For a second I rub my thumb and index finger tips together. I don't know what kind of issues this man has. This quaint little sea town is full of locals who've breathed me back to life. Their hospitality, their genuine goodness. Nevertheless, this Spaniard is suffering a broken heart. I am not working at this very moment. I am celebrating a crossroads. There is no need to intervene. Once more, I turn around. The bungalow I have rented for this "celebratory" occasion is the target. There are a few bungalows along the ocean, the main inn, which is a fortress of history is about half a mile inland.
The man's sexy, jumbled accent calls but I get ten yards...twenty. Hell, there might be an ogre beneath that hoodie. I'm no fool. This place is exotic, being that I'm a tourist. Every Spaniard in Cabo de Blanco has a dreamy accent; from the pimple faced boys to the senior citizens with the age spots.
THUMP.
I turn quickly. That damn sexy accent is no longer longing for his beauty. His life. His love. He no longer wallows for her. Instead, he's out cold. His head lays on top of a jagged boulder. I take a deep breath and hurry toward the stranger...
~~~
Now I'm in the living room of my bungalow. Though this place has character, there's only the love seat and this chair. A seashell accented coffee table, and on top is a bowl of lukewarm water, with a pink hue due to the stranger's blood. Since I waited for so long, but decided to wipe the bloody gash across the front of his temple. Now the hair sticks straight up from his hood, rooster like. I also applied one of the Band-Aids I found under the bathroom sink.
This is something that I'd never do in Southern California. Operation: Save the town drunk, is a no-no where I was born and raised. Well, in actuality, back home there's no such thing as a "town drunk" – singular. Nope, plural more like it. We've got winos galore and folks that get drunk in packs to the solo shooter – no chaser, no cutesy umbrella included. Earlier, my first taste of liberation was in the form of the citizens of Cabo de Blanco. So genuine and good, that I couldn't leave a local to bleed out on the seashore even if it sounds like his heart is already bleeding. And I've tried to dial Spain's version of 9-1-1, but shamefully couldn't figure it out.
Stuck somewhere between a trance and curiosity, I'm sitting across from the unconscious man. Chest heaving at the sheer workout I just had while dragging the stranger into my room. It took both my hands to loop around one bicep and drag him.
Every so often I glance at the sliding glass door to determine if a guest or grounds worker is walking by. But it's getting late. He still has his hoodie obstructing most of my view of his face. His jeans and boots are caked in a soft dusting of sand. He's a few inches over six feet, at least I think. Stubble aligns that chiseled jawbone.
The inebriated stranger groans, I move my thick leg from beneath me, and move into an erect seating position. He's awake.
One hand rubs over the caramel tone of his contoured face. The man stares at the bowl of pink colored water on the table. A bloody washcloth tossed aside. Then he eyes me. All 180 and something odd pounds of me.
"I'm Jel-" fuck I almost gave him my nickname, Jelly. I wonder how nurses do it? I've barely just cleansed a forehead bruise, but all that nurturing makes me feel vulnerable. Taking a deep breath, I start over, "I'm Angelique Curtis. I found you outside."
I get up slowly, eyes on him. There's a level of sincerity in my trained gaze, but also acute to any odd behavior. I lick my lips with curiosity, "You were drinking."
The stranger doesn't extend any dangerous signals nor does he introduce himself. His chiseled features are still so unreadable. That mouth, that gloriously sculpted mouth is set right. An angular jaw line was carved to perfection in heaven. He just needs to take his hoodie from his face, but I think his eyes are light for a Spaniard. Then again, I've only been to the South of Spain where tourism runs rampant, and here in Cabo de Blanco the people are mixed with French. They're Basque. But the little bit of skin I can see is a sun-loved color, not fair skinned like the inn owner's and towns people.
I try to stop gawking at the dark stranger, with hazel eyes, since he won't provide anything. I add, "You fell … "
"I know."
