Chapter Thirty-Two

Giles

JULIA INTRODUCES ME LIKE SHE expected me to come all along. Her knitted eyebrows and fidgety hands tell the real story. 

Her mother instantly greets me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She's delighted when I hand her a box of chocolate truffles. It's an unopened box I grabbed from the kitchen counter on my way out of the house, knowing I shouldn't come empty-handed to a birthday party but not having time for anything else. The chocolates belong to Ava, who will more than likely be pissed when she realizes they're missing. Julia must recognize them because she shakes her head at me and her strained smile suggests she's holding back laughter.

While all of this is happening, I'm well aware of the tall, broad shouldered man with peppered hair watching me. I turn to him, and Julia introduces him as her father. 

"You're Julia's friend?" 

"Yes, sir."

I keep eye contact, but don't feel the need to elaborate on such a direct question. Beside me, Julia shifts her footing, as her father's dark eyes consider me for a few seconds longer, his jaw working a subtle chewing motion as though he's literally biting back his words.

Julia cuts into the brief silence to introduce me to her sister, who I already met at the door and who invited me into the house the moment I told her I was a friend of Julia's. With a warmth and friendliness that I didn't expect from a stranger. 

Julia's father continues to look right at me, he starts to say something but his wife intervenes, setting a hand on his chest as though in a gentle reminder, before ushering me to the table and asking if I'm hungry. I am, but she doesn't wait for my answer, and prepares a plate of scrambled eggs with a side of what looks like potato cakes with slivers of avocado. It takes her all of ten minutes and as she sets the food in front of me, she says something to her husband in Spanish. I know a few Spanish words, but hers slip past me so quickly I can't make sense of them. 

It appears that she's sending him to the store, listing off items on her hands, and Julia's sister adds, "Don't forget the drinks, there's going to be a lot of people."

He seems hesitant to leave, slowly grabbing his keys from the counter. At the doors, he shoots one last look to where Julia and I sit, side by side. I give him a polite nod of acknowledgement, which he doesn't return.

Julia relaxes a bit as the kitchen doors close behind her father. She gives me a long, scolding glare that silently communicates how pissed she is that I would just show up at her parents' house without telling her first.  

Her mother is tending to the stove, which appears to have pots on every burner, cooking a feast for her own birthday celebration. And her sister Lola sits across from me, leaning into the table, watching me eat.

"Julia, tell me more about your friend, here," she says, dragging her words out in a playful way. Lola looks a few years younger. Twenty. Maybe even a mature eighteen. It's hard to tell ages when women wear makeup.

"There's nothing to tell," Julia responds, plastering on a smile that seems more like a warning. 

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Julia says, still grinning wide, "I'm sure."

It's clear they're having a conversation between the lines, one they don't want their mother to figure out. Her sister shuts her eyes and shakes with silent laughter, as though Julia's reaction is confirmation to something. I stay out of it, being in enough hot water with Julia as it is.

I can sense she wants an opportunity to catch me alone in order to bite my head off without her family catching on to the fact that I'm crashing the party. Unfortunately for Julia, she's stuck helping her mother and sister set up the food. When her father gets back from the store, I make myself useful by helping him set up tables and chairs out in the backyard. The task isn't one that requires much discussion. I can tell the man's not a talker, but I don't blame him for eyeing me sideways. I'd eye me sideways, too, if I had a daughter like Julia and a random white boy showed up claiming to be her friend.

Before long, the guests start to arrive four and five at a time, each group raising the volume level another octave. 

I lose sight of Julia for a short while, and during this time more than a few family members come up to ask my name. They greet me like an old friend, women kissing my cheeks, men patting my back. Some of them spewing Spanish phrases, completely lost on me. I'm sure not one of them has a clue who I am, but the simple fact that I'm here seems to indicate to them that I am part of their clan. 

I edge back without realizing it, the growing crowd on the patio inadvertently pushing me toward the hedges. Julia comes to stand beside me.  

"If I knew you were coming, I would've prepared you for the madness," she says, shooting me a playful glare before smiling. "Intimidated yet?"

"I'm just trying to not get run over by someone else sprinting over to hug whoever comes through the door. Are they always this...energetic?"

She lets out a loud cackle I've never witnessed from her but recognize from the sounds around me. It looks good on her, brightening up her whole face and forcing me to laugh with her even before I know where the humor is. 

"You think they're excited now?" she asks. "Just wait until we turn the music up."

She's not exaggerating. Later on, someone turns up the volume of the music and most people abandon their food plates in a frenzy to find a clearing wide enough to dance in. It doesn't matter if they have a partner or not. Both women and men seem perfectly content dancing alone, arms and hips moving around in sync as though they are doing a choreographed dance.

