Chapter Twenty-One
Rows of recessed spotlights beamed over beautifully crafted ice sculptures. Some figures even contained LEDs inside them, sparking the ice from within.
“Welcome to the Arctic Art Studio,” I said through chattering teeth. “Since Paulina approved—” I cleared my throat. “Loved the Baccara roses, the pressure’s on to find the perfect ice decor.”
I let Javi walk ahead to get more footage of him. For Paulina’s channel, obviously. I zoomed in on the back of his head. Anyone who ever called brown basic had never seen hair color like his. Soil after rain. Smoky quartz. Chocolate diamonds.
Focus.
I lowered the phone’s camera. Angled it over the soles of his Vans, stopping midhalt every time Javi stopped to stare at an animal sculpture, especially the dolphins.
I moved nearer to capture the visible puffs of his breath.Weird how a canvas of cold air was necessary to see it. Po would undoubtably have a quote about this. Something like, “Things are there even when you can’t see them.”
The Poverb could be the opposite of the starlight wisdom Javi dropped the other night at the beach. Both philosophies found their ways to my heart’s hollow spaces.
“Oooh.” Javi pointed to the sculptures at the far end of the room. “Are those rotating?”
“Yup,” I said. “Motor-powered and mirrored pedestals.”
“No way.” With the speed and bounce of a puppy, he ran over to check them out.
I practically fainted. “Javi—”
His shoes squeaked against the floor as he stopped. He glanced back. Despite the cold, there was a fire in his eyes.
It burned away the rest of my sentence: there’s no running allowed in this room.
A quick scan of the room to make sure we were alone. Then I did something I never thought I’d do here.
I sprinted after him. “Wait up!”
The thump-thump-thump of my loafers against the floor mimicked the pi?ata-like poundings Mom would give the hallway carpet every spring, clobbering away the year’s accumulation of grime.
Maybe the run had shaken off some of the emotional muck piled up since After… because by the time I reached Javi, the spring in my loafers could out-bounce Tigger’s tail.
Together we headed down an aisle. Javi pointed out the Eiffel Tower. He told me about going there the year before his dad got sick. When they’d climbed to the top, his dad joked that he liked the views from the heights of Tikal’s pyramids better. “Mom and I are gonna go this Christmas to find out if he was right.” There was no regret in his voice that his dad wouldn’t be joining them on that family trip. Only excitement that he’d get to go.
Stopping at the sculpture of Olaf, he said, “For bingeing, Mom prefers telenovelas. Dad opted for K-dramas. Disney movies were their middle ground. Frozen being their fave.” He let his signature laugh-snort loose. “Fun fact: he almost named me Sven.”
I shivered partly from the cold, mostly from holding in laughter.
“What?” he asked. “You think Sven suits me better?”
“Maybe,” I teased, although if Javi resembled anyone in the franchise, it’d definitely be Kristoff. Huh. Was talking about his dad so freely Javi’s way of holding on to pieces of him? Was each memory a layer of plaster patching up his heart fractures?
I breathed in the cold air and gave it a try. “Fun fact: my mom’s favorite place was Disneyland. I think she named me after the castle.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I can totally see that.” At the next sculpture, a towering number 21, he shared that it had been his dad’s lucky number. We traded little tidbits of info like that as we walked down the aisles.
As the carved ice glittered around us, I felt a glimmer of hope that maybe one day, I could have similar talks with Po and Dad. For now, I was beyond grateful to be practicing with Javi.
I’d been so caught up in the convo I didn’t notice I’d led us into a row of different-size statues of David… plus lots of other less famous but equally chiseled (and naked) torsos.
Javi caught me staring at them. My cheeks flamed. “None of these scream ‘Paulina,’” I said, looking away.
“Or Star Wars.”
“Um.” My throat tightened. I pushed out words that rarely saw the light of day. “Do you have any suggestions?” Yielding control didn’t come naturally. But I was quickly finding out that, like with anything else, practice made it easier. “You’re her best friend and the unquince’s ‘chambelán,’ so… I want to take your thoughts into consideration.”
