Spanish Lessons (Study Abroad Book 1) Read online

  Later. I’ll tell him later, after I’ve had a beer and I’m a little less verklempt about this. Us.

  “I thought we could skip Econ today and work on some art history,” I say, reaching for my textbook. “You know. To celebrate.”

  “There’s my crazy white girl,” Rafa says. “You have adopted Madrid’s party spirit I see.”

  I smile—he’s always making me smile—and open the textbook, flinging back chunks of chapters until I land at the correct one.

  Rafa swallows a mouthful of beer. “Goya. Vale, he is one of my favorites. Very dark, too, like this weather,” he says, leaning over the table to get a better look at the pages.

  I only need to lean forward, too, just a little bit, to kiss him. Watching him cozy up to my textbook, his blue eyes coming alive as he tells me all about Goya’s patrons, his style and his technique, all in that lovely, lilting Spanish—God, I want to kiss him. And then I want to take off all this clothes and explore every inch of his skin. And then I want to fuck his brains out.

  Rafa looks up and catches me checking him out. One side of his mouth kicks up in a saucy, knowing little smirk. “A masterpiece, no?”

  I scoff, tucking my tongue into my cheek. “You and the bragging. Really, you’re the worst.”

  “What?” Rafa holds up the textbook, his smirk deepening into a grin. “I was talking about Goya’s Majas.”

  I glance at the two paintings stacked one on top of the other on the page. Both are of the same reclining woman. In the first painting, she wears a gauzy white dress with heavily ornamented black and gold sleeves.

  In the second painting, she wears nothing at all.

  “Of course you would pick a painting of a nude chick,” I say.

  Rafa sets the book on the table between us. “I like La Maja Vesitda—the dressed Maja—better, actually. She is—how do you say?—bolder. She will make you work harder for it, yes? And it will be so much better. More satisfying.”

  “But they’re the same maja, right? What is a maja?”

  Rafa meets my eyes across the table. “Today it means a great beauty. A beautiful person. And yes, it is the same woman in both paintings.”

  I trace my finger over the embroidered—or maybe it’s beaded?—detail on the first Maja’s sleeve. “I love old portraits like these. Getting the clothes right was just as important as capturing the faces.”

  “In Toledo,” he says. “El Greco’s Burial of the Count of Orgaz. I saw you looking at the clothes in that painting, too.”

  I pull back. “You did?”

  Rafa slides the book toward him and closes it.

  Finish your beer, he says in Spanish. I want to show you something.

  ***

  We hurry up the Prado Museum’s steps. My heart works double time—I love museums, and I haven’t had a chance to visit the Prado yet (I blame it on all that Econ homework). Of course Rafa would take me to my personal paradise on the day I have to practically dump him.

  He holds his umbrella between us; we have to walk close to keep from getting wet. He slips his arm around my waist, guiding me in time to his steps. I try to keep my distance, I do, but it’s impossible not to melt into the magnetic pull of his body. I’m overwhelmed by the feel of his hands on me, especially in public like this. It’s silly, I know, but I imagine it’s his way of claiming me; of telling everyone we pass to back off, bitches, she’s mine. I imagine that I am his.

  Only, I’m not.

  I have to tell him.

  But I can’t. Not yet. I want to see whatever it is he’s so hell bent on showing me first.

  Rafa flashes his student ID, and not only gets us through the semi-private group entrance, but gets us in for free. Our shoes squeak on the wet marble floors as he veers right and I follow him into a series of galleries.

  I recognize Goya’s work right away. Bucolic country scenes, dark, manic snapshots from the Peninsular War, aristocrats and their broods, the requisite Jesus paintings. I buzz with the desire to stop and examine each one, but Rafa keeps walking. It’s late—close to six—which may explain why the galleries are mostly empty.

  Rafa and I have Goya to ourselves.

  He slows his stride when we reach the last gallery. There, side by side on a long wall, are Goya’s Majas. The breath leaves my lungs as I take them in. They’re enormous, slightly smaller than life size, encased in baroque gilt frames. They are indescribably more beautiful in person than they are on the page of my textbook.

