Chapter Twenty-Two
The soles of my loafers and Javi’s Vans crunched against the parking lot’s gravel on our escape. “We have ten minutes to get to B Spoke,” I panted. “Their late policy is vibranium-clad.”
His waves bounced off his cheekbones as he ran next to me. “Fingers crossed traffic won’t be too bad.”
This was SoCal. Traffic always sucked, but I nodded and picked up my pace. “Good thing your scooter drives faster than Cinderella’s pumpkin coach.”
Halfway to the scooter, a voice shattered my wishful thinking. “Castillo Torres!”
I halted midstride. Slowly, I turned.
Sun sparked on Blunt Bob’s hair. And on the—er, my—clipboard she waved overhead.
Every muscle in my body locked. In my hurry to take off, I’d not only forgotten to drop off the rose order and the AT-AT request—but also managed to leave evidence behind.
“Should we just mad dash to the scooter and hightail it outta here?” Javi whispered.
In the Before era, Dad would always bring Po and me to take-your-kids-to-work day. Some of his courtroom tactics had been stored in my long-term memory. “I did the crime, so let me see if I can get out of the time.” A huge breath. “But have the scooter ready for our getaway in case. I’ll be right back.”
The dimple popped out. “That’s what people in slasher movies say right before they get stabbed, BTW,” he said.
“Not helping.” I headed toward Soraya before I lost my nerve.
“I was looking all over for that.” I batted my eyes, doing my best Bambi impression. “Where did you find it? The balloon hall? Or the linens room?” I asked, reaching for the clipboard.
Soraya kept it away. “I found this at the base of a sculpture. One I’d never seen in all my years of visiting this establishment.”
The more her gaze bore into me, the more my throat went dry. After an eternity, she lowered the clipboard, tracking everything I’d written on the order form with a burgundy-painted fingernail.
How much cadmium-red, ultramarine-blue, and true-black paints had to be mixed to match her nail polish?
Get it together.No time to blend colors in my head. Not when her Rolex ticked and ticked, winding down on precious time to get to B Spoke. Or worse, counted the seconds before she turned me over to the front desk.
I reached for the clipboard again. “I must’ve dropped it there by accident. Thank you so much for returning it. It was nice to meet you—”
“Baccara roses are bold, yet classically romantic.” She shifted the clipboard away from me. “Admittedly, I had to look up an ‘AT-AT.’”
She pronounced it ay tee ay tee instead of at at the way Javi had. “Party planning is so much about organizing details and being a therapist to the clients that a coordinator can forget to hone their creativity.” Her eyes leveled with mine. “Erecting a new sculpture to add to the studio’s rotation takes, well, balls.”
Wait—was that a pun? I muffled my laughter in case she wasn’t joking. Only the corners of her mouth lifted, so maybe…
“It’s proving to be quite popular, too,” she continued. “In the few minutes I spent inside the Arctic Art Studio I overheard three orders. One for a bachelor party. Two for a bachelorette.”
“Our phallus in wonderland is a hit?” I blurted. “Um, I mean—”
She lifted a hand to cut me off. A full smile broke across her face. It emboldened me enough to ask, “If you’re not going to bust me, may I ask where you’re going with this?”
B Spoke waited for no one. Paulina Reyes didn’t, either.
“In the floral room there was talk about you working for your high school’s student body association. Yet your beau over there—” She gestured to Javi.
“Oh, he’s not my…” I pressed my lips together. Aftershocks of our kisses surged through me. Whatever our relationship status was, it’d certainly leveled up.
“He indicated you also worked at Mandy Whitmore.” The steely look in her eyes returned, eyebrows lowering like velvet curtains.
“I’m my school’s SBA event chair. As far as working with Mandy…” A wistful sigh escaped me.
Blame it on the heat. The mind-numbing cold inside the Arctic Art Studio. The filing down of my heart’s sharpest edges. Or a combo of all of the above.
After everything I’d done today, what was divulging my wish-upon-a-star dream to a stranger? “I’m hoping to apply to her fairy godmother’s internship before the application window closes this summer.”
“In that case, let me formally introduce myself. I’m Soraya Hashemi, senior party consultant at Mandy Whitmore and Associates.” She extended her hand.