Javi beamed, putting each ice sculpture’s LEDs to shame. “Actually, yes.”
He headed to the elephant a few aisles down. Plucking the phone from his pocket, he searched Google Images for an AT-AT.
“Behold. The All Terrain Armored Transport,” he said. “The baddest ground vehicle in the Imperial Army.”
I yanked the phone, enlarging the picture. My eyes flicked to the sculpture, then back to the screen.
If elephants had an evil stepsister, this trunkless mecha pachyderm was it. “Huh… They fight for the ‘dark side,’ too, à la Paulina’s theme.”
“Plus, they make their debut during a battle on Hoth, an ice planet,” Javi said.
“Okay, this is genius.”
I pulled the clipboard from under my arm. Under Ice Sculpture Custom Order Requests, I wrote, 2 four-foot AT-ATs. My adrenaline spiked at hitting the jackpot on another idea Paulina would (fingers crossed) love. Or it was from standing in the middle of Javi’s spotlight. Before I melted into a puddle, I handed the phone back.
Our hands brushed. I shuddered.
“Dang, Castle Towers. Your hand’s a glacier.” Javi cupped my hand between both of his. Lifted it to his lips. Blew hot breath over it. “Let’s get you out of this room before you get hypothermia.”
Freeze when I was on the brink of spontaneous combustion? Impossible.
He turned toward the door, tugging me forward.
“Hold on,” I said, keeping a grip on his hand. With our fingers linked, it was almost as if we were gearing up to start dance rehearsals again. “Paulina’s quince needs to be perfect. The sculptors here probably have the skills to carve this, but in case they can’t, please help me pick a plan B.”
I tugged Javi back.
Except—
Curse you, iron-fist tendencies. And ice-cold air for stiffening my limbs. Because when I drew him in, I used a lot more force than intended. We moved like we were paso doble-ing all over again.
Only he was the one flying inward.
We slammed against one another. The collision rocked us backward. My spine hit the 8 of a towering 18. The base of the sculpture wobbled on the platform, shifting across the floor.
And right when I thought the entire thing was going to topple over, Javi swung an arm around it, righting it in the nick of time.
“That was an awesome rescue,” I said. The wetness of the sculpture seeped through my blouse. The ice didn’t pull a single shiver. Not with the heat of Javi’s body warming mine.
“Rescuing’s my summer job, remember?” His quick hands had saved the sculpture. But in that moment, all I cared about was how they drifted from the curves of the 8 to the sides of my waist. “I had to make up for ruining the banners somehow.”
I blinked up at his single dimple. Oh my gosh. Hardly any space separated our lips.
Wait. Are his actually parting? Or is it my imagination?
What better place for a first kiss than right here? In the middle of a velvet room surrounded by glittering ice and twinkling lights, as if hundreds of fairies were sprinkling pixie dust around us.
Was it magic that lifted me onto my toes? Or the result of having spent so much time with Po lately? While I was all about plans, she was all about participating. Maybe Dad was right. Being more like her once in a while—especially now—could be a good thing.
I angled my chin higher.
Javi tilted forward.
Drawing on every inch of my iron-fist tendencies, I pulled the neck of his shirt. Brought him closer so my lips could finally claim his.
I tasted minty ChapStick on his mouth. Mangos on his tongue.
Watching on the sidelines hadn’t prepped me for all the breaking apart to giggle, nose bumping, and forehead knocking. Our movements didn’t mirror the slow-motion French kisses in movies—the perfectly angled lip locks on Pinterest boards even less.
Forget ‘em. If perfection looked good, practicing getting there with Javi felt better.
By the way his heart thudded against mine, he probably agreed.
One of my hands skated up his back. The clipboard clattered to the floor. I left it there to skim muscles I’d only read about in AP bio.
The room went fuzzy. Like the oxygen had been swapped with helium. I pressed my mouth harder to his. He wrapped his arm tighter around my waist.