  My skin prickles with goose bumps. I’m a little starstruck, to be honest; it’s like seeing the celebrity you’ve stalked online in the flesh. I see what I could not see before. The aliveness, the details. The dark seam running up the clothed maja’s sleeve; the naked maja’s stubby little toes, and her whispery patch of pubic hair.

  Without meaning to—it’s a reflex, like scrunching your nose when you sneeze—I grab Rafa’s hand and give it a squeeze. It’s my way of saying thank you and ohmigod I love this and you are so wonderful it hurts. He grins. His palm feels warm and safe against mine.

  I drop his hand, remembering myself, remembering Maddie, and move to stand in front of the woman with her clothes on. It seems less dangerous with Rafa next to me.

  “It is better, yes, to see the real thing?” Rafa says. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stands beside me, so close his arm touches mine. “For someone like you, who is the lover of the art, it is excellent. Like living inside your favorite movie.”

  “Yes,” I say. “You’re right. That is how it feels.”

  For half a heartbeat I close my eyes, and will the heat and the longing flooding my limbs to slow their roll. This is perfect—Rafa is perfect—it’s the perfect end to a really shitty day. I wish it could stay like this, always.

  I make mental notes as I pore over every detail of the maja’s clothing. Her white gown, the pink sash, her ornamented sleeves-slash-bolero thing, her little pointy slippers. I could stare for hours, but with Rafa beside me, I’m a little distracted.

  At last I turn to the naked maja, taking a few steps to stand in front of her. Rafa follows, only this time he stands half a step behind me. Every time he inhales, his chest brushes my shoulder. He’s so close, and he smells so good, I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.

  Looking at the naked maja with Rafa is a lot like dissecting that super sexy Neruda poem together. A little awkward. Heated. There’s so much nakedness to look at, it makes me crave some nakedness of my own. My nakedness, and Rafa’s too.

  The things that inspired all this beautiful art—love, angst, God—I can relate to them in way I never have before.

  Spain, I’m learning, is a place of the senses. People here don’t shy away from nudity, or public displays of affection, or sex, the way we do in America. This side of our nature is embraced here—as evidenced by this painting of a very naked woman in a very public place.

  Rafa leans closer. His breath tickles the baby hairs at the nape of my neck. I am frozen, too scared to lean back, too roused to walk away.

  “Thank you,” I say. “For bringing me here. I’ve been meaning to come to the Prado. There’s just never a good time, you know?”

  “You have to make time,” he replies. “Some people, they think art is boring, or stupid. But it matters to you, Vivian, and so it is important that you come to these places.”

  I look down. It’s so quiet in the gallery I swear I can hear my frantic heartbeat echoing off the walls. Rafa is leaning closer. I can tell because his breath, warm before, is hot now on my bare skin.

  “You’re killing me,” I whisper. “You’re always killing me, Rafa.”

  He presses a kiss onto my shoulder, just where it slopes into neck. “We have been killing so much of the one another lately,” he murmurs. He slides a hand up my back to cup my nape, holding me the way he held me that first morning at the Metro station. With intention. Possession. “It is a miracle there is anything left.”

  I suck a breath through my teeth; the goose b
umps return in a poignant, vengeful wave. His hair, still a little wet from the rain, brushes my ear. I shiver. My head falls back as he moves up my neck. Oh God. I appeal to the coffered ceiling for help. For the courage to tell him to stop. To not maul Rafa right here, right now.

  It just feels so damn good, his mouth on my skin. Each lingering kiss, each playful stroke of his tongue, sends spikes of heat through my center.

  “Rafa,” I breathe. “We need to talk.”

  “Do we?” he says, nipping at the hollow beneath my ear. His thumb works small, slow circles at the base of my neck.

  I see stars. I blink them back.

  “Come home with me,” he says. “We have done enough work for today. I want to kill you how I killed you at Ático. Quiero estar contigo.” I want to be with you.

