Chapter 20

Simon dropped onto the couch beside me. “Hey.”

I closed the book I’d been reading. “Hey. How was it?”

He rolled his head around as if to stretch his neck, then dropped it back onto the cushion behind him. “Intense.”

“Uh-oh. Not bad intense, I hope?”

“No, it was good. We bonded. Even if we had to hold the stupid ball with our hands.”

“Bonding is good. Did your team win?”

“Of course we won.” My father paused in the archway that led into the family room, where I’d been reading. “When have you ever known me to do anything but win?”

I shifted and reached to the side table where I’d left my phone. “I don’t know, Dad. Let me just pull up this season’s basketball schedule. I’m thinking . . . Who was the team you played last week? It was close, wasn’t it?”

Dad lunged into the room and grabbed a pillow he then tossed directly at my head. “You watch it, young lady.”

I tossed the pillow back at him with little grace or aim. It landed far and wide, about three feet left of where he stood. He looked at me, then at the pillow, then back at me. “It’s a good thing those soccer goals are so wide.” He looked at Simon. “This is why she’d have never made it as a basketball player.”

“Dad!”

He grinned. “Your young man did well today, Lane. He’s fast. Scored the winning touchdown.”

I looked at Simon, my eyes wide. “You score the winning touchdown and all you say is ‘It was intense’?”

“Fine,” Simon said. “I was awesome. Happy now?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“How’s the cooking going?” Dad asked. “I’d have made you come and play had I known you’d be sitting around here.”

“I haven’t been sitting but for the past ten minutes. Abuela worked us like crazy this morning. She’s making a true Puerto Rican feast.”

“It took her three years before she cooked like this for me.” Dad looked at Simon. “You’re lucky she’s taken to you so fast.”

Simon shot me a sideways glance, and my stomach tightened. “I feel lucky,” he finally said. “She’s an amazing lady.”

“As long as her cooking doesn’t stop Maria from baking a sweet-potato pie, I’ll agree with you.” My dad smiled at us both, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. He leaned forward. “I know this engagement isn’t for real just yet”—he paused but continued to nod his head, his smile warm and sincere. He looked at me—“but I think this is a good match for you, Lane.” Then he turned to Simon. “I can tell you care for my daughter, Simon. I want you to know you have my support.” He stood and walked toward the kitchen. “I’m going to say hello to your mother.”

I let out the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding as I watched my dad walk into the kitchen. I leaned my head back onto the couch. “This is wrong,” I said quietly.

Simon didn’t respond. He stood, running a hand through his hair with a sigh. “Do you mind if I borrow your car?” he asked. “I’m going to go for a drive.”

* * *

Simon was gone an hour or so. By the time he came back, I was so wrapped up in final dinner prep I couldn’t do more than wave from the kitchen. I didn’t see him again until he came down for dinner showered, clean-shaven, and looking really, really irresistible. I carried a platter of turkey into the dining room and set it close to my dad’s plate, then moved to stand next to Simon.

“Hi,” I said softly. “You okay?”

He smiled, looking at me in a way he never had before. Like he’d taken down a wall. His eyes were warm, his gaze intense. He reached forward and took my hand, his thumb rubbing across the top of my knuckles. It made my breath catch. We’d touched, even hugged a few times around the family. We were putting on a show, after all. But this didn’t feel pretend. He smiled a half smile and nodded. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Abuela came up behind us, her smile cutting deep creases in her weathered face. She looked at me, then laid a hand on my cheek before reaching up and kissing me right where her palm had been. Her deep-brown eyes glistened as she turned, doing the same thing to Simon, touching his face, then kissing him on the cheek. He had to lean down so she could reach him. When she finished, she wrapped her arms around us both and squeezed us into a three-sided hug.

“Um, I think you guys just got married,” John said from across the room. He spoke in Spanish so Abuela would understand too.

She waved a dismissive hand at John but didn’t break her smile, then turned back to us. “It’s just my way of saying I’m happy for you,” she said.

Dinner didn’t disappoint. As a US territory, Puerto Rico still honored Thanksgiving as a traditional holiday, so much of the expected menu still graced our table—just with a little more flair and, if you asked Abuela, flavor. The turkey was roasted and stuffed with mofongo. There were arroz con gandules, tostones, and my cherished pasteles, which we’d stayed up late making the night before. All of us had filled the kitchen, just as Abuela had hoped, trimming the plantain leaves, cooking the pork with sofrito and a rich adobo sauce, then wrapping them up assembly-line style until we had enough for Thanksgiving and several dozen extra to freeze. Of course, there was also my dad’s sweet-potato pie, a green bean casserole, and a Jell-O salad I’d made from Granny Grace’s recipes. The fusion of the two sides of my family into one collective meal made me happy, as did the people surrounding the table. It had been too long since we’d all been together.

Before dessert, dulce de leche, bourbon pecan, or pumpkin pie (or all three if you’re me), Abuela reached for my hand. “Mija,” she called me, short for mi hija. My daughter. “Tell me when you first knew you loved Simon.”

My Thanksgiving dinner turned to cement in my stomach. It felt horrible to lie, especially when Abuela seemed so sincere.

“Don’t be shy,” she urged. “We all love a good love story.”

“I don’t know, really. I guess it happened gradually.”

“I can tell you when I knew,” Simon said.

I looked up, trying to catch his gaze. He didn’t need to do this. I wanted to tell him as much, but he seemed intent on avoiding any eye contact with me. He focused instead on Abuela, and she smiled her encouragement.

“One afternoon, I stopped by the inn where Lane works to drop off some paperwork. I’d been helping her with some accounting needs the inn had, but this time around, she didn’t know I was coming. I thought it might be fun to surprise her during her lunch break, only she was the one who ended up surprising me. I found her in the middle of her office, shoes kicked off to the side, dancing.”

I covered my face, silent laughter making my shoulders shake.

“Dancing?” my dad asked. “To what?”

Instead of answering, Simon started to sing. “You’ll get me back! You’ll get me baa—acck.” His voice was high-pitched and awful, an intentional fake out since I’d heard him sing with his brothers before Cooper had left on his mission.

I gave his shoulder a playful shove. “You are terrible.”

Abuela giggled right along with us. “You loved her dancing?” she asked Simon.

“No. Her dancing was terrible. But I loved that she would dance. That she was willing to let stuff go and have fun. I need more of that in my life, and I think that’s what I recognized. That being around her will always make me a better person.”

“Amen to that,” my dad said from the other end of the table. He raised his water glass. “To love that improves and inspires us.”

John, sitting directly across from me, raised his glass to me, his eyes like lasers burning questions into my brain.

What is going on?

Does he really mean the things he’s saying?

What on earth are you going to do now?

I could only shrug my shoulders. Because I had no earthly idea.

Jamie: Dude. I can’t get Lane to answer my calls. Is she avoiding me?

Simon: I am just the pretend boyfriend. Not the for-real go-between.

Jamie: Is she okay?

Simon: She’s fine. She’s with her family. Remember, she hasn’t seen her grandmother in years.

Jamie: Just ask her to call me, would you? Or at least text.

Simon: Fine. I’ll tell her you asked about her.