Sequel: Heartlines ›
Status: Undergoing a rewrite
Sun & Moon
Uno
Chicago was nothing like Miami. That was Catalina’s first thought when she had entered the city. Miami, while large, busy and filled with towering buildings like Chicago, was filled with color, palm trees and that unmistakable motif of something Spanish. Chicago was filled with people driving down the street like nuts, a lot of people talking in a typical American accent, and most people not paying any attention or too much attention to Catalina.
Buildings towered over her. It wasn’t enough that Catalina was only five feet two inches tall, but the buildings were complete monsters next to her. Steel monsters with windows as eyes and spinning doors as mouths, gaping and breathing people in as well as spitting them out.
Arms filled with files and papers that she had just picked up from the post office, Catalina was hurrying down the street to her new apartment. She had just moved in three days before, the place fully furnished through her connections with an interior designer. Catalina just had work business to get in order before she started as a new public relationships representative for the Chicago Blackhawks, a hockey team that she was teaching herself the ins and out of.
After two years working with the Miami Dolphins, Catalina knew Blackhawks were going to be a breeze. She specialized in crisis communication, dealing with players who did not know how to remain professional outside of work and using her pretty pink tongue to spin stories in favor for teams who were having a bad light shinned on them. Some people called Catalina a liar, she called herself an optimist.
Ringing went off in Catalina’s purse. Making an annoyed sound she tried to shuffle the large accordion file in her arms, trying not to drop papers or spill files. Tilting her arm at a strange angle, she tried to stick a hand in the top of her purse to retrieve her phone, making a sound of annoyance as she had some difficulty.
Heels clicking, Catalina managed to grab the phone from her purse. She swiped her finger across the screen, shoved the phone on her shoulder, pinning it there with her cheek. “Dime?” she asked in clipped Spanish, attempting to get her purse back on her arm. “I’ve got my hands full, so que sea rápido.”
“Hi to you too,” Catalina’s brother said, his laughter shinning through the phone. She could imagine that he was leaning on the wall on the green fields of Sunlife Stadium, watching practices as Coach Philbin ran practice. “No love for your dear hermano?”
“Oh shut up,” she quipped, rolling her eyes. She managed to get her purse on her arm, losing grip of the file in her hand that contained contracts and signed information based on the terms of her employment. One page with her signed terms of agreement fluttered into the street. “Hijo de puta!”
“Hey your mother is my mother!”
“Not you!” She yelled into the phone, bolting into the street to grab the paper. A car beeped at her and she flicked them off, trying to run in strappy St. Laurent shoes to catch the paper. She stomped her foot down on it, pinning it to the pavement in the middle of an intersection. Cars were beeping at her but she didn’t care, bending to get the important piece of paper. “Like I said, you called me when I had my hands full.”
“You’ve been there for three days, how are you busy, chula?”
“Because I’ve got papers, and more papers, and you know how it goes. Why are you calling me anyways? Do you miss your little sister?”
Andre chuckled on the other side of the line. Catalina stood up, horns blaring and people rolling down the windows to scream at her. She made unkind gestures that revolved around the crotchal region before hurrying out of the street and back onto the sidewalk, walking steadily and shoving papers in her bag.
“I just worry about you being in a big city by yourself.”
“I’m not by myself. Erin is waiting for me at home for lunch.”
“You know what I mean, chula.”
Catalina sighed. She did know what Andre meant. He was three years older than her at age 29 but Andre Suarez worried about his little sister more than anything else in the world. He had helped raise her and helped train her into the strong young woman she was. And she was thankful for that, really. But he also was overbearing, worried too much, gave himself stress and often wanted to kill anyone who put a hand on her. Most people deemed this a classic Cuban-American, big brother trait.
Not caring that the stoplight was green and cars were wheeling through the street, Catalina stepped out. She was in a hurry to get home, her grumbling stomach attesting to that. She flinched when a car slammed on its breaks, blaring the horn at her. A girl behind the wheel was screaming at her but Catalina flicked her off, yelling a string of obscenities in rapid Spanish that Andre laughed at.
“Please tell me you’re being careful walking around?”
Catalina sidestepped a crack in the sidewalk that almost caught her heel and sent her careening into the street. “I would be doing better if you weren’t calling every twelve hours to make sure I’m still alive. I do know how to be an adult.”
