Here You Come Again Read online

  Javier quietly retreated to his corner of the house, where he and his little family had stayed for nearly four years: a two-bedroom, one-bath wing that now was only used by him. He paused by the door to his daughter’s room, placing a hand on a picture she had drawn for him. Javier had kept the door closed since Natalie had left with Izzy in the spring. It hurt too bad to know that she might never play there or laugh there or sleep there again.

  Exhausted, Javier headed to the bathroom and stripped off his scrubs to wash away the day under a stream of water as hot as he could stand it. He never really felt clean enough after a shift at the hospital, and often worried whether he would carry anything home to his aging parents or young daughter. When he had taken out nearly forty thousand dollars in loans to get his nursing degree all those years ago, things like safety had never occurred to him. The thought that he would be stuck living at home with his parents, drowning in student-loan debt and child-support payments, had never occurred to him either.

  Javier finished his scalding shower, dried off, and flopped into his bed, trying to cast all of the mounting worries from his mind. His eyes fell on the Southeast Latin American Flavors first-place award hanging over his desk and he scowled at the layer of dust that had accumulated on the engraved plaque. That year had been a tough one for Javier; he had been struggling to finish school and things weren’t going well between him and his ex. The birth of his daughter and the win at the prestigious competition had been high points for him during that time, though. With work and parenting dominating his life for the last few years, Javier had lost interest in pursuing his culinary ambitions, and most of his other interests for that matter.

  Unable to sleep, Javier allowed his thoughts to drift instead back to his coffee mix-up with Lissa; seeing her smile up at him was probably the one and only bright spot in his day. It occurred to him that even if he did see the pretty blonde again downtown somewhere or at the café, he had no business saying anything to her. It would be pointless. He had nothing to offer anyone. No time. No money. No energy or enthusiasm for life. As Javier drifted off into a restless sleep that night, he tried to ignore his broken, hopeless heart. Tomorrow would be another day to push forward and make the best of things. It was all he could do.

  ***

  “Merry Christmas, Daddy!”

  “Merry Christmas,” Javier said, smiling into his self-facing camera. “See you soon, baby. Let me talk to your mama.”

  “Okay,” three-year-old Izzy said, handing the phone over to Natalie. Javier did not care to speak to his ex — and especially on Christmas day — but she was the gateway to his daughter and they had a mountain of unfinished business between them. The woman he used to love came into view on his screen, her lips pressed together tightly and her caramel hair pulled into a high ponytail. It was a face he used to find attractive, but now her sharp features and piercing brown eyes only made him feel numb.

  “When can I see Izzy again?” Javier asked, getting down to the point.

  “Well, merry Christmas to you, too,” she said, looking away from the camera. “Can’t we just do this over text?”

  “No, I need to talk to you face-to-face,” Javier insisted. “When can I see her?”

  “You can come here anytime you like.” She shrugged. “I’m not keeping her from you.”

  “You moved an hour away! It’s not exactly easy for me,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I have the day after tomorrow off. Can I come and spend time with her then?”

  Natalie let out a deep sigh. “I guess,” she said.

  “We need to work out a schedule where she sees me,” he said. “We can’t keep going on like this.”

  “Javier, I don’t want to talk about this now. It’s Christmas.”

  Heat pricked at Javier’s cheeks and his pulse pumped furiously in his neck as he struggled to contain his anger. He was stuck at a hospital and had to call his daughter over video chat on his break, a situation that left him equally helpless and upset. He didn’t need her to tell him what day it was; he knew all too well. The emptiness Javier experienced being without his family on one of his favorite days of the year weighed on him like a stone on his heart.

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Bye.”

  Natalie unceremoniously ended their call, leaving Javier alone with his gingerbread latté in the nearly empty hospital café. He was grateful the café stayed open year-round for unfortunate essential workers like himself. Still he couldn’t help but feel a little guilty and bad for the barista behind the counter, who appeared to be just as miserable as he felt. It was the same barista that had prepared his beverage a few days before. The same barista that had prepared Lissa’s beverage.

  What the hell, Javier thought as he rose from his chair. The vivacious blonde had haunted his thoughts for the past three days, flitting in and out of his mind like a song heard in passing. He was dying to know something about her — anything — but had no clue where to start. In a city as big as Miami, he might never see her again, and it had become apparent to him over the past few days that she wasn’t going to leave his thoughts anytime soon. Someone had to know something about her, and this seemed as good a place as any to start.

  “Excuse me,” Javier said, catching the barista’s attention. She looked up from her phone, startled. Javi’s eyes darted to the name tag.

  “Sky. Hi. I don’t know if you remember me from the other day. You made a gingerbread latté for me and another woman? We accidentally swapped orders?”

  “You mean you accidentally picked up her order?” She smirked. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “Oh, good!” Javier said, feeling a genuine smile spread across his face. “I know this is going to sound really inappropriate, and you don’t have to answer, but… have you ever seen her before?”

  Sky laughed a little through her nose, shaking her head.

  “What?” Javier said, defensively, his smile fading. “What’s so funny?”

