“What you look like?” Mayra sighed loudly. “Matthew, I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you are saying.”
“About what I look like with my shirt off!” I finally yelled.
Mayra’s eyes were wide when I looked at her, and her mouth was hanging open slightly.
“Matthew…”
“What else did you tell people about me?” I asked quietly. At this point, I just wanted it all out in the open.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing at all, really. Even that was…well, nothing.”
“Nothing?” I repeated as I glanced at her sideways.
Mayra huffed out another breath and then spoke in one long sentence.
“Carmen was being a bitch, like she does, and said there was no way you could have saved me from a whole group of guys, and she said she doubted any of it happened at all. I said she was a fucking moron, and if any of them had seen you with your shirt off, they’d know how fucking built you were and how well you can handle yourself.”
She grumbled inaudibly and ran her fingers through her hair.
“That’s all I said,” she told me. “Nothing else at all, I swear.”
Mayra leaned back against the couch cushions, and my head spun around like the girl’s in The Exorcist. Once Mayra explained what had happened, I knew she had just been ticked off, and all of that had just come out of her mouth—probably in a fashion similar to how she repeated it to me. If that was all she had actually said, then I really didn’t have anything to be mad about, and I had no reason to doubt her.
“That was it?” I asked softly.
“That was it.”
“Oh,” I said. I realized I probably needed to say something else now because I had been mad, and we had probably just had our first fight. The problem was, I had no idea what I was supposed to do or say when it was over. Was it over? How did I know? I wasn’t mad anymore, but I was still a little embarrassed by what those girls had said. That wasn’t Mayra’s fault, though. I couldn’t blame that on her.
“What is going on in that head?” Mayra whispered as she reached out and pushed my hair off my forehead. I met her eyes for a moment and smiled.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I said with a snicker. “It’s okay, I think. I just…don’t know what I’m supposed to say now. What am I supposed to do now?”
“Now?”
“I mean now that we’re not fighting.”
Mayra’s lips smashed together, and her eyes sparkled with humor.
“Well, I believe ‘kiss and make up’ is tradition.”
“It is?” I asked. I thought that was reserved for movies.
“It is,” Mayra confirmed. She touched my cheek as her mouth covered mine. I found her waist with my hands and pulled her a little closer to me. As the warmth of her mouth left me, I heard her soft voice.
“You’re really not mad?” she asked with trepidation.
“I’m not mad,” I said. Mayra leaned in and brushed her lips over mine. I could feel her smile against my mouth before she trailed kisses over my jaw. My heart began to beat faster, and my skin got warm and tingly.
“You really are damn hot shirtless,” Mayra whispered against my cheek.
My skin tingled with her words. When the other girls were saying things about me, I felt incredibly uncomfortable, but hearing Mayra say the words was completely different. I was nervous, but not in the same way.
Without thinking, I pulled my shirt up over my head.
We had never been like this before. The time when Mayra was at my house and I had been hitting the bag wasn’t the same even though we were on the same couch and similarly dressed, or rather undressed.
Without moving, I kept my eyes on her hands as Mayra reached out and lay her fingertips against my shoulders, then slowly moved down over my chest and down to my abs. There was a slight smile on her face, and I saw her tongue dart out to lick her lips.