Page 18 of When We Believed in Mermaids

“Same for me,” he says. “And a tequila, the best you have, neat.” The table is quite tiny, the space allotted forcing us to sit close. His thigh bumps my knee. My shoulder brushes his upper arm. He smells of something elusive and rich, and I try to place it for a moment before I turn my attention to the stage, aware of my heightened senses, his elbow, the thickness of his eyebrows.

“Which one is your friend?”

“All of them, really, but Miguel is the one I’m here to visit. He’s the one in the red shirt. The good-looking one.”

I smile, because it’s true. Miguel has an amiable expression and high cheekbones and very shiny, very black hair. He’s the one tuning his instrument, nodding to the accompaniment. “Have you been friends a long time?”

“We met through a mutual friend.” His smile is wry. “He’s my ex-wife’s brother.”

The server brings our drinks, and the ale is a very nice shade of toffee where the light shines through. I lean in to smell it. Promising. I raise my glass. “Cheers.”

For a single second, he holds the glass aloft, his gaze moving over my hair, my mouth. “To new adventures.”

I drink, and it’s cold and refreshing and spectacular. With a sigh, I set it back down. “Oh, I do love beer.”

He holds up his clear tequila. “I prefer this myself.” He smells it, sips it, as if it is wine. “But only in small doses.”

I chuckle, as I’m meant to do, but a memory flickers in my mind, a vision of a boy in my ER last year who’d immolated himself in a bonfire as a gesture of love after drinking a bottle of tequila. Not exactly a story for polite company. To shift the image, I ask, “Was it divorce that sent you here?”

“No, no.” He waves a hand. “We have been divorced a long time, many years.” His dark eyes hold my gaze. “And you? Have you ever married?”

I shake my head, turn the glass one quarter. “It’s not really on my list.”

He inclines his head, surprised. “Marriage is not?”

“No. My parents gave me an example I never want to emulate.” In fact, I can’t bear to let people close enough for more than a five-minute relationship, never mind marriage.

“Ah.” He sips his tequila, the sip so tiny I wonder that he can even taste it, and I like him for it.

The music starts up with a sudden, thrilling strum of the guitar. The handsome Miguel leans into the microphone, making it difficult to talk. Javier and I settle into our seats, and it is impossible that we don’t touch a little. It feels companionable and heightens my awareness as the music fills the air. It’s heated, passionate, with songs in Spanish. My body sways, and I remember suddenly a guitarist who used to play on the patio at Eden when I was eight or nine, a slim-hipped man my mother flirted with shamelessly. Josie and I wore our dance gowns, two of my mother’s silkier nightgowns, old and worn, that she’d sheared off on the bottoms so we wouldn’t trip. We swayed and twirled under the wide, dark sky, our hearts bursting with love and wonder and things we barely knew existed.

Now that I’ve grown into my hungers, I look at Javier. When he feels my gaze and looks back, I see it in his eyes too, and his hand slides along my thigh, just above my knee. I hold his gaze and let the pleasure of anticipation rise. We’re adults. We know the dance. I let my guard down slightly, allowing myself to anticipate kissing that mouth, touching those shoulders without the impediment of fabric, the promise of him—

“And now, we would like to invite my good friend Javier Velez up to the stage to play.”

The crowd rustles and starts to clap. Javier squeezes my knee. “I will be back soon. Order another beer if you like.”

I nod and watch him weave through the tables. He moves as if he’s made of water, easily, smoothly, as if there is only one way to go, through this opening, then that, never pausing.

Onstage, he man-hugs Miguel, then picks up a guitar. It leans against him like a child. His posture relaxes, hands settling against the strings.

A sharp cascade of warning rushes through my overheated system. A swath of blue light cascades over his hair as he bends his head, moves the microphone close, and waits for some internal signal, eyes closed. The room hushes, breath sucked in, waiting.

I wait along with them.

Javier looks out over the crowd, then bends his head suddenly and strums a melancholic chord and, right after, quickly coaxes out a complex waterfall of notes. My arms prickle.

He leans close to the mic and begins to sing in a rich, low voice. It’s a ballad, a love song, which is evident even if I don’t know the words. His voice caresses each syllable, rumbles and whispers, his fingers on the strings keeping time.

A musician. And not a hobbyist. He has captured the room, captured me.

Sexy.

Tall.

Intelligent.

Wry.