Three songs pass, and a noticeably different sound kicks in. An echoing, upbeat sound of electric guitar and bongos, with a romantic voice crooning slowly over the instruments. 

The dancing around me becomes a few degrees more sensual. The younger couples, especially, get closer than ever, bodies nearly grinding as they move in harmony. 

"What's this?" I ask Julia.

"Bachata," she says, her body swaying slightly as if her hips are pulled by the sounds.

"Do you dance it like Salsa?"

She gives me an exasperated look. "No, white boy. Don't let a Dominican hear you say that. Can't you tell it's a completely different sound?" 

I shrug. 

I don't care much for dancing, but if this bachata dance means I get to feel her up against me, I want to know what it's about.

"Show me," I say.

"All right."

The corners of her mouth pull up and she takes a step toward me. She brings herself close, left arm wrapping around my shoulder, fingers lying on the side of my neck. I run my hand down her other arm until our fingertips touch, just short of interlocking. It feels good, our fingers being right on the edge of curling over each other like this. She completes the grip, holding on to my hand and bringing it up beside us, parallel to our faces. I set my other hand on her hip, then decide to raise it to her waist, allowing my palm to curve over her. 

She tilts her head, bringing her face side by side with mine as she looks down at the space between us, at the half a foot of air between our bodies. 

"We have to get closer," she says. 

 I tug on her waist and bring her body flush with mine.

"Like this?" I ask, wondering if she notices my heart trying to punch a hole through my ribcage.

She swallows. "Yeah. Like that."

We're both still, looking down as she brings one foot between mine, urging my stance to widen enough to allow her leg to come slightly between. 

Her hips press against mine and I'm instantly worried she might feel the greediest part of me, which even now wants things it doesn't deserve. I take in a subtle breath, trying to pull myself together, but catch a lungful of her scent instead. That clean, faintly sweet smell that makes my mouth water.

We lift our faces at the same time to look at each other. And for the first time, her expression softens by a thousand degrees. 

"Now what?" I ask.

She swallows again. "We'll start slow until you get it. Listen to the beat of the music," she instructs. "Do you hear the three hikes?" I don't. It's all a loud cacophony of sound to me. "Those are the steps. Come on, to the right."

We move. She guides us by pulling on our intertwined hands. She sways her hips as we step sideways one, two times. On the third, she does something with her hip where she juts it to the side slightly. I don't try to replicate it. Then we move in the other direction. 

My nose is millimeters from the side of hers and it occurs to me how the simplest tilt of my head would land my mouth on hers.

"Ow!" She pulls back.

"Sorry," I say, glancing down to where I stepped on her and readjust my footing. 

We start moving again, bodies connected and moving together. Faces insanely close, breathing the same air. And I'm counting the steps in my head, to keep from stepping on her and to keep from kissing her. There are only three steps. But somehow each sway feels different than the last.

As we continue to move to the sound, I start to distinguish the hikes she mentioned, the steps seem to fall perfectly in line with those points in the song. For the first time we don't break our stride, falling into perfect momentum. 

"You're impressing me," she says, amused.

I spin her around the way I saw someone else do earlier. "I have a good teacher."

I'm just moving, with her against me, holding her tightly. But God, it's unbelievable. I wouldn't go as far as to say it feels better than sex, but it's pretty damn close. It's intimate in a way I'm not used to. Not in an obvious and explicit way, but in a more consuming way. Like my entire body is breathing her in, and our movements are stroking something in my stomach that feels comfortable and hopeful. Something that makes me want more...

Fuck. The start of a hard-on swells in my pants and we are way too close for me to be able to hide it. I shift the next time we change direction, trying to subtly add inches between us. The last thing I need is to sport giant wood in front of her entire family. But she brings herself flush against me again.

"Julia..." My warning is eclipsed by lust, and I have no control over my voice.

"Yeah?"

I'm not sure if I'm imagining the thickness in her own voice. The greedy part of me hopes this is leading to a point where we'll both strip off our clothes and use our hip movements in other ways. More delicious ways. 

"This is dangerous." 

"What is?"

The song ends and we stop moving, or I stop moving, abruptly, and she trips a little and sort of lands on my chest. Then she bursts out laughing and takes a step back. I laugh too. Though, I'm not sure what we are laughing at. The situation is funny, somehow. It's funny until suddenly it's not. Until I realize the humor is in the fact that I want to screw my best friend. 

So goddamn bad it literally hurts.

Almost the moment I think it, the delight on Julia's face drains and for a split second I get the irrational thought she read my mind. But she's not looking at me. I follow her gaze across the yard, to the end of the patio where a guy stands by the open gate, hands in his pockets and eyes fixed squarely on Julia.

"Tell me that's not who I think it is," I say.