“It’s a habit.”
Catalina softened slightly. “I know, I know. I’m fine, alright? Chicago is nice, save for the people who don’t know how to drive. A woman is trying to walk, here.”
“I’m sure you’re not as good at walking as you seem to think.”
“Whatever.”
“I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”
“Yes, big brother. Te quiero mas.”
“Te quiero mas.”
Throwing the phone into her bag, Catalina huffed. She felt out of sorts and like she was about to drop everything in her hands. She waited on the sidewalk this time with two other people, staring at the small box with the digital images that would tell her when it was okay to walk. She tapped her foot impatiently, fighting the urge to bolt out into the street. Her apartment was three more blocks away, an easy distance.
When the small walking man appeared on the box, Catalina surged forward, the only legal walk that she had done within the past ten minutes. She was only three steps from the sidewalk, wondering why the walking symbol on the walking-screen had to be a boy and not a girl when the impact came. She never saw the Range Rover, but she sure as hell felt it.
White light. That’s the first thing that registered in Catalina’s mind. And a lot of pain, most exploding in the back of her head and working it’s way forward and through the rest of her body. She gasped with the sudden pain, spots filling her vision. Someone touched her arm but she couldn’t even looked at them, just looking at the light that was blinding her.
Glancing to the side, she saw a single face. It was a man and he was handsome, eyes blue as the waters off South Beach and curling hair like the soft sand that she trailed almost everywhere with him. His jaw was edged and built on a sharp plane, his lips a blush-pink and pulled between teeth as he looked at her.
“Oh my god,” Catalina croaked, the light behind him getting impossibly bright. “I’m dead. I definitely died, and this is heaven.”
“You’re not dead.” His voice was warped, like she was listening to it from a distance. Her mind was whirling, barely able to work beyond the point of the trauma her head felt like it had received. “Hey, are you still with me?”
“I’m obviously dead.” Her voice was dazed as she looked back up at him. Her body suddenly began tingling and the pain began to shift from red-hot fury to smooth, silky bliss. She felt a smile take over her face as her head began to grow heavy. “I mean there’s lots of lights and ha! You’re an angel. I definitely made it to heaven.”
The angel frowned at her. His face was growing blurry and she was trying to cling to his features, the way he didn’t know if he looked like he was supposed to laugh or be worried. She wondered what it was like to be an angel, looking down at people who were newly dead. “It’s the drugs kicking in.”
“There are drugs in heaven?” Catalina’s words were slurred, a mess of consonants. Laugher burst from her lips, high-pitched and manic. “Whaaaat? That’s crazy.”
“She’s going to lose consciousness.”
“I’m gonna take a nap. Bye angel. Naps in heaven…drugs…nnff.”
Beeping. There was certainly beeping and it was steady. It took a while for Catalina to match the beeping with the beat of her heart. There was dull pain in her head and her body felt like it had been through the woodwork. She blinked them open slowly, breathing in clean air and blinking from the brightness of the room.
To her right, there was a large wooden door. It had a file holder with papers shoved in it and a small whiteboard with C. L. Suarez written in messy handwriting. White tubes were attatched to the top of her hand, secured by a piece of tape. The tube connected to an IV, dripping lightly in the bag.
“You’re awake, thank god.”
Catalina turned to the left. There were two grey chairs that looked extremely uncomfortable pushed up against a wall with a window. One of those chairs held Erin who burst forward from the object, clinging to the end of Catalina’s bed as her brown hair hung in her face, green eyes examining Catalina herself. “You have no idea how glad I am you’re awake.”
“Makes one of us,” Catalina grumbled. “I was enjoying a nice nap. Why the hell am I in a hospital and why the hell am I not eating lunch?”
Erin scowled, throwing her thumb over her shoulder at the person occupying the other chair. He was leaning forward, biting his nails nervously as he looked at Catalina from around Erin’s figure. “This idiot hit you in the middle of a crosswalk!”
“I didn’t mean to!” he said instantly, blue eyes filling with guilt. Catalina looked at him with a guarded expression, drinking in his features. Blonde curly hair like gold, eyes the color of water and a face like heaven itself. “God I’m so sorry and I swear I’m paying for all the medical bills, I’ve got it covered and-"
“Relax.” Catalina’s voice was deadpan. She knew that he was going to pay the bills, simply because Catalina knew that he could pay the bills. The expensive watch on his wrist and the crisp designer t-shirt weren’t what told her so. “It was obviously an accident, I don’t think a complete stranger is trying to murder me via car.”