  “You think you’re the only guy that has ever come in here asking about some woman’s coffee order?”

  “Come on, Sky!” he pleaded, his hands in prayer position. “She told me her name was Lissa but that’s all I got.”

  Sky looked Javier up and down as if sizing him up with one pierced eyebrow raised.

  ”I’m not a weirdo, I swear. Please. It’s Christmas.”

  “Addison!” Sky crossed her arms and called behind her. A young woman with blue hair in a pixie cut emerged from the back room with a stack of napkins in her hand.

  “What’s up?”

  “Hey, don’t you go to the gym with that woman that comes in here and orders the lattés? You know, the one with the accent?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Addison nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Lissa. She’s super sweet.”

  “Wait, what gym?” Javier asked, his eyes darting between the two baristas. “The hospital gym?”

  “Yeah, I see her there all the… time,” Addison said, shooting Sky a worried look. “Wait, you’re not going to stalk her or anything, right?”

  Javier winced.

  “No, god. Nothing like that. I was just… asking about her,” he said, letting out a groan. “Listen, I’m not a creep, I promise.”

  “It’s kind of sweet, Addy,” Sky said, looking back at her coworker over her shoulder. “They grabbed each other’s coffees. It was actually really cute. Like right out of a movie.”

  “Aww,” Addison sighed, refilling the napkin station. “Well, she’s really nice and she goes to the gym, but that’s all I know about her.”

  “That’s good enough for me,” Javier said, brightening again. “Sorry. Thank you. Ugh… this must seem so weird.”

  “It’s okay.” Sky shrugged. “When you work behind a counter you get to sense people’s vibes. You have a good vibe.”

  Javier forced a smile. He wasn’t sure if that was a compliment, but he would take it.

  “Well, I gotta get ba
ck in there,” he said, pulling his wallet from his pocket. He stuffed two five-dollar bills in the tip jar for good measure. “Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas,” the two baristas parroted back, returning to their work.

  As Javier passed the self-serve cream-and-sugar station, an awkward smile still plastered across his face, the memory of Lissa laughing from behind a pile of napkins came back to him, her eyes sparkling as coffee dripped down her chin. It was only a brief encounter, but in that moment he had experienced something familiar and sweet that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He wanted to feel that way again.

  Javier poured out the rest of his unfinished, overly sweet beverage and tossed the empty cup into the recycling bin. It was time for a change, and he knew it. No more syrupy-sweet drinks. No more midnight pizzas. No more pity parties and hiding away from the world. It was time to take care of himself again, and his Christmas trip to the café had made it very clear exactly how he should start. Javier wasn’t one to typically set a New Year’s resolution, but this time around, he was ready. He decided then and there that it was time to give the gym a try and make taking care of himself a priority. Even if he never ran into the pretty café customer again, something told Javier that this was the universe's way of kicking him into gear. It was fate stepping in and telling him that now was the time to make a change for himself, and for good.

  As Javier walked back into work that lonely Christmas night, a new sense of purpose began to uncoil deep within him. He was going to see his daughter soon and do whatever was necessary to keep her in his life. He was going to start working out at the gym and get back the energy and enthusiasm he needed to be the person he used to be. And maybe, if he got his Christmas wish this year, he might run into a pretty Southern blonde named Lissa along the way who could help him smile.

  For the first time in a long time, Javier Abrantes truly had hope.

  Chapter Three

  Lissa was all too happy to return to Miami the day after New Year’s Eve, a good five pounds heavier but content just the same. Christmas with her family in Wears Valley, Tennessee, always had a way of making her miss home, but after a week in the frigid Smoky Mountain weather, she was ready to get back to sunny Florida. She was also ready to get back to the gym, and maybe even catch a glimpse of a certain tall, dark, and sweet Jackson Memorial Hospital nurse at the nearby café.

  “Your hair looks good today, sugar.”

  Lissa blinked as a petite blonde woman in a sparkling corset and button-down Western-style shirt lowered herself into the empty seat next to her on the plane. She settled into a reclining position, opened an old issue of Country Music Magazine, and began to flip through the pages with perfectly manicured hands.

  “You know, I was on the cover of this darn thing about a dozen times? I just love getting dressed up for a photo shoot.”

  “Hi, Dolly,” Lissa said without opening her mouth again. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, you know I had to go home to Pigeon Forge for Christmas too! Time to get back to work though….”

  “Work?”

  “Yes, silly. Why do you think I’m here?”

  Lissa blinked and looked around the half-empty plane. No one else seemed to notice the sparkling icon seated right next to her.

  “Are you really here?”

  “Well, you tell me,” Dolly said, sitting up and returning the magazine to the seat back. “Reality is only what we make it.”

  “Am I crazy then?”

  Dolly smiled at her and shook her head.

  “We’re all a little crazy. You’re just stressed is all, and I’m here to help you cope. It’s been a rough couple of years.”

  Lissa snorted through her nose and leaned back in her seat.

  “You can say that again.”