"Now that you are okay..." I begin for the door. Damn, if I can't get a thank you or his name, then what's the use? All I have is a desire to hear that intoxicating voice. And with his hoodie obscuring most of his features, the light-shadow effect makes this man ominously sexy. I'd forgotten how attractive his voice sounded while bringing the man into my place.
"Angelique, have you ever been in love?" The man asks.
I arch an eyebrow. Clearly my first observation was correct. He's a drunk. The town's drunk. And heartbroken, so very heartbroken. "Sir..."
"Eduardo." His tone is clipped. What should be a sign that this man is an emotionless sociopath doesn't compel me to run.
"Eduardo," I gesture for him to elaborate, seeing that I've bandaged him up and provided my entire name.
His thick pink lips are strong, encased within a gilded frame. But he doesn't offer a smile, only saying, "Just Eduardo."
There's something in me that believes this isn't his name. Or heck, I almost gave a nickname, maybe this is his middle name. No, let me stop the madness, Eduardo isn't a client of mine attempting to keep secrets. And I've provided therapy to more than enough stagnant stalkers to even psycho stalkers. Besides … A familiarity roams through me as he speaks. I. Know. Him.
Then again, that inability to smile just to extend a level of kindness is something I know so very well. Sometimes it hurts too bad to curve the corners of your mouth.
Eduardo licks those sexy thick lips saying, "I feel like my heart has been carved out of my fucking chest." Eduardo thumps a large fist against his heart, his chest is so hard, that the sound is loud, like knocking. Then those amber eyes warm like honey, as he adds, "Perdón me for cussing, Angelique," as if my feelings mean the world to him.
Time ceases to exist for just that second of "Eduardo", or whatever his name is, showing me more respect than the man I had just attempted to dedicate myself to for life. The man that I wanted to change for the better. "No worries."
"I just want to know," he begins again. We're eye level, with him sitting and me still one foot geared toward the door, "Angelique, por favor, do you believe that it's worse to have never know love than for it to be snatched away?"
In my few years on the opposite side of a desk, talking the dynamics of love and relationships, I have never heard these words. I've had to deal with men who were so obsessed that they stalked. They allowed a preconceived notion of a person to consume their entire day. I've dealt with all kinds of relationships. But this, this intense heartbreak, it doesn't have undertones of obsession. Eduardo is not a sociopath, he's a man with a broken heart.
"Well, Edaurdo," I begin, settling back down in my seat, sitting on my left heel. Have I gone crazy? Something in me wants to tell this stranger everything about me.
Right at this moment, how do I answer that question. Was it true love with my college beau, Taye? With him I had no doubt in a future. And then we graduated from college. I continued on for my graduate degree while he completed his at Howard University. Or more recent, was I in love with Carlton? In my field, sitting on the opposite end of the "think seat" is required before we're even allowed to provide therapeutic work. My longest fault is the inbred need to change people. I always make sure to have goals set with a timeframe. This didn't apply with Carlton because I was saving him not for the betterment of himself but for me.
I nosh on my bottom lip, considering all the dysfunctional relationships I come across. Then say, "Love? These days, I'm not sure what love is..."
CHAPTER 10
Franco
MY FIRST THOUGHT when coming to was, who is this lady? Does she know me? I've had the occasional stalker or two in Manhattan. As world renown chef, I am loved by the masses. And there was this one time at a food festival in Chicago. The broad was loco! But here, I'm home. For a moment, I take in the woman before me. Warm brown skin tone, with a heart shaped lips that curve at the edges. She can do no harm. There's sincerity in that hazelnut gaze, but not to be twisted, this woman is as cautious of me as I am of her.
And the way her sweet mouth says Eduardo makes even me jealous, and I dished out that lie. I feel like thumping my buddy Edward in the back of his head. What would it have sounded like to hear my name blossom forth from those luscious lips?
Fuck it. Angelique doesn't need to know who I am.