“Not at all, I took the corner and I wasn’t watching and-"
“You gave me a headache, I know.” She looked him up and down. Erin was watching the exchange with guarded eyes, clearly unsure of what Catalina was playing at. “It happens. The good thing is that I seem to be alive.”
“You did think you were dead.”
Catalina frowned. “What?”
He chewed on his lip. She had seen him do that before when she had looked him up. Catalina made it her business to look up every single Chicago Blackhawk player in detail, Patrick Kane being one of those players. “You thought you were dead when we were wheeling you in. You said…”
She raised a single brow. “I said?”
“Well you called me an angel.”
“I’m quite charming even when I’m drugged.” Catalina turned her eyes on Erin, who was still watching the exchange. Erin’s hair was waving well past her shoulders, beautiful face filled with confusion and worry, green eyes glittering. “Thank you for coming, Erzies. Let’s not tell Andre that Mr…?”
“Kane,” he offered quickly, the word bursting from his mouth. “Patrick Kane. And you’re…”
“Call me Cat.”
Patrick nodded. “Cat.”
“Anyways,” Catalina turned her severe gaze on Erin who had seemed to catch on that Catalina was not informing Patrick Kane that he was now one of her clients and that Catalina did not want him to know that she would be dealing with him closely in the near future. “Erin, let’s not tell Andre about this one, yeah? He’ll kill me, not that Patrick here hasn’t.”
Patrick winced at the joke but Catalina ignored him. Erin slowly sat down next to Patrick, regarding him with skeptical eyes and a rigid posture. Erin knew exactly who the hockey player was. She was an avid fan of the sport and new the way it worked, and yet her first concern had been to call him an idiot and glare at him reproachfully. It warmed Catalina’s heart.
“I won’t tell him,” Erin said carefully, leaning back in her chair. “You should be free to go later tonight, if the doctor says everything is alright. They gave you stitches in the back of your head. It wasn’t the car that did the damage so much as the road you were standing on.”
Catalina glanced at Patrick. “You must take corners pretty slow.”
Patrick smiled halfheartedly and Catalina smiled inwardly in amusement at how strange her life had turned out to be that day.
Buildings towered over her. It wasn’t enough that Catalina was only five feet two inches tall, but the buildings were complete monsters next to her. Steel monsters with windows as eyes and spinning doors as mouths, gaping and breathing people in as well as spitting them out.
Arms filled with files and papers that she had just picked up from the post office, Catalina was hurrying down the street to her new apartment. She had just moved in three days before, the place fully furnished through her connections with an interior designer. Catalina just had work business to get in order before she started as a new public relationships representative for the Chicago Blackhawks, a hockey team that she was teaching herself the ins and out of.
After two years working with the Miami Dolphins, Catalina knew Blackhawks were going to be a breeze. She specialized in crisis communication, dealing with players who did not know how to remain professional outside of work and using her pretty pink tongue to spin stories in favor for teams who were having a bad light shinned on them. Some people called Catalina a liar, she called herself an optimist.
Ringing went off in Catalina’s purse. Making an annoyed sound she tried to shuffle the large accordion file in her arms, trying not to drop papers or spill files. Tilting her arm at a strange angle, she tried to stick a hand in the top of her purse to retrieve her phone, making a sound of annoyance as she had some difficulty.
Heels clicking, Catalina managed to grab the phone from her purse. She swiped her finger across the screen, shoved the phone on her shoulder, pinning it there with her cheek. “Dime?” she asked in clipped Spanish, attempting to get her purse back on her arm. “I’ve got my hands full, so que sea rápido.”
“Hi to you too,” Catalina’s brother said, his laughter shinning through the phone. She could imagine that he was leaning on the wall on the green fields of Sunlife Stadium, watching practices as Coach Philbin ran practice. “No love for your dear hermano?”
“Oh shut up,” she quipped, rolling her eyes. She managed to get her purse on her arm, losing grip of the file in her hand that contained contracts and signed information based on the terms of her employment. One page with her signed terms of agreement fluttered into the street. “Hijo de puta!”
“Hey your mother is my mother!”