  I don’t need to ask how Rafa wants to be with me. He wants to be with me in the same sense I want to be with him. The naked sense. The image flashes through my mind: the delicious weight of Rafa pressing me into his mattress, my hands shaking as I unbutton his shirt, the feel of his naked chest against mine. Me wrapped up in him as the wet, grey afternoon fades to dark around us.

  The sweetness of it makes my whole being ache. Rafa is offering me everything I want—the relationship, the romance, the real—but I’m going to turn him down. I never want to have another fight like the one I had last night with Maddie. I never want to upset her like that again.

  And if I say yes to Rafa—if I become his novia—I know it would upset Maddie.

  My eyes smart. I try to pull away, but Rafa holds me tight. We turn our heads to look one another in the eye.

  “We need to talk,” I repeat.

  Chapter 17

  We stand at the narrow counter at a bar not far from the Prado Museum. It’s uncomfortably humid inside the small, bustling space. Rafa and I sip vino tinto de la casa from small glasses, picking at the bowl of potato chips the jolly bartender set between us. Outside it’s getting dark; Mads will be wondering where I am.

  “If this is about the naked women—the Majas—” he starts.

  “It’s not,” I say. “Well. Not exactly, anyway.”

  Rafa spears me with a look. “Now you’re killing me, Vivian.”

  Our arms brush as we reach for our wine at the same time. He covers my hand with his. His palm is warm and dry against the back of my hand. My heart counts an uneven drumbeat inside my chest.

  “We can’t,” I say.

  “I want to,” he says.

  “I want to, too. But I can’t, Rafa.”

  “Por qué no?” Why not?

  I swallow. “Because. Because I’m terrified of falling so hard for you that it’s gonna hurt too badly when I leave. Rafa, we’ll have to break up—”

  “We don’t have to break up.”

  “Really? You want to do long distance across an ocean? You’re in grad school here, and I’m a broke as a joke college student there. It will never work.”

  “Come on, Vivian, you don’t know that.”

  “It won’t work,” I say. “Not the way I want it to. I want more. Dinner and a movie, spooning in bed, a shared future. I want forever, Rafa, a guy who’s in it for real. And I don’t think email or Skype or whatever can be real.”

  His face tightens. He takes a step toward me, lowering his voice in disbelief. “You don’t think what we have is real?”

  “I don’t know. If it’s real now, it won’t be after we’re apart.” I pull my hand away, take a gulp of wine. “I’ve been hurt by guys like you before—”

  “Guys like me?”

  I sweep my eyes up the length of his body. “Super guapo guys.”

  “That’s not fair,” he says, digging a hand through his hair. “That is so not fucking fair. You told me about this guy who hurt your heart. You said he led you on. I am not doing the leading. I think you know this, Vivian, but you are denying it to yourself because you are scared. I am scared too. But more than the scare I am feeling, I feel—” He winds that same hand through the air, searching for the right word. “Light. That is not the word, but you understand me, yes? You make me feel light. Contento.” Happy.

  I understand him better than I care to admit. Rafa makes me feel the same way. I am more myself with him than I am with anyone else.

  “You make me—” My voice wavers. I look away. “You’re so freaking excellent, Rafa.”

  “If you feel that way, why can’t you be with me? I am not understanding. You don’t want to get hurt, but you’re already hurting, Vivian.”

  I take another sip of wine. “There’s something else.”

  He meets my eyes. “What?”

  “Maddie,” I say. “I don’t think it’s any secret she likes you, Rafa. A lot. And I’m not going to date the guy my best friend likes—especially not when I lied to her, and told her to pursue that guy who was never available in the first place. A guy who liked me.”

  “A guy who still likes you,” Rafa replies. The muscle along his jaw ropes against his smooth, tan skin. “So you will not be with me because you do not want to hurt your friend.”

  “Yes.”

  He looks away, running his tongue along the seam of his bottom lip. A lip I would very much like to take between my teeth, if just to end this awful conversation.

  “Maddie is a very cool girl,” he says at last. “But I don’t like her like that. You are the one I want, Vivian. What kind of friend is she if she won’t let you be with the guy you want?”

