The Rain in Spain Read Online Free PDF

adorable you’ve seen me before, I’m totally a regular smile on her face. The eyes flicked up over her shoulder. She could feel Javi glowering behind her. The speakeasy shutter slammed shut.
    The scrape of a bolt being slid back vibrated through the door.
    “Jesus. Are you trying to get us killed?”
    The door swung open and she stepped back before it clipped her. The short, brick-walled corridor in front of them lead to stairs that dropped down out of sight. The bouncer settled himself, beer belly stretching the hem of his Taylor Swift T-shirt, on a tall stool next to the door.
    She darted glances at the T-shirt until Javi caught on and followed her gaze. “I don’t think it’s an underground biker bar, babe,” she said, biting back a smile.
    “Shit. This is why I freak out sometimes.” He jammed his hands in his pockets. “I think about you doing this without me, and it makes my heart stop.”
    His voice was quiet. Too quiet.
    She jerked to a halt and wrapped her fingers around his wrist. Most of the way around. The bones were too thick for her fingers to touch.
    “Hey. Hey.” She gentled her voice when he looked at her. Slid her hand up his arm to grip his shoulder. “You know I don’t do anything stupid when I’m by myself, right? It’s only because I’m with you, Mr. Muscles, that I knocked on the door.”
    She held her breath. Was this the moment when he admitted that it was too hard, being with her? Or rather, being so far away from her because of the choices she made?
    He leaned his head back against the rough plaster of the wall and she watched him push the tension out of his muscles, dropping his shoulders. When he looked down at her, he seemed farther away from her than usual.
    “You laugh at my list. I know.” The non sequitur threw her for a loop. “But you have a list of your own.” He waved one hand in a small circle, indicating the building surrounding them. “It’s just that your list has the whole world on it, and I can’t give that to you.”
    She inhaled sharply, recognizing the pain in the words.
    And what about what I haven’t given you?
    She left the words unsaid. They should never have ended up here, on a delayed honeymoon after a rushed wedding that had felt inevitable at the time, but now seemed like the kind of thing people who got sucked into cults did just before coming to their senses.
    She wondered if they were coming to their senses.
    “But you do give me the world.” She could admit that. Her own family had asked her when she was going to stop gallivanting around and settle down. Javi had never once asked her that. “I’m sorry if I’ve let you think I don’t know that.”
    The muscles in his forearm were tight as she balanced against him with one hand and stood on tiptoe to press a kiss like a benediction to his cheek. His hand gripped her hip and for a moment she wondered if he’d let go, but of course he did. He dropped his forehead to hers. She heard him sigh and her eyes stung until she blinked.
    “I’m sorry, too.”
    She didn’t ask him what he was apologizing for. There were too many things already.
    In the low-ceilinged basement bar at the bottom of the staircase, they mixed into the crowd of locals—the only tourists in the room—a scenario she slid into like a naked skinny dip in mineral springs. Soothing and exciting together. Javi struck up a conversation with the dark-haired men around the pool table, nodding at her with a smile when she tapped him on the shoulder and pointed her chin at the bar.
    The container ship captain who’d propped himself next to her at the counter while she ordered a drink was leaning in a little too close. She made him draw on a napkin a map of the route he’d leave to follow in two days, opening up a little space between them as she leaned back to avoid blocking the light.
    Heat radiated against the skin of her shoulder blades, and she leaned into it, knowing who was behind her without looking. She spun her stool