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I looked at the sea. It was a whole lot of nothing, and I’d never wanted anything more.
“Tonight,” I said, “I think I just want this. The sunset. The mezcal. Me.”
Mateo nodded slowly. He didn’t sulk. He didn’t push. He picked up his glass and touched it to mine. “Then I will drink it with you, in silence, for ten minutes.”
We did. It was glorious. The last of the light slid under the horizon and the first stars came out, and the sea breathed in and out, and somewhere behind us a waiter was setting tables. Something enormous and lonely and kind of wonderful unclenched in my chest. I’d got through it. The solicitors. The empty flat. The look on Rob’s face when he told me.
At the end of the ten minutes Mateo stood up. He brushed the sand off his trousers and took a napkin out of his pocket, scrawled something on it, and tucked it under my glass.
“My number,” he said. “In case the sunset isn’t enough, some other night. No pressure. My break is over.”
He bent down and kissed me. Slowly, deliberately, one hand cupped round my jaw, his tongue just brushing mine for a heartbeat. I felt it from my scalp to my knees.
“Goodnight, Sophie.”
I watched him walk up the beach and I didn’t regret one thing.
Back in Cabana 12 I slept like a stone, alone and content, with a phone number on the pillow and a smile I couldn’t have scraped off with a spoon.
I called him on the Thursday.
Ending 15 of 16: Table for One. Go back and try a different choice for the full happy ending.