head and looking over the menu. “Bad enough that I’m not sure if I want their bottomless mimosas today or not.”
I laugh. “Oh, that bad?”
She grins at me. “We didn’t even go out. Mateo and I just got drunk by ourselves. Isabella, his ex, had Chloe Ann for the night, so we just drank a shit load of wine and Cava and tried to eat the grapes at midnight. Do you know about that tradition?”
I nod. “Yup.”
The waiter comes by and I order an eggs benedict with Iberian ham, plus a large black iced coffee. Vera switches her coffee up for mimosas.
“Feel free to drink some of mine,” she says, fixing her large eyes on me. “What did you get up to last night? I hope you weren’t at home alone, that would make me sad.”
“You know what’s funny is that I’ve spent a few New Years alone and they’re actually the best nights to stay in. There’s no pressure to go anywhere and you wake up hangover free.”
“So did you spend it alone?”
“No.” I pause. Here I go. “I was with someone.”
“Who? Oh, was it that Fabio guy?”
“Fabio?” My face scrunches up. “Oh, you mean Sergio. And no. I’m…I’m spoken for.”
That gives Vera a pause. “Spoken for? Well, I do declare,” she says in her best Scarlet O’Hara impression. “So who is the new gentleman who has spoken for you? Or gentlewoman. I don’t discriminate.”
“Well, the thing is…he’s not really new. I’m in love with him.”
“You’re in love with him?” Her eyes go even wider. “Well, fuck, now I’m intrigued AF. Who is he? When did you meet him? I mean, last I saw you was at the gala and I don’t think you mentioned anyone.”
“I don’t really want to say…”
She blinks at me in surprise. “Oh. Okay. Like a secret thing? Are you ashamed of him? Does he have a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg?”
I laugh, picturing that in my head. “No. No. It’s uh…yeah, it’s a secret. He’s…off-limits.”
She sits up straighter. “I know all about that and I want to hear more.”
“I know you do. That’s why I wanted to talk to you about it. Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes.”
“Really?” I look her dead in the eyes.
“Yes,” she says.
“As in, you can’t tell my boss. Your husband. Mateo Casalles.”
“I swear to god. He doesn’t know everything. You’re allowed to have some secrets in life, you know.”
I study her face. She seems to be pretty honest.
I lean in closer. “If you tell, I’ll kill you. I know all the deadly pressure points on the human body.”
Vera stares right back. “I won’t tell.”
I lean back, satisfied. “Okay. Well, I’m in love with Alejo.”
She frowns. It takes her a minute before she exclaims, “Oh my god, Alejo Albarado!?”
“Shhh,” I hush her, looking around. The volume in here is loud and no one is paying us attention, but still.
“You’re in love with him?” she says, lowering her voice only marginally. “Does he know?”
“Yes, he knows,” I say, laughing. “Dare I say we’re in love with each other.”
“Are you sleeping together?”
“That part came first.”
“Holy shit. Since when?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. September?”
“What the fuck?” she says dramatically, then she bangs her fist against the table. “Damn it, I wish I could tell Mateo!”
“You can’t,” I remind her sharply. “You really can’t.”
“I know, I know. I just wish I could. And like, I mean in general, not just this. I wish he could just turn off his coach brain for one minute sometimes, you know? That job, it consumes him.”
“I’ll say the same for Alejo. They take their job to heart and it’s a lot of pressure.”
“So much pressure,” she says adamantly.
She pauses as the waiter drops off my coffee and her mimosa.
She has a sip, smiles at the drink like it’s her long-lost friend, and then continues. “When they were having their losing streak, oh my god. You did not want to be in our house. He was a miserable beast to be around. He was so low, so down, blaming himself. He really thought Jose was going to fire him.” She pauses. “And then they started winning again and he says it was because you fixed Alejo. He says he owes you.”
I shrug, swirling my straw around in the coffee, making the ice cubes rattle. “He doesn’t owe me. He’s the one that hired me to do that. I just did my job. And Alejo is integral to the team but he’s not the whole team.”