Page 1 of Cava with My Colleague

1

Jade

The last person I want to see when I’m walking out of a sex shop in Madrid’s vibrant Chueca neighborhood is my stuffy colleague.

Actually, I don’t see him, and that’s the problem. I was too busy with my bags and the door of the tienda erotica and when I turn and slam face-first into a wall of black fabric, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s not a wall—it’s a man. A tall man in black, walking a black dog on a black leash.

In my defense, the restaurant across the corner is black. It’s like urban camouflage, and if it were nighttime I’d be screaming for help and pulling out my pepper spray. But it’s mid-afternoon and there’s a break in the dreary winter drizzle, so the sidewalk is busy. Instead of shouting I gasp and straighten.

And that man is not a stranger.

“Jade?” Carlos asks in that oddly flat tone I’ve come to expect from him.

Where my mouth and eyes create perfect Os, just like the surprised emoji, Carlos’s eyebrows are drawn down, a deep V of tidy, inky-black hair over deep brown eyes. He’s taller than me—about a foot over my five-four—and over a decade older, so his hair is shot through with gray, giving him a silver fox appeal.

“Carlos, hola.”

The dog steps forward for its own greeting. It’s a black Lab, with a white muzzle and a stocky frame. Its tail is thick and solid, whacking aggressively against Carlos’s leg while it prances, gazing up at us. Manuel—Manu to his Spanish friends, Manny to his American students—my Spanish tutor and today’s shopping friend, bends down to pet the dog and coo at it.

Carlos turns his head, surveying the store we’ve just come out of. His gaze sweeps over the shop’s rainbow-lit windows. I went in on a whim. That’s how I do most things—I was walking past, the window display caught my eye, and twenty minutes later I’m walking out with a paper bag and a slightly elevated heart rate. Manny has learned to keep up.

For half a second, something flickers across Carlos’s face—not quite judgment, not quite . . . longing? But then it was gone, replaced by that same careful blankness he’d worn the day I asked him to coffee.

When I’d suggested that we get to know each other outside of the office, he’d looked at me like I’d invited him to commit corporate espionage. “That wouldn’t be appropriate,” he’d said, and avoided me ever since.

Apparently buying sex accessories in Chueca on a Saturday was equally inappropriate in Carlos’s world, based on the look he’s giving me.

Then he looks down at the neon blue bags Manny and I both carry, obviously matching the storefront, and his face morphs into that look you get when you smell a potently bad fart and know exactly who was responsible.

Oh wait, someone did fart. I think it was the dog.

Regardless, the look on his face—like he’d just confirmed every unprofessional suspicion he’d ever had about me—makes something hot and uncomfortable twist in my chest.

I didn’t survive cancer and grad school to get embarrassed about a sex toy.

But one look from Mr. Perfect in his pressed black coat, and I feel like I’m back in middle school, caught doing something shameful.

Fuck that.

I lift my chin and give him my brightest smile.

“Carlos, this is my friend, Manny. Manny, this is Carlos. We work together.”

Manny has set his bag and umbrella on the ground to free up his hands for the dog.

He looks up at Carlos. “What is his name?” he asks in Spanish. Then he does a double take, looking Carlos up and down before giving me a look. Manny’s almost obnoxiously handsome, with dark hair, thick eyebrows, and killer cheekbones. He’s my closest friend in Madrid and happily engaged to a lovely man I’ve met a few times.

“Izan.”

Manny takes Izan’s cheeks in his hands and rubs them, speaking soft Spanish words of praise to the cute boy. “Oh, eres una monada.”

I return my attention to Carlos. “Izan is yours?” I ask, carefully pronouncing it like Carlos did—E-zahn—and Carlos raises an eyebrow. “I just would not have pictured you to be a dog person. You give off cat energy.”

Carlos’s lips tighten. Is he offended? Like cat energy is a bad thing. One of my best friends, Emma, has a neighbor with a black cat who occasionally escapes over into her apartment.

I don’t have a lot of experience with either species. When you travel a lot for work, pets are difficult. Besides, after my year working in China, I had always hoped to live abroad again, and a cat or dog is a one- or two-decade-long tether. Dogs even more so than cats. Regular feeding, energetic playtime, walking multiple times a day . . .

“Wait, you’re walking your dog. Do you live here?”