“Did I do something wrong?”
I looked up at my mom while I packed a few hours after the interview. “No! You didn’t. I promise. It’s just time for me to go back home. I left a lot of things hanging.”
She sat down on the edge of my bed and nodded. “I got that feeling. Is it about that boy, Hamlet?”
I smiled. Hearing his name said by my mom was sweet. I liked her being in the loop. “Yes. But also the KoBra. Pai. Rose. I let people down.” I willed my voice not to waver as I threw my new sandals into the duffel.
Mãe was quiet as she watched me pack. “I’ll miss you.” And even though my mom could be astonishingly clueless and self-absorbed sometimes, I knew I would also miss her.
“Me too.”
“You’ll miss you, too?” she joked.
I cracked a smile. “Good one.”
“I know.” She crossed her legs, turning herself into a tidy, folded little mermaid person. “So, why are you in such a rush?” I was catching a red-eye tonight to make it to LA by morning.
“Because the food truck competition is tomorrow.” I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off—I had e-mailed Rose and she’d responded immediately, saying she’d figure out a way to get the truck and meet me at the competition. I could tell she was still a little mad, but she seemed as invested in this contest as I was.
“Whoa. Bold move. Adrian was against it, right?”
Ignoring the nervous flutter against my ribs, I nodded. “Yep. But I still want to go through with it.”
She squinted at me. “That’s new.”
“What, this?” My hand drifted up to the little silver hoop in my left ear cartilage, pierced a few months ago.
“No. This … drive.” She paused and I was self-conscious. I hated that I wanted my mom to think that I was cool. “I like it,” she said. “It suits you.” The second person to say these words.
I tried to hide my pleasure by making a face, crossing my eyes. “I have so much drive. The best drive. Huge.”
Mãe cracked up. “Well, good luck, minha filha.” It was both optimistic and ominous.
After saying my good-byes to the social media squad that I had grown rather fond of, I got into a car headed to the airport. My mom popped inside to give me one last hug. “See you soon, filha. Te amo.”
“Love you, too, Mãe.” I was usually so sad when we said our good-byes—never knowing when it would be that I’d see her next. And it wasn’t that I wasn’t sad this time. It was just that there was a lot for me to look forward to outside of this good-bye. Real life.
As the car drove away from the hotel, the sky rumbled and fat raindrops splashed onto the windshield. I tried not to read too much into the timing.
* * *
The flight back home wasn’t too bad, even though the grandma next to me farted steadily the entire time. At least it was direct.
Bright eyed and bushy tailed after two hours of sleep, I swept through customs in record time and ran down the long LAX corridor lined with colorful subway tile.
I only had a few hours until the food truck competition started. It was going to be nuts since my phone was still broken and I would have to grab a cab and hope Rose was all set up.
The international terminal exit had a row of people waiting for their loved ones.
A very large, very neon yellow poster caught my eye. It said: MY GIRLFRIEND. And the person holding it was flipping it around his head, much to the annoyance of everyone near him.
My smile hurt my face it was so intense, and I ran toward Hamlet. When I reached him, jostling people and apologizing along the way, he dropped the sign and closed the distance between us in two big steps.
We were so close that I could see the bit of sunblock left smudged and white on his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out.
He frowned, and for half a second my heart stopped. Then he leaned over and kissed me. Kissing Hamlet felt like coming home, for real. I stood up on my toes to deepen the kiss, my duffel smashed between us. When we finally broke apart, he smiled down at me, all tenderness. “I forgive you.” Just like that. Hamlet was the least complicated thing in my life.
“That’s it?”
He picked up the poster and tapped my butt with it. “Lucky you.”
Suddenly it occurred to me—“How’d you know I was coming?”
He turned red. “Well, I might have talked to your mom.”
“What?”
He took my bag from me, trying to distract me from what he was about to say. “Well, when you left I started following her on Instagram and, uh, well, she messaged me yesterday to tell me you were coming home. She wanted someone to be here to pick you up.”
That’s when I noticed Hamlet was wearing a KoBra T-shirt. “What’s that?”
He grinned. “I’m going to help at the competition today.”
Something warm bloomed in my chest. “You are?”
“Yeah. Why do you think I’m here? We have to haul.”
Minutes later, we were sprinting toward Hamlet’s car in the parking garage. “We still have three hours before the competition!” he yelled, glancing back at me as he ran with my duffel carried easily over his shoulder.
We threw everything into the car, slammed on our seat belts, and peeled out of the parking lot. I braced myself against the dashboard and laughed. “Dang, James Bond.”
He immediately slowed down and glanced over at me sheepishly. “Sorry, I just got caught up in the moment.”
“I’m not complaining!”
“Well, it’s not safe,” he grumbled, pulling on his sunglasses primly. I shook my head but couldn’t keep the smile off my face.
We got onto the freeway, starting our long trek to the competition. At the moment, we were on the westernmost side of town, near the beach, and the competition was a good twenty miles away at Griffith Park. I looked at the time nervously. “I hope the traffic gods are on our side today.”
“Don’t worry, I know all the best ways to avoid traffic,” he said firmly. “The question is, what the heck was your plan? You were going to steal the truck and take it to the competition? Just you and Rose?”
“Well. Yes.”
“Oh my God.”
“What?” I stuck my chin out.
“It’s just … the worst plan, that’s all.”
Hamlet drove across three lanes until we landed in the ExpressLane. I looked at him in surprise. “You have a FasTrak?”
“No.”
“I’m really into this Jason Bourne side of you.”
Again, he slowed down. “Don’t get used to it. Is your seat belt on?” he barked.
“Yes, sir,” I said with a wink, which only flustered him further.
We flew by some gridlock, but I kept my glee to myself. There’s this LA curse—if you actually express your smugness at passing traffic, you will immediately hit some. It happens every single time.
“This is going to be the best surprise!” Hamlet exclaimed, slapping his hands on the steering wheel happily. “Rose kind of hates you right now, though. Just FYI.”
“I’m counting on it.” The thought of being stuck in that stuffy truck bickering with Rose filled me with the most intense relief. I found myself missing the weirdest stuff lately.
And, like with Hamlet, I knew the first thing I needed to do when I saw her was apologize.
We were quiet for a few seconds, long enough for the car to be filled with a huge elephant. His love confession and my non-reciprocation. I chewed my lip down to bits trying to decide if this was the right time to bring it up.
Hamlet’s phone buzzed with a barrage of texts. THANK GOD! I picked it up gratefully. “Rose is freaking out.”
“Ignore it,” he said, speeding up again.
“You got it, Bryan Mills.”
“Who’s that?”
“You know, Liam Neeson’s character from the Taken movies?”
He shook his head and turned on the radio. Loud.
The rest of the drive was quick—there was no traffic, and we found a parking spot in a secret lot that Hamlet knew about. I found this competence very attractive.
Taking a few trails off the main path shaded by ancient live oak trees, I could hear and smell the trucks before we arrived. They were parked in a giant lot bordered by the gnarled old trees and gently sloping hills of brush. As we got closer, my nerves finally caught up with me and I was filled with trepidation.
When I saw the KoBra, I took a deep breath. Here we go.