He was still wearing his cutoff pajama bottoms but he’d added a dark-gray, long-sleeved, skintight thermal. He was standing by the sink on the opposite side of the room, his side was partially turned to the counter, hip resting against it, eyes looking out the window over the sink, coffee cup held aloft but forgotten in front of him.
His mind was on something.
I stared at him and thought for the millionth time that he never looked better.
The kitchen had not been renovated and it looked like an extension of the restoration efforts. Paint brushes and drying rollers lying out on rags on the countertops, buckets on the floor, bags filled with I didn’t know what stacked in the corner.
I must have moved because Hector’s eyes sliced to me, his thoughtful face warmed and he demanded softly, “Come here.”
As if guided by their own personal brain, my feet moved me toward him as I watched him put his mug on the counter. When I got within reaching distance, one of his arms came around my shoulders, the other one around my waist and he curled me into his heat.
His head came down and he gave me a soft, sweet kiss (with tongues) that lasted until my arms slid around his waist and my body melted into his. Then his head lifted.
“You want coffee?” he asked quietly.
Robbed of speech by the kiss, I nodded.
Before he could move, there was a clamor from the other room. A loud clamor.
Our bodies grew tight in unison before we heard Blanca call, “Hola, mi hijo! Dónde estás?”
“Fuck,” Hector muttered.
I stared in horror at Hector’s set face.
“Hector!” Blanca shouted.
“Kitchen!” Hector shouted back.
Oh no.
Someone, please tell me Hector didn’t just tell his mother our whereabouts.
I was standing, in Hector’s t-shirt, in Hector’s arms, in Hector’s kitchen and Blanca (from what I could hear, carrying rustling bags) was headed our way.
My body prepared to flee. Hector’s arms went tight. Blanca filled the kitchen doorframe.
She stared at us a second then shouted as if we were across a football field and not across a room, “Hola!”
I was robbed of speech again, now for a different reason.
“Mamá, Sadie and I want a quiet morning.”
“Bah!” Blanca exploded, bustling in and dropping six (yes, six!) bulging King Soopers bags on the counter. “Sadie needs breakfast. Do you cook, mi hijo? No, you do not cook. Hola Sadie.” She smiled at me and then started to pull food out of the bags.
I watched as the food was revealed and I noted no breakfast-type items. It looked more like she was planning to stock the cupboards before the government announced rationing.
I found my voice. “Um, hola Blanca.”
I felt Hector’s eyes on me and I looked up at him. He was smiling.
Yes, smiling!
I shot him a glare. His body moved with laughter. I did not think this was funny. Instead, I found it mortifying. I pulled out of his arms and put some distance between us.
I’d never been caught in the morning by someone’s mother. If I had dared to bring my boyfriends to my father’s house and they wandered around in their pajama bottoms, my father would have had them executed (this might be a bit over the top but my father really didn’t like to share me and he had loads of suffocating ways to make that terrible fact perfectly clear).
Therefore, awake for approximately ten minutes, I found myself caught in a new predicament and I had no idea what to do.