I put on the robe and tiptoe back out of the bathroom, finding Fernando still asleep in bed. I consider getting back into the bed and trying to fall asleep, but I feel like I’m awake now. The sun is up, it's a brand new day, and I feel a new energy that I’ve never felt before. It must be related to what we did last night.
It seems as though the sun shines brighter than it did yesterday, and when I look out of the window at the beach, the sea is bluer, the sand more golden. Everything is more vibrant, turned up to eleven, and I can’t help but smile even just as I look out of the window. Everything is so much more amazing now. Not just because I’m no longer a virgin, but because I’m here with Fernando. Because of what he gave to me, which is far more than what he took.
I pull myself together, and walk through the house, exploring the rooms that I didn’t see last night. I didn’t have the time to examine each of the rooms we passed, or even for a tour. I have no idea where everything is, so it seems reasonable that I should walk around until I find it. I find more bathrooms, bedrooms that stand empty, even whole rooms that are covered in dust sheets with no furniture. When I head downstairs, every space is so much larger than what I'm used to - a giant kitchen with room for a whole family to eat around the kitchen island, a dining room set up separately with ten chairs around the table, an entertainment room with a huge television taking up half the wall, stacks and piles of DVDs on shelves, all of the latest streaming services plugged in through a smart stick.
Everything is here that you might need to live your life, from the study with its sturdy desk and piles of notebooks that no doubt belong to Fernando for his work, to a large pantry with enough room to feed a family through a blizzard. As I walk around the house, I can’t help but think that this is not the house of a single man. It's not the kind of place a single man would ever need to own unless he had plans to fill it with a family.
And then my treacherous mind adds unless he already had a family who simply isn’t here at the moment.
I don't want to think like that, because I trust Fernando. I really do. But all of the evidence in front of me suggests that he expects to fill these rooms with more than simply himself. Why else would he buy such a large home? Or if he did buy such a large home, why would he not fill it with things that he as a single man can use? Why not fit out the rooms to his own purpose, instead of leaving them empty?
I can't imagine what a single bachelor might want in his home, but I can make some guesses. Perhaps he might want a man cave somewhere to take his friends. Perhaps he could have turned some of the rooms into office spaces so that he doesn’t even need to leave home to do some work. I don't know, but I do know that it seems strange to me that he would have such a large home and only himself to live in it.
Which means I have something serious to ask him, and when I hear his footsteps behind me, I turn away from a large glass door looking out onto the beach with a sliver of regret.
Because what he says now might shatter all of the dreams I have about us being together – but I still have to ask.
“There you are,” he says, walking towards me in a robe that matches the one I’m wearing. “I couldn’t find you.”
“I’ve just been exploring,” I tell him. “You have such a lovely home.”
He chuckles. “Thank you,” he says.
“It’s so big,” I press, not letting him off just yet. “Isn’t it? So big for just you living here on your own.”
“It’s big,” he concedes but adds nothing else.
“But you don’t have any family to live here, do you?” I ask.
“No, I don’t.” He gives me a sad smile. “My parents passed away before I even had this place built. It’s only me.”
“I meant… your own family,” I say, trying hard not to be impatient. “You know. A wife, children, that sort of thing.”
“You’re right,” Fernando says, stepping next to me to look out of the glass at the beach. A light breeze has picked up, throwing the waves onto the shore. “I’m alone here. But when I had this place built, I didn’t want to have something small and modest that would fit my purposes. I wanted extra space so that I would only have to have it built once. Since then, I’ve just been waiting for the right person to help me fill it.”