Roatan Plunge | Love Travels #2

Twenty-One - Lorena

Carla was sent for Enrique and came back with Óscar. The world is laughing at me.

Laughing.

If I weren't literally caught in my dress right now, I'd laugh too.

"What is going on here?" Óscar asks.

"What's happening is Carla was supposed to find Enrique," I grit out, refusing to turn to face him and then doing it anyway, carefully twisting without moving the position of my back and head. "I'm stuck in this dress. I requested pliers and Enrique and I got you and..." I look down at his hands. "You and your bare hands, I guess."

I shrug without thinking and my hair, which is also caught in my stuck zipper, pulls in a way that is highly uncomfortable. A shriek leaves me and Divya jumps.

"I can get someone from the hotel to help us," she offers. "Maybe some scissors?"

"No scissors," Óscar says at the same time as me.

"Turn," he says, gesturing with his finger. "If I can't do it, I'll find Marcia. Promise."

"I'll go get her," Carla says, racing for the door and dragging Divya by the hand. "We'll find scissors just in case."

It's a good thing she wasn't going for subtle because she is anything but. "Do not get scissors! I'd rather die in this dress than ruin it."

"I think they're gone," Óscar says, not making any move toward me.

"Yeah, I know they're gone. I wouldn't be surprised if Carla crushed the zipper with her pliers or the sheer force of her will just to get us in the same room as each other."

"What would she do that for?" he asks. I can hear the glimmer of mischief in his eyes.

I spin to face him, ready to rage entirely. But we're alone. And he's dressed in the most laid back clothes I'm almost certain he was sleeping in and his hair is standing up at odd angles. He's not primped or prettied up and ready for the media. It's like he doesn't have his fútbol star facade on yet and it's honestly kinda doing things to me.

The smirk and playfulness falls off his face and he stares at me from across the room, holding his hands behind his back as though that will keep us away from each other.

The entire United States Armed Forces couldn't keep us away from each other.

Which is bad.

Very, very bad.

"What would she do that for?" I repeat his question, stepping closer to him despite myself. "Probably so she could get us in a room together and convince you to take my clothes off."

He chokes and covers it with a cough, eyes burning under ridiculously beautiful lashes that should be illegal for a man to own.

"I don't think I'd need much convincing," he says. "I'm leaving in the morning. If you'd let me..."

He doesn't say the rest, and I don't finish it for him. I can't cross that line. Not right now. Not with him. I need to let him go be a fancy rich fútbol player and go back to my not-so-miserable existence as a hopeful travel writer. "No, it's best if we keep this professional. For Enrique and Bianca."

"I—"

I don't let him finish. "Please don't make this harder, Óscar. You might be the best person I've ever known and I'd give my left arm to get to know you better. But I cannot change that you and I live nowhere near each other. I cannot change that you are about to head off on a tour of the country and I am about to beg for a job at the thrift store around the corner from my parents' house."