The sculpture behind me rocked again. Okay, maybe our choreography was getting a little out of hand. Good thing Javi had those quick reflexes—
The cold firmness against my back suddenly vanished. A millisecond later—
CRASHand SHATTER.
We broke apart, the magic spell over. “Please, party gods,” I whispered. That sound of one hundred plates smashing? Please let it be an impromptu Greek party on the other side of the door.
What little air remained in my lungs whooshed out when I peeked over my shoulder.
“No, no, no!” I dropped to my knees, scrambling to assess the damage to the 8.
Javi sucked air through his teeth. “At least the bottom half survived the fall.”
“Yeah, but the other half—”
Fragments of it sparked down the length of the aisle. Other bits had ricocheted off the ground, glittering from different parts of the floor.
My pulse hammered against my temples. Each heartbeat thumped, Fix this.
But the heels on the other side of the wall pounded louder.
“We have to fix this before someone comes in. Hurry.” I grabbed some of the smaller shards. Only, they kept slipping from my fingers, landing on the floor and breaking into even smaller pieces. GAH!
“Plan B: start collecting the bigger chunks,” I said, pointing my pencil down the aisle. “Then we glue them together.”
Javi’s eyebrows scrunched together. “How are we gonna glue ice—”
The door creaked open. Oh no.
Soraya barked orders from somewhere farther down the hall. “Yes, ma’am,” another voice said, followed by an exhale. “I’ll take care of that right away.”
The door shut. The heel clacks receded.
Safe. For now.
I tucked the pencil back behind my ear, reaching into my utility bag. “We fix it with this.” I yanked out a tube of Krazy Glue. “This can put anything back together.”
Javi’s jaw clenched, as if stopping short of saying, That’s not going to work. He sprung forward to lend a hand anyway.
In his eagerness to help, he didn’t watch where he stepped. His shoes crunched on ice splinters—then he slipped on one of the bigger cubes.
His arms flailed. A yelp not unlike the Chihuahua yips from the fundraiser escaped from his lips.
Copying some of Po’s volleyball moves, I hurtled forward, snatching the back of his shirt before he crashed headfirst into an elephant sculpture.
For a few seconds, both of us stood as frozen as the ice around us. Javi heaved out clouds of breath inches away from the elephant’s tail.
“You okay?” I asked, trying hard not to laugh. Or cry.
“Uh-huh,” he said, chuckling as he steadied himself. “You can let go.”
Good thing, because with the voices growing louder from the other side of the wall, four hands would work faster at fixing this mess than two.
I grabbed two broken pieces. “Here, pour some of the glue over it,” I said. But instead of fusing them back together, the glue froze over and turned into a weird sticky film. There went that idea.
My knees knocked into the floor. The glare of the shattered ice shot straight into my eyes—no, into the mom-shaped hole.
Javi’s hand draped over my shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “Sometimes things can’t be put back together.” His voice lowered, like he was speaking from a deep-rooted pain. “No matter how badly you want them to. No matter how hard you try.”
No. It was possible to fix broken things.
It had to be.
No matter how much I tried to blink back tears, a few slipped out. They rolled over my cheeks and splashed onto the floor.
Unlike Rapunzel’s tears, mine didn’t contain any hidden powers. The sculpture didn’t magically right itself upon contact.
“What if we just pay for the damage?” Javi said. “Like a we-break-it-we-buy-it deal?”
I shook my head. “People forget that there’s usually a third b. Break, buy, ban.”
If my application made it to the interview round, how would being banned from Pelican Point Celebrations look to Mandy? Hire a teenage delinquent? Never. “Which can’t happen because of SBA and—”
“The firm you intern for?”
I mumbled something in response, grabbing at some of the bigger shards. The icicles began to melt. No matter how much I tightened my hold, my family’s HEA dissolved with them.
Another tear spilled. Then a few more. At this rate, I might as well ride the current of the waterworks straight out the door.
No.
If fairy godmothers didn’t give up when the going got tough, then neither would I.
