He told her he wasn’t sure what time they’d be back from the wildlife park, but that he’d text her, and then he noticed Pedro’s shadow through the pane of glass in the study door. Ines’s husband hadn’t emerged yet. Usually he came to the door to see Gabriel when he arrived to collect Javi.
‘What’s he working on?’ he asked Ines. Ines looked away and crossed her arms.
‘I don’t know... Something.’
Gabriel knew that tone of voice. She had something on her mind. ‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, slinging Javi’s pack onto his shoulder. Instincts primed, he watched her carefully as she studied her nails a second and blew air through her nose, sending her mass of black curls out around her slanted cheekbones. OK, so everything was not all right. In fact, it looked a lot as though he might have interrupted an argument or something, but it wasn’t his place to bring it up.
‘Bye, Pedro,’ he called to the closed door. Pedro’s shadow raised a hand from his chair but still he didn’t get up.
Gabriel forgot about it as soon as they were in the car. He was already focused on thoughts of Ana again. She hadn’t exactly left his head all morning but now he was wondering...would it be crazy and way too impulsive if he invited her on their day out today? She couldn’t be spending all day working, it was too nice outside for that, and Javi would love it if she came. The wildlife park was suitable for wheelchairs, too.
Temaiken was one of his favourite places to explore with Javi. The wildlife sanctuary and conservation centre was home to a pretty impressive collection of habitats, and each one had been fastidiously designed to replicate the native environments of its furry, scaly, or feathered residents. He could already picture them all strolling through the lush, tropical rainforests. Maybe he would steal a kiss from Ana in a desert, or beside one of the ponds or waterfalls. Hell, he could at least ask her to come, right, even if he was getting ahead of himself? he thought as he drove.
Javi was jabbering to himself in the back seat as Gabriel pulled up outside Ana’s place. Ines lived on the other side of Recoleto but he’d do a loop for Ana. Standing on her door step, he told his pounding heart to calm down, and it almost took the words from his mouth when she opened the door and looked up at him in surprise.
‘Couldn’t keep away from me, could you?’ she said with a flushed smile, which he was sure he returned, though he was mildly distracted by another colourful headband and bright-blue sneakers that matched the pattern on her T-shirt.
‘Javi’s in the car. He was wondering if you’d like to join us at the wildlife park?’ he asked hopefully. Ana studied him closely from her chair and he wished he could read her mind. Was that a trace of apprehension in her eyes? Was her heart beating as hard as his? He wasn’t quite sure he’d ever felt this nervous on a woman’s door step before; she was doing strange things to his insides, even fully dressed.
‘Javi wants me to come, huh?’
‘Absolutely. Me, I don’t want you to at all, but I promised him I’d ask.’
Ana laughed softly and rolled her eyes. ‘I had a few things to do, you know, but...’
She let her words falter and trail off, then failed to hide a smile behind her hair as she shook her head. ‘Let me just grab my bag.’
They chatted light-heartedly in the car, Ana’s wheelchair folded neatly in the back while she sat beside Gabriel in the front. Even though he knew she was making an effort to seem normal in front of Javi, who was delighted she was joining them, Gabriel knew she must be thinking the same kind of things as him. He’d known last night, in the restaurant, that if he walked her home he would end up kissing her; and he’d known, when he’d kissed her, that if he asked her back for tea they wouldn’t actually end up drinking any. He’d taken a risk, putting their friendship on the line, but he couldn’t have helped it, even if he’d tried. Which he hadn’t. Well, not very hard, anyway.
He reckoned, if he’d left it too long before initiating something like this, it might get even weirder. They still had to work together, at least for the next few days until she could find another locum.
The sun hung high in the clear Buenos Aires sky as he flashed their tickets and they walked through the entrance gates of Temaiken. The sound of gently flowing water filled his ears and just ahead the vibrant reds and greens of exotic birds squawking and preening in a giant aviary set the scene for the tropical gardens in one direction. A sign with a lion on it made Javi race in the other direction and Gabriel followed beside Ana’s chair, careful not to try and help her.
She hated that. But she hadn’t minded him carrying her up and down his stairs last night and, if he was honest, he’d loved that part the most. There’d been something far more intimate about her actually letting him help her, and care for her, than the act of sex itself.
‘This place is really something, isn’t it? I haven’t been here in years,’ Ana said, her eyes wide with amazement as Javi pointed in excitement at the lion enclosure.
