark contrast to their rollicking catcalls and jeers at the women with no men by their side.
Cool air refreshes them and the cacophony of sounds dull to something strangely pleasant as they exit into the empty lobby.
‘Let me ask you something,’ James says, clicking the lift button.
They stand before the closed gates of the lift. James doesn’t wait for a reply.
‘How many times would you say I’ve saved your life?’
The unexpectedness of both the question and the bantering tone in which it is said takes Teresa aback.
‘And how many times have I covered—ladies first,’ he says as the gates open, hand extended in a chivalrous motion. ‘How many times have I covered for you? Lied to Camila for you?’
Deciding the question is rhetorical, Teresa doesn’t wager a guess or an answer.
‘You’ve actually saved my ass a couple times too you know.’
They stand diagonally from one another, each in their respective corners, James on the right side by the sliding doors, Teresa on the left side at the back. The silver enclosure is small, leaving not much space between them. He clicks the button for floor 13, lighting it up in an LED glow.
There’s still an impish smirk on his face, but Teresa, thoroughly enjoying herself, is content to let him get to the point whenever it would best suit him to.
‘I even spared that boyfriend of yours. And just to remind you, that was against Camila’s orders.’
‘Do you want a thank you?’
‘I didn’t do it for a thank you.’
‘Then why did you do it?’
‘If we were just colleagues’—James almost spits out the last word, it clearly being distasteful to him—‘do you think I would have done any of that?’
‘You didn’t do it out of the goodness of your heart?’
James huffs out a stifled breath of laughter (it makes Teresa buzz to see).
‘Look, I would just appreciate it if you could acknowledge that we’re friends.’
Teresa’s lips twist as she attempts to smother some of her grin.
‘If that would make you happy—‘
‘It would.’
‘Okay.’
‘Good.’
The metal walls they are confined by are charged with the current generated between them.
‘Teresa?’
James traverses the invisible diagonal line separating them.
‘Hm?’
‘You sure you couldn’t find her?’
Teresa’s stomach convulses and something inside the centre of her snaps as sharp as elastic, spreading a wash of agonising warmth down to the very tips of her toes. The closer James gets, and she can’t tell whether it’s he who has slowed or whether it is time itself, the taller he seems. By the time there’s a mere foot between them, he towers over her, shading her from the blue strip lights overhead.
‘Someone petite. With olive skin. Brown eyes. Brown hair,’ he tilts his head down to hers, faces almost touching, and caresses a tress of her hair between his fingers, ‘about this long.’
The cotton of James’s shirt is almost silky under Teresa’s palm. She unhurriedly glides her hand up, learning the unique undulations of his abs. It feels like a dream to her. Like her dream in Bolivia. The only other time they had been so close and so candid. In a way, what’s happening now is closer to a dream than reality. They’re both keenly aware that they only have until the electric beep dings and the electric doors slide open.
She only has to look at his lips before she feels the tender press of them against her own. A strong arm wraps around her waist, and she’s simultaneously pulled snug against a firm body while being delicately pushed back against cold metal.
Three kisses. Each equally as gentle, equally as drawn out, equally as winding. After each one, the aching want and the desperate need build tenfold. By the third, they’re panting in anguish.
James reaches for the inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a key card in time with the loud peal announcing their arrival on the thirteenth floor.
‘This is yours,’ he says. ‘Do you want it?’
He breathes the question, voice so scarce that Teresa understands him through the pattern of his hot breath blowing on her face than by her ability to hear. Her ears are ringing anyway, and she’s either light-headed or lighter than helium. Either way, she’s certain that if James lets go of her in this instant, she will float upwards.
It takes a beat, but what he’s asking quickly becomes clear. It’s her decision. Take the key—her key—and the electric doors of the lift are as far as they’ll take this. Don’t take the key, and . . .
On the scale of drunkenness, James measures higher, having had more to drink than Teresa, and in spite of his generally high tolerance, the press and heat of Teresa on his skin, his body, renders him lacking in his usual pragmatism. Love hormones leave him spiralling, intoxicated, weakening his normal self-control. More than anything, everything, he yearns to slip the spaghetti straps off her shoulders. He wants to discover all her hidden beauty marks, memorise the constellation they form on her skin. If sober, he would be overthinking right about now, cynically deliberating all the reasons to hold back. Now, he can only follow her lead. He makes her in charge of their future. If she wants, they will stop. Or if she wants, they won’t.
Part of Teresa is as intoxicated as James. But she’s sober enough to register that she doesn’t want this, the consummation of them as something more, to be while they’re drunk. She doesn’t want this night to be marred by her unresolved situation with Guero. And most of all—and the immensity of her realisation leaves her marvelling in wonder so that she forgets to be terrified—she doesn’t want this to be a one-night thing.
From almost as early as the day they first met, they’ve been able to communicate without words. When their eyes meet, James smiles at Teresa, achingly soft, and he leans in to kiss her again. He hands her her key, kissing her hand as she takes it from him, whispering, ‘It’s okay’. There’s no hurt in his eyes. If anything, he seems oddly content.
They both know that come morning, they’ll pretend what happened in the lift was just a dream. Come morning, it will be just business once again.
‘Goodnight James,’ Teresa says, unlocking the door to her room as James unlocks the door to his own, down the corridor from hers.
‘Sleep well Teresa.’