I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. “Plan C,” I said. “We clean this up. Bolt before anyone comes back.” Even if this sculpture couldn’t remain intact, at the very least my PP Celebration privileges could.
“I’m on board with that,” Javi said.
Plucking the pencil from the back of my ear, I flicked it to the smaller sculptures atop linen-covered tables. “We shove the smaller bits under those tablecloths. The bigger chunks we scoop up and drop over there.” I pointed the pencil to the ice platters and bowls sparkling over ice-carved bar tops. “Now, move.”
Curls of breath ribboned around us as we hustled. On the next leg of our sprint, Javi stretched out the bottom hem of his shirt. “Pretend this is a kangaroo pouch,” he said.
I shoveled handfuls of ice into his makeshift apron. Stole only a few glimpses at his lower abs.
He poured the fragments onto a platter. When he let go of his hem, I broke out into belly laughs, gesturing at the wet patches on the front of his shirt—now draped perfectly over the fly of his shorts.
His neck flared. “Brilliant,” he said, laughing.
“I don’t have toilet paper,” I teased. “But I have these.” I wrenched out two hand towels from my utility bag. “Dry yourself, then help me mop the floor.”
Our fast-and-furious wiping would have given Cinderella serious competition.
“Now, let’s lift what’s left of the 8,” I said. He nodded, bracing one side of the circle, while I grabbed on to the other. “One, two, three.”
We lifted it back onto the platform.
Javi chuckled. Which quickly built to snorts.
“What’s so—” My heart stopped. The way the lower circle of the former 8 pressed against the shaft—er, base—of the upright 1…
The day we’d met, the ice mocha accident had formed an “anusgram.” And now? Now because of our kissing accident we’d created a—
“Mommy, what’s that?” A voice squeaked behind us.
I glanced back. A customer gaped at the new, but definitely not improved, “member” of the sculpture family. She covered her child’s eyes with her handbag.
I discreetly kicked some ice pieces under the table behind us. “Yeah, what is it, exactly?” I scratched my head, trying to sound innocent.
“A different type of wiener than the franks Po grilled at the hot-dog fundraiser, if you ask me,” Javier whispered, his body vibrating with held-in laughter. I elbowed him in the ribs, biting the sides of my cheeks to keep from cracking up.
“I need to speak to a manager immediately,” the lady said. “Better yet, I’m going to write a letter.”
“Ooh, someone’s going to get in trouble,” the kid said.
While the mom dragged her child out the front door, I pulled Javi to the emergency exit. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, spurring my legs to keep up with my wildly beating heart.
Perhaps this was why hearts were built from muscle—not bone, not ice.
Even when they shattered, when holes the size of people were pierced through them, those fist-size organs kept pumping.
Our hands reached the long door handle. We flung it open, stepping outside.
Bringing a hand to my forehead, I shielded my eyes. Whoa. Did the sun always shine this brightly? Or had me kissing Javi broken some sort of hex?
Sunshine glistened over Javi’s cheeks and nose. Sweat started to sprout from his pores. Instinctively, my fingers moved to the utility bag, specifically for the oil blotters inside.
I reached for my phone instead. Took a video of Javi’s shiny face, snorting with laughter. And a photo of the wet patches on his shirt and shorts. On Javi’s next round of cackles, Po’s words from the other night echoed: If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
So I did, laughing until my eyes pooled with wholly different types of tears. My laughter tapered into gasps, and while technically breathless, my body hummed with so much life.
I moved the camera to the baby-blue sky dipping into sapphire waters. To the sunshine glittering against thousands of car windows as the vehicles sped on PCH in the distance. To the palm fronds shimmying like pom-poms in the breeze.
Colors always blazed this brightly inside Mandy’s grid. Had they always burned this brightly outside of it, too?
“Are those pics for Paulina?” Javi asked.
“Yes.” Some I’d already attached to her text thread.
I pressed the phone to my chest. The rest I’d keep just for me.
If I ever found myself sliding back into a grayscale world, I’d have these videos to guide me along the Technicolor brick road back home.