His infectious enjoyment spread and soon they found themselves talking and laughing their way around the park, weaving in between other groups of friends and families and taking silly photos around the enclosures: of a llama with its tongue out, a goat chomping on a bale of hay and a snake curled around a branch in the glare of an orange bulb in the reptile house. Sometimes it was as if nothing had happened between them last night, as though they were still just platonic friends having a day out for old times’ sake. But every now and then she would catch his eye and he’d feel it in his blood—something was different. An indelible line had been drawn through that friendship status and now he just wanted to kiss her again.
‘It tickles!’ Javi laughed as a huge red-and-brown-speckled butterfly landed on his outstretched palm.
‘Hold still, very still,’ Ana told him, grinning in wonder as she tried to take another photo on her phone. They were in the butterfly enclosure now, and the sweet scent of tropical flowers filled the air in the huge greenhouse. Javi was enchanted, reaching out to try and touch them as they fluttered by. He rarely managed; they were so fast they could barely even capture any on camera, though Ana was trying her best, to her credit.
‘I remember what it was like to be that carefree,’ she said with a small sigh as Javi ran up ahead of them after another butterfly. ‘Running around...with you.’ She turned to him now, and the sudden sadness in her eyes made him reach for her hand.
‘Before your accident,’ he said softly.
She nodded in silence, squeezing his fingers against the arm of her chair. ‘Everything can change so quickly. You can’t let any moments pass you by, Gabriel.’
Her eyes were fixed on Javi now, but when she flicked her gaze back to his he knew she was talking about them, too. Things had changed for them pretty much overnight. They hadn’t let that moment pass them by, even though they both knew it would have long-reaching consequences.
He knelt in front of her quickly, taking both her hands in his. ‘Are you all right, about what happened?’ he asked, running his eyes over her mouth as she drew the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth.
‘Papa, look!’ Javi was calling him again.
‘One sec, buddy!’ Fixing his eyes on Ana, he ran a thumb over her knuckles and dared to lean closer. Suddenly he was suppressing the need to kiss clean away any doubts she might be having about how much last night had meant to him, because he could see them written all over her face. Filling his lungs, he stepped closer and leaned in towards her mouth. But Ana moved her head, causing his lips to find her cheek instead. He paused for a moment, struggling for equanimity amongst the bustle of the crowds before getting to his feet. She probably wished she hadn’t come here with them now.
‘We shouldn’t,’ she whispered, nodding towards Javi, as shame coursed through him. She was right, Javi was here—not that he thought his son would care, but if it got back to Ines that he was going around kissing women in front of him she might have something to say about it... She might think Gabriel was a bad influence on him, and use it as another excuse in her armoury to ask for full custody, if it came to it.
‘Sorry, you’re right,’ he said, wondering now if she was just trying not to get too close to him in front of Javi, or if she actually regretted last night. Ana smiled wistfully, watching a giant Blue Morpho butterfly that had landed on her knee. It matched the shade of her shoes. For a few moments they let the silence envelop them, an awkwardness slowly settling between them with the butterflies. It was far too hot in here.
‘You know, what happened between us doesn’t have to change anything,’ he said tightly, walking beside her towards Javi as the humid air closed in and the palms swept his shoulder, as if reminding him to stay away from her.
‘I hope it doesn’t,’ she whispered back, shooting him another apprehensive glance. ‘I really, really value your friendship, Gabriel, I always have. I was perhaps a bit...forward.’
He nodded, feeling slightly offended and bruised despite himself. All he’d heard was a reiteration of that word: friendship. Maybe he had been building this up in his head into something it wasn’t. This amazing woman had just been excited about the first week at the clinic going so well, and at being surrounded by so many people who admired her and were out to celebrate her achievements. They’d both just got swept up on a wave, and he told her so.
‘It was still a great night—all of it, not just the end part,’ he added, leaving room for her to agree with him.
Instead she was quiet. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked after a moment.
Was he? He would just have to be, wouldn’t he? No point making a big deal out of it now.
‘Of course. And I value what we have too, Ana; I always have done. Maybe we shouldn’t have...’
‘You’re right, we got carried away,’ she said quickly, though she wouldn’t meet his eyes now. ‘We shouldn’t have done that, really. Friends don’t sleep together.’
‘Right.’
