fire48

Mateo promised her it would be a success. What he didn’t tell her was that he planned to hide under the desk while she greeted her first live viewers.

My father never looked at her the same way again after that week. Neither did I, once I learned what she had done to save us all from ruin.

I watched him through the window while he touched himself, thinking no one could see him. The next day I went down with the excuse of using the bike, and I wasn’t leaving without trying him.

You begged me in whispers, holding your breath while I reached for the lubricant. And I never told you I looked forward to that dawn as much as you did.

I’d spent months seeing her in a sweater and glasses behind the monitor. That night, in a wine-colored dress and with a few drinks in her, she looked at me in a way that changed everything.

I thought I knew him after three years together, until that night he set the glass on the table and told me he had a fantasy he didn’t dare confess.

I dressed to impress, but once I stepped into that office I realized I wasn’t going to use my résumé to get the job.

The order was simple: kneel. My body obeyed before my mind could resist, and I knew that night would take me past a point of no return.

When I opened my eyes in the steam room, he was already looking at me. And I knew exactly who he was, even though I never thought I’d have him that close.

I’d swum three thousand meters flat out and only wanted hot water on my shoulders. Then he turned beneath the shower beside me, and I knew that afternoon wouldn’t end like the others.

I thought it would just be the three of us having dinner. But my cousin invited her friends, and that night I discovered how far I was willing to go to please her boyfriend.

I bet him that if I beat him on the field that afternoon, I’d collect my prize with him. He laughed. He had no idea I’d been waiting for that moment for years.

When the officiant asked whether anyone had something to say, the groom raised his hand. Not to say yes, but to confess what he had been holding in for months.

We always thought no one could see us. That lie we told ourselves was the beginning of everything that came after, night after night.