  “So listen, I’m going to head to the ladies’ room, but I just wanted to pop in and let you know that if you ever have any trouble, you can just call on me,” Dolly said, giving her a reassuring pat on the arm.

  “Okay?” Lissa said, scrunching up her nose. “Thank you?”

  “Think nothing of it,” Dolly said, standing up, the tassels on the side seam of her jeans swishing back and forth as she exited the row. “Oh, and one more thing. Make sure you wear your cutest workout outfit when you visit the gym tomorrow. You know, the one with the mesh panels.”

  With a wink, a flash of glitter, and a sway of fringe, Dolly zipped down the aisle of the plane and disappeared into the back. Lissa craned her neck to see if anyone else on the flight noticed a living legend walking down the aisle, but no one so much as turned their head. Lissa shrugged and focused her attention back to the window, taking in the scenery below. The clouds parted, revealing the winding roads and the grid of the Miami cityscape flanked by the blue Atlantic Ocean just beyond the wing. She was nearly home and itching to get back to work and back to her own bed, and, like Dolly suggested, back to the gym. Something told her that, now more than ever, she needed to stay focused and keep pushing forward. As her mother always said, it didn’t make sense to walk through fire to come out the other side and be sad.

  It was January first, and Lissa closed her eyes, trying to remind herself that she had a whole new year in front of her. A year of possibilities. A year to turn around and make things right again. Maybe even a year to fall in love. No matter what, Lissa was determined to make it a year full of good.

  ***

  “Gloria, I’m heading to the gym!”

  Lissa waved to her floor manager as she walked out the front door of Curvature the following day bundled in her favorite faux-fur coat and knee-high boots. The January weather had turned chilly even for the subtropics, making Lissa wonder whether or not Florida was really any better than Tennessee. As she strolled down the familiar city block she traversed every day, Lissa nodded to her neighboring shop owners, eyed the blue sky through the towering buildings, and remembered why she had made Miami her home so many years ago. Miami was diverse and colorful and offered her the kind of life she could never have had in her rural hometown. Even though she didn’t quite enjoy the South Beach club scene as much as she used to in her younger days, the bustle of living in such a high-paced, culturally rich area gave Lissa life.

  As she had suspected, the gym was fully packed with determined-looking patrons that day, each working toward New Year's weight-loss and fitness goals, no doubt. Even at an odd time in the early afternoon, the treadmills were fully occupied, the exercise machines were all in use, and the free-weight stations were jammed with beefy, muscle-bound bros. It had been a while since Lissa had had to wait for a treadmill, but she was still happy to take it slow after a week of her mother’s biscuits and gravy.

  After changing into her best workout gear, as Dolly had suggested, Lissa emerged from the locker room invigorated and ready to get back on track. She had her water bottle, her towel, and a new audiobook downloaded and ready to go as she headed out onto the gym floor. As if on cue, a treadmill opened up as she approached the line of walking and jogging patrons. With her face buried in her phone, searching for the new self-help audiobook she had been listening to, Lissa didn’t even notice that the treadmill to her right was being used by a very sweaty but very familiar face.

  “Hi.”

  Lissa blinked and looked up from her phone as she stepped onto the belt of the treadmill and instantly broke into a smile. There, in a sleeveless black tee and black basketball shorts, drenched in sweat and looking like a dream, was none other than Javier. Lissa opened her mouth to return the greeting, but found herself speechless as she fully took in the sight of him. Truthfully she had never seen Javier out of his nurse scrubs until that moment and always had a hard time picturing what he might wear on his days off. Now, as she eyed his casual street clothes and flushed, sweaty complexion, the heady combination of cotton, nylon, and masculine perspiration was almost more than she could bear.

  “Hello,” she finally managed, placing her phone and ear
buds on the treadmill caddy. “I… I didn’t know you went to this gym.”

  “Just started,” he huffed, mashing the buttons on the display. Within a few moments his gait slowed from a jog to a moderate walk. “New Year’s resolution.”

  “That’s great.” Lissa nodded, turning her heated face away to program her own machine. Normally she started out at six mph, but she decided to match Javier’s speed.

  “I come here all the time.”

  “Nice,” he said, breathlessly dabbing at his forehead with a towel. “Maybe that’s where I remembered you from before. I could have sworn back at the café that I knew you from somewhere.”

  “Ha, maybe,” she said, taking a sip of water.

  Tell him, Lissa! Just tell him!

  Lissa caught a glimpse of her reflection in the full-length mirrors lining the free-weight-station wall. Her hair was a different color than it used to be, her body was a different shape than before, and she assumed she must be at least a decade older than this beautiful man by her side. No amount of self-help books or therapy had guided her past the nagging notion in the back of her mind that others would view her as broken and old if they knew she had been sick. It was still far too soon in her mind to admit to this much-younger man that she was attracted to that, yes, she was the plus-sized brunette patient he had waved to and smiled at so many months before in the oncology ward. Still, with Javier at her side and a new year on the horizon, Lissa tried her best to ignore the negative voice in her head. She brushed aside the nagging notion to tell him who she was and forged on just the same.