❝she says you gotta promise not to break,
no matter how far you are bent.❞
❘❘
I DON'T KNOW HIS NAME. I only know that he offered to buy me a drink.
A smile toys at my lips as I trace the edge of the glass with one finger, peering up at him through dark lashes. Those bright blue eyes meet mine—crystallized pools of ice, somehow clean and pure and beautifully simple. With a crooked grin and a quirked brow, he snickers. "So Neva, what are you doing here at two in the afternoon on a Wednesday?"
The question catches me off guard, but I mask it with a faint laugh. "Mmmm. I'm talking to you, sí?"
"Funny," he says, his lips twitching. "I'm serious. What do you do for work that lets you drink in the middle of the day?"
I cock my head to the side. "What do you do for work that lets you drink in the middle of the day?"
A blush floods up through his cheeks. Too easy. "Nice deflection. I'm actually freelance."
"Freelance." Slowly, I tip the glass to my lips, never letting my gaze fall from his. "What kind of freelance?"
He shrugs. "Audio."
The liquid burns down my throat, chasing the numbness of a chilling crash, warming my blood and my breath with a distant buzz in my veins. "Mmmm."
"Neva," he drawls my name too fucking softly. Something in my stomach lurches. Why does it sound so... so... wrong? "It's a pretty name."
My heart stutters. "Nieve is snow in Spanish."
"Yeah?"
Fuck this conversation.
When I sauntered into this pathetic bar an hour ago, soaked to the bone, desperate to escape the icy rain and charge my fucking phone, no estaba buscando esto. I just wanted... the noise, the background noise; the lull of faint conversations around me; a million voices unraveling into a soundtrack of city sounds; the lingering confessions of lost, lonely souls.
No quería estar sola.
Gnawing on my bottom lip, I reach across the table until our hands brush. Sparks bite at my fingertips, erupting like fireworks. Contacto. "Tengo muchas ganas de besarte, papi."
Something flashes in his eyes, sombrío y tentador, but it's fleeting. A vibration shakes the table gently, and all too fucking quickly, that alluring look fades. His gaze flicks to my phone impatiently.
"Is that... important?"
Más importante que él.
When I flip the phone, my heart somersaults. Nausea swirls in the pit of my stomach as I take in the blurry snapshot of her—a halo of cotton candy colored hair framing starry eyes and a sweet smile. Big Papi.
"Yeah." My voice cracks, but I shoot him a weak smile. "Yeah, sorry. I've gotta take this."
Clumsily, I snag the cord from the wall and stagger out of the booth. As I accept the call, ducking my chin down and swiveling to the hall beside the bar, my breath hitches. "Emmy, hey, I—"
"Neva, where the hell have you been?"
I still in front of the bathroom door, taken aback by the tremble in her voice—a frantic, fiercely protective edge. "I... I've been..."
¿Dónde he estado?
"Your phone has been off," she hisses. "I've been trying to get a hold of you for days."
YOU ARE READING
Snow
RomanceWhen Neva Álvarez moves to Queens, she's merely biding her time between bartending and dodging her brother's phone calls before her final year at NYU, and with the summer dwindling to an end, it's difficult not to find herself drawn to her new next...