  “She didn’t say I couldn’t be with you,” I reply. I sip my wine, praying for liquid courage. “Maddie isn’t like that. We had a fight, yes. But she never, like, forbid me to date you or anything. She told me to do what I wanted. She’s hurt, and rightfully so. I lied to her about how I felt about you. None of this would have ever happened if I’d been honest with her from the start.”

  “So be honest with yourself for once,” he says. “If you want to be with me, let’s be together. Maddie will get over it.”

  I bite my lip. “I can’t, Rafa. I can’t do that to Maddie. She’s going through some awful stuff this semester. She didn’t say I couldn’t be with you—this is my decision. I’m the one who made such a fucking mess of this whole thing, and I’m the one who’s going to clean it up. If I date you, it’d be like flaunting it in her face—the fact that you picked me over her. She’d pretend to be cool with it, but I know it would crush our friendship. She needs me, Rafa. She’s been there for me, and I want to be there for her.”

  There it is—the terrible truth. I’m choosing Maddie over Rafa.

  His eyes darken with hurt, and for a minute my confidence wavers. When I left the house this morning, I was sure I’d made the right choice. Chicks before dicks, being a good friend, fixing the damage I’ve done, all that stuff. The fight Maddie and I had in Retiro last night totally sucked. I apologized for lying about my feelings for Rafa, but I promised her they wouldn’t go any further. I told her I would talk to Rafa, and that nothing—absolutely nothing—would ever happen with him again. “You’re too important to me,” I told her, “to ever let a guy get between us. A clean break with Rafa is best for everyone, I think.”

  It’s best for everyone if Rafa and I keep our distance so we can all move on, even if it hurts right now. God, does it hurt.

  I mean, there’s no way Maddie and I can repair our friendship if I’m romantically involved with Rafa. Just imagining her face if she saw the way he touches me, the way he looks at me—she’d be so hurt. And she’s hurt enough this semester.

  I want to grovel and make things right between Maddie and I ASAP. I know she won’t forget my betrayal so easily; still, I have to start somewhere.

  But now, looking Rafa in the eye, I recognize this is so much more complicated than that. This isn’t black and white, right or wrong. I want them both, Maddie and Rafa, and having to choose between them is the worst thing ever.

  I don’t know what to do.

  So I stick to my guns, because that’s what I should do.

/>   Isn’t it?

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I feel like shit about this whole situation. But I’ve known Maddie for years, and I’m only here for a few more months…we can still be friends, I guess, the tutoring thing, and Al…”

  “Friends?” Rafa hisses. He leans forward, eyes widening with disbelief. “The things I did to you on Saturday—those are not things one friend does to another. I do not want anyone else doing them to you, Vivian. I would never have touched you like that if I knew we would not be novios.”

  Anger ripples beneath the surface of his deadly calm; I can tell he’s trying to control it, to not lose his shit in this cute, muggy little bar. I hate myself for putting us in this position. But I had to decide. I can’t float in this angsty almost-maybe middle ground forever. It’s no man’s land, and someone I care about—someone I love—is going to get really hurt.

  I chose to take on that hurt myself instead. Considering all the damage I’ve caused, it’s the least I can do.

  I finish my wine and slide it across the counter. The bartender takes it with a toothy smile and asks if I’d like another. Lord, would I, but I’m about to burst into tears. I need to get out of here, stat, before I ugly-face cry in front of Rafa and all these nice, hot Madrileños.

  “I’m really sorry,” I say.

  Rafa looks at me. “I am, too.”

  “Please,” I say. “Please try to understand.”

  He sticks his hands in his pockets and nods at the door. “Come on. I’ll walk you to the Metro station—you’ll get soaked without an umbrella.”

  Of course Rafa is excellent to the bitter end.

  ***

  Wednesday Night

  Maddie and I sit at the table in silence as we wait for the other girls to arrive. Our usual waiter does his usual sweep past the table, sniffing with annoyance when he sees gorgeous, glowing Laura isn’t here yet.