Page 1 of Love Always

Chapter One

Mateus

The first time I saw her, she was sitting at the end of the pier. Her back was to me and her legs dangled over the edge of the wood planks. I thought she was laughing because her shoulders were shaking. One arm was supporting the other at the elbow, her forehead in her hand. I could tell all this, even though her back was to me, because I do the same thing when I laugh.

“Sorry to bother, but I’m completely lost,” I said, as if she existed to solve all my problems.

She looked up and made a little half-moon twist to see who had come to bother her. Her face was blotchy, her eyes red-rimmed, and her cheeks were wet.

“Oh, Jesus. I’m sorry, I didn’t—I didn’t know.” Glancing behind me for a second, I started to back up.

“No, no,” she shook her head. “It’s fine.” She took the end of her T-shirt and pulled it up a little bit to wipe her face. The first thing I noticed were her eyes: light emerald green, glittering in the sunshine off the water. They had to be contacts. No one had eyes like that. Her face, symmetrical, light, soft, was framed by dark wavy hair, with tiny ringlets all around her forehead. Her lips were pink and her mouth red and soft.

The breeze off the Atlantic lifted her hair. I was just stunned, for once in my life I was speechless. It takes a lot for me to be speechless, too. I speak three languages and I don’t have trouble talking to anyone. I just often choose not to.

“I’m sorry. What are you looking for?”

I realized with a start this was the second time she’d asked the question. Portland is a small city, but not small enough that you can’t get lost. And when I told her that she laughed.

“It’s because of the one-way streets. It’s confusing.”

“Yeah. I’m from California we don’t really have one-way streets out there.”

“Well you don’t have mass transit either.”

I raised a finger. “Plus, people wait for the traffic lights to cross streets. Very different here.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “They dart around like rabbits.”

“Touché,” she said, extending a hand. “I’m Laurel.”

I could tell by the way she was reaching for me she expected me to pull her uppost handshake. I grasped her hand. That was going to be dicey. I planted my right leg behind me as firmly as I could, the left one in front. I started to pull her up. Just a little.

She caught herself, slipping a leg underneath and lifted.

“I’m Mateus,” I said.

Suddenly she was standing right next to me, close, and she took a step back, wiped her eyes and raised her chin. “What are you looking for?”

I caught a whiff of perfume, of something musky, saturated, clean and floral. It made my groin tighten.

I glanced down at the notes on my phone more to distract myself than anything else. I’d already committed the address to memory. “107 Portland Pier. Is that really a pier?”

She untied the sagey green sweatshirt around her waist. “It’s a building on a pier,” she corrected me, pulling the sweatshirt over her head and shrugging each arm into a sleeve. Her pause was for details though—there was a question there.

But I was lost in her eyes again, captured by light, by depth, by the glittering shards that made up her irises.

“A meeting,” I said shaking myself slightly.

She suddenly became all business and, shielding her eyes, she started to look for landmarks to offer me.

“I’m not under a time constraint. I’m a half hour early, and I know it’s here somewhere. I must be close at this point.”

Her hand dropped to her hip. “You’re all the way out from California? I see now…” she gestured to my suit, “for an interview?”

“Well no, I mean I’m originally from California, but I made my way East to New York and then shot up here, sort of looking for a friend,” I said, suddenly realizing I’d said too much.