The American Roommate Experiment (Spanish Love Deception #2)(122)

I shared the feeling. “What do you want, Lina? Besides almost giving me a heart attack and telling me something I already knew.”

“Well, at least you know you suck. That’s a good start. I thought you might be in denial, but at least it doesn’t sound like you are. Good, because—”

“Lina,” I growled. “I don’t have energy for whatever this is. That was why I didn’t call you back.”

Another long sigh came through the line. “I was hoping you wouldn’t, but you sound as miserable as she does. If not more.”

Something inside of me stirred, and I didn’t deserve to ask, or to know, but the words left my lips before I could stop them. “She’s…” I could barely finish, “miserable?”

“Well…” Lina trailed off, making me shift in my chair. “That’s a loaded question, primo. How are you doing?”

Miserable would be putting it lightly. The two things that had kept me going were Taco, who barely left my side, and Abuela, whose patience was obviously running thin. “I’m fine.”

“Oh yeah? You’re fine.” My cousin dropped her voice, mimicking mine. “Well, Rosie’s fine, too. And by the way, she hasn’t told me whatever is wrong with you. That’s who my best friend is, loyal to a fault.”

The memory of her beautiful face, looking at me with hope as she asked me to be with her, to come with me, flashed behind my eyes. And I… God, I wanted to break something. I struggled for air, too. I didn’t deserve her loyalty.

Taco nuzzled my leg, demanding my attention, so I resumed the scratching.

“Lo sé, chico,” I murmured. Then I told Lina, “Okay, if that’s all then…”

“Wow,” Lina spat. “Just wow. You really are a bigger idiot than I thought you were.”

“I don’t have time for this—”

“No,” she cut me off. And the change in her voice was clear as day. I was going to listen to whatever she had called me to say. And if I hung up, she’d find a way. “You know you deserve to hear you’re being an idiot. That’s why you haven’t had the balls to pick up or return my calls. Because you don’t want to hear the truth. Because if you did hear the truth, you might open your eyes and see things differently and you might end up having to really dig into that hard head of yours.”

My jaw clamped shut.

Relentless, she continued, “I told you, Lucas. I warned you. I said, If you hurt her, I’ll murder you. Rosie’s my best friend. She’s my family here in New York. She was all I had before Aaron.” A pause, and I could tell, she was trying to rein it in. “And I wasn’t joking. I should want to murder you. But I said all of that when I assumed you two were just secretly fucking each other’s brains out. For fun.”

“It wasn’t like that.” I grunted. “It never was.”

“I know,” she admitted. “I know that now. That’s the only reason why I might not try to kill you. Because now I know the whole story.”

I was almost scared to ask. “The whole story?”

“Yes, Lucas. The experiment you two had going on,” she said, and her tone shifted, like she could no longer hide her emotions. “Rosie told me about it. Told me everything. Every single thing you did for her. All the dates. The record store? Alessandro’s? The rooftop?”

My eyelids fell shut at the memories. “I… I didn’t mean for this to happen, Lina. I didn’t want to hurt her. I’d never…” My voice cracked. “She’s… so much more than… She’s Rosie.” My breathing turned labored, the tears I’d fought so hard to keep at bay rushing to my eyes, so the best I could manage was to repeat my words. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

My cousin remained silent for a long moment. So long that I thought that was all, that this was it, that she’d had her say and now I was left alone.

But then she sighed, and the sound was so sad that I almost severed the call myself. “Lucas…” She trailed off, and I could picture her shaking her head. “You couldn’t predict that you two would do all of this and she would fall head over heels in love with you?”

My world halted.

Just like when I’d spotted her in that terminal as she ran toward me. Or when I’d kissed her and I hadn’t even felt the water pouring down on us—hadn’t even cared. Or when she’d told me that she missed me when I ran to her apartment at one in the morning.

Only this time was different, because the gravity, the meaning, of what I was hearing was… too much.

She would fall head over heels in love with you?

My limbs felt numb.

My chest too tight.

I was no longer sure if I was sitting, standing, or lying on the floor. I couldn’t even tell if the phone had slipped off my hand until Lina’s voice somehow made it through the haze.

“You’re telling me,” Lina said, “that you took her to Zarato, managed to somehow convince the owner to let you use their greenhouse, hung lights, and installed a projector just so you could re-create the night she’d wished she’d met you, and you didn’t think this could happen?”

Lina’s words were barely registering in my head, merely getting in and out, my mind still processing—stuck on—what she’d said earlier.