“Not you!” She yelled into the phone, bolting into the street to grab the paper. A car beeped at her and she flicked them off, trying to run in strappy St. Laurent shoes to catch the paper. She stomped her foot down on it, pinning it to the pavement in the middle of an intersection. Cars were beeping at her but she didn’t care, bending to get the important piece of paper. “Like I said, you called me when I had my hands full.”
“You’ve been there for three days, how are you busy, chula?”
“Because I’ve got papers, and more papers, and you know how it goes. Why are you calling me anyways? Do you miss your little sister?”
Andre chuckled on the other side of the line. Catalina stood up, horns blaring and people rolling down the windows to scream at her. She made unkind gestures that revolved around the crotchal region before hurrying out of the street and back onto the sidewalk, walking steadily and shoving papers in her bag.
“I just worry about you being in a big city by yourself.”
“I’m not by myself. Erin is waiting for me at home for lunch.”
“You know what I mean, chula.”
Catalina sighed. She did know what Andre meant. He was three years older than her at age 29 but Andre Suarez worried about his little sister more than anything else in the world. He had helped raise her and helped train her into the strong young woman she was. And she was thankful for that, really. But he also was overbearing, worried too much, gave himself stress and often wanted to kill anyone who put a hand on her. Most people deemed this a classic Cuban-American, big brother trait.
Not caring that the stoplight was green and cars were wheeling through the street, Catalina stepped out. She was in a hurry to get home, her grumbling stomach attesting to that. She flinched when a car slammed on its breaks, blaring the horn at her. A girl behind the wheel was screaming at her but Catalina flicked her off, yelling a string of obscenities in rapid Spanish that Andre laughed at.
“Please tell me you’re being careful walking around?”
Catalina sidestepped a crack in the sidewalk that almost caught her heel and sent her careening into the street. “I would be doing better if you weren’t calling every twelve hours to make sure I’m still alive. I do know how to be an adult.”
“It’s a habit.”
Catalina softened slightly. “I know, I know. I’m fine, alright? Chicago is nice, save for the people who don’t know how to drive. A woman is trying to walk, here.”
“I’m sure you’re not as good at walking as you seem to think.”
“Whatever.”
“I’ll talk to you later, yeah?”
“Yes, big brother. Te quiero mas.”
“Te quiero mas.”
Throwing the phone into her bag, Catalina huffed. She felt out of sorts and like she was about to drop everything in her hands. She waited on the sidewalk this time with two other people, staring at the small box with the digital images that would tell her when it was okay to walk. She tapped her foot impatiently, fighting the urge to bolt out into the street. Her apartment was three more blocks away, an easy distance.
When the small walking man appeared on the box, Catalina surged forward, the only legal walk that she had done within the past ten minutes. She was only three steps from the sidewalk, wondering why the walking symbol on the walking-screen had to be a boy and not a girl when the impact came. She never saw the Range Rover, but she sure as hell felt it.
White light. That’s the first thing that registered in Catalina’s mind. And a lot of pain, most exploding in the back of her head and working it’s way forward and through the rest of her body. She gasped with the sudden pain, spots filling her vision. Someone touched her arm but she couldn’t even looked at them, just looking at the light that was blinding her.
Glancing to the side, she saw a single face. It was a man and he was handsome, eyes blue as the waters off South Beach and curling hair like the soft sand that she trailed almost everywhere with him. His jaw was edged and built on a sharp plane, his lips a blush-pink and pulled between teeth as he looked at her.
“Oh my god,” Catalina croaked, the light behind him getting impossibly bright. “I’m dead. I definitely died, and this is heaven.”
“You’re not dead.” His voice was warped, like she was listening to it from a distance. Her mind was whirling, barely able to work beyond the point of the trauma her head felt like it had received. “Hey, are you still with me?”
“I’m obviously dead.” Her voice was dazed as she looked back up at him. Her body suddenly began tingling and the pain began to shift from red-hot fury to smooth, silky bliss. She felt a smile take over her face as her head began to grow heavy. “I mean there’s lots of lights and ha! You’re an angel. I definitely made it to heaven.”
The angel frowned at her. His face was growing blurry and she was trying to cling to his features, the way he didn’t know if he looked like he was supposed to laugh or be worried. She wondered what it was like to be an angel, looking down at people who were newly dead. “It’s the drugs kicking in.”
“There are drugs in heaven?” Catalina’s words were slurred, a mess of consonants. Laugher burst from her lips, high-pitched and manic. “Whaaaat? That’s crazy.”
“She’s going to lose consciousness.”
“I’m gonna take a nap. Bye angel. Naps in heaven…drugs…nnff.”
Beeping. There was certainly beeping and it was steady. It took a while for Catalina to match the beeping with the beat of her heart. There was dull pain in her head and her body felt like it had been through the woodwork. She blinked them open slowly, breathing in clean air and blinking from the brightness of the room.
To her right, there was a large wooden door. It had a file holder with papers shoved in it and a small whiteboard with C. L. Suarez written in messy handwriting. White tubes were attatched to the top of her hand, secured by a piece of tape. The tube connected to an IV, dripping lightly in the bag.
“You’re awake, thank god.”
Catalina turned to the left. There were two grey chairs that looked extremely uncomfortable pushed up against a wall with a window. One of those chairs held Erin who burst forward from the object, clinging to the end of Catalina’s bed as her brown hair hung in her face, green eyes examining Catalina herself. “You have no idea how glad I am you’re awake.”
“Makes one of us,” Catalina grumbled. “I was enjoying a nice nap. Why the hell am I in a hospital and why the hell am I not eating lunch?”
Erin scowled, throwing her thumb over her shoulder at the person occupying the other chair. He was leaning forward, biting his nails nervously as he looked at Catalina from around Erin’s figure. “This idiot hit you in the middle of a crosswalk!”
“I didn’t mean to!” he said instantly, blue eyes filling with guilt. Catalina looked at him with a guarded expression, drinking in his features. Blonde curly hair like gold, eyes the color of water and a face like heaven itself. “God I’m so sorry and I swear I’m paying for all the medical bills, I’ve got it covered and-"
“Relax.” Catalina’s voice was deadpan. She knew that he was going to pay the bills, simply because Catalina knew that he could pay the bills. The expensive watch on his wrist and the crisp designer t-shirt weren’t what told her so. “It was obviously an accident, I don’t think a complete stranger is trying to murder me via car.”
“Not at all, I took the corner and I wasn’t watching and-"
“You gave me a headache, I know.” She looked him up and down. Erin was watching the exchange with guarded eyes, clearly unsure of what Catalina was playing at. “It happens. The good thing is that I seem to be alive.”
“You did think you were dead.”
Catalina frowned. “What?”
He chewed on his lip. She had seen him do that before when she had looked him up. Catalina made it her business to look up every single Chicago Blackhawk player in detail, Patrick Kane being one of those players. “You thought you were dead when we were wheeling you in. You said…”
She raised a single brow. “I said?”
“Well you called me an angel.”
“I’m quite charming even when I’m drugged.” Catalina turned her eyes on Erin, who was still watching the exchange. Erin’s hair was waving well past her shoulders, beautiful face filled with confusion and worry, green eyes glittering. “Thank you for coming, Erzies. Let’s not tell Andre that Mr…?”
“Kane,” he offered quickly, the word bursting from his mouth. “Patrick Kane. And you’re…”
“Call me Cat.”
Patrick nodded. “Cat.”
“Anyways,” Catalina turned her severe gaze on Erin who had seemed to catch on that Catalina was not informing Patrick Kane that he was now one of her clients and that Catalina did not want him to know that she would be dealing with him closely in the near future. “Erin, let’s not tell Andre about this one, yeah? He’ll kill me, not that Patrick here hasn’t.”
Patrick winced at the joke but Catalina ignored him. Erin slowly sat down next to Patrick, regarding him with skeptical eyes and a rigid posture. Erin knew exactly who the hockey player was. She was an avid fan of the sport and new the way it worked, and yet her first concern had been to call him an idiot and glare at him reproachfully. It warmed Catalina’s heart.
“I won’t tell him,” Erin said carefully, leaning back in her chair. “You should be free to go later tonight, if the doctor says everything is alright. They gave you stitches in the back of your head. It wasn’t the car that did the damage so much as the road you were standing on.”
Catalina glanced at Patrick. “You must take corners pretty slow.”
Patrick smiled halfheartedly and Catalina smiled inwardly in amusement at how strange her life had turned out to be that day.