I grabbed it, mostly to steady myself in case I passed out. “You work with Mandy?”
“I do.” Soraya’s expression brightened. “As should you. You clearly have a strong vision for your events. You’re also capable of whipping up a rain plan in the face of an emergency.” She snickered. “One that surpasses the original.”
She handed the clipboard back. “I highly encourage you to send your application. Tonight, if possible.”
“Tonight?” I pressed the clipboard to my chest, feeling it cushion the empty places. “I only have one big party under my belt. I’m hoping the quince I’m currently in the middle of planning will get me on Mandy’s radar. But it won’t be done for another few weeks.”
She flicked her hand, waving away my concern. “While you’ve got instincts that can’t be taught, you still have a lot to learn, my dear.” She gestured to the clipboard. “I placed my card under the clip. Email me your resume along with your application, and I’ll make sure they land on Mandy’s desk tomorrow morning.”
My stomach fluttered, as if diving down every Space Mountain drop.
“Now, I have to run or I’ll be late to my next appointment,” she said.
Holy crap—same here.
“Thank you, Ms. Hashemi. You have no idea how much this means to me.” How much it will mean to my family, inching nearer to our HEA.
Soraya’s auburn hair swooshed on her strut to one of the many European imports studding the lot.
I’d gotten so used to being the fairy godmother I’d overlooked the possibility of having one of my own.
Thank you, Fairy Godmother, I mouthed. Thank you.
The scooter’s speed and Soraya’s fairy dust couldn’t ward off the blight of rush-hour traffic. I paced outside B Spoke’s storefront. “How pissed do you think Paulina will be that we blew the appointment?” I asked.
Javi scratched the back of his neck. “Do you want me to be optimistic or realistic?”
Sweat prickled my hairline. Great. If she’d flip over this, how mad would she be if she found out about the internship?
Soraya had just sped up the clock on preventing that problem, but the sinking feeling didn’t go away. “Maybe she’ll be more forgiving considering I managed to rebook the fitting for tomorrow,” I said. Scoring a last-minute cancellation was nothing short of a miracle. “Make sure you put this in your schedule for ma?ana.”
He frowned. “Um… you know how I mentioned Mom and me marathoning stuff? Tomorrow we’re going to be watching more Crash Landing on You.”
“As much as I support you and your mom spending time together, if you’re not here ma?ana the only thing crash landing on you will be my foot,” I teased. Sort of. “I suspect Paulina’s will, too. And her wedged Jordans look a lot heavier than my shoes.”
“Sheesh, okay,” he said, staring at my loafers.
“Po’s always making fun of them.” Did her quips make me self-conscious? Hardly. The footwear was part of my fairy godmother’s uniform as much as the pencil-wand tucked behind my ear.
“Hey, I never underestimate the versatility and dependability of a good loafer,” he said. “They are perfect for any occasion.”
Something about the way he smiled made me feel like maybe he wasn’t only talking about footwear. A thrill rushed through me. “Agreed.” I said. “Imagine if Cinderella wore loafers instead of glass slippers. She would’ve never lost her shoe in the first place.”
Javi edged nearer. There was that scent of lavender. “But how would the prince have found her?”
“Ummm, by looking at her. Hello. It’s not like she was wearing a disguise.”
Javi leaned against B Spoke’s window display. Only a thin sheet of glass separated his beach-casual outfit from fancier wools and silks. “Yeah, she was.”
“What?” I scoffed.
“The soot, the rags? The handkerchief?” He gestured to the pocket square on the dress form. “She wore them for so long she forgot her true identity. When she put the slipper on,” he said, rocking back on his heels, “she remembered.”
As much as the topic of “true” identities made me tug at my blouse’s collar, curiosity got the best of me. Who was this guy who saved lives, smashed sculptures, but also theorized about Cinderella? “And who was she really?”
Javi gave a lopsided grin. “A princess.”
“No. She married into the title.”
“Says you, Castle Towers.” Tinker Bell’s pixie dust had nothing on the sparkles in Javi’s eyes. The way their glimmer fell on me, I felt like I could lift off the ground and fly.
I shook my head with a laugh. “Speaking of princesses”—I glanced down the sidewalk—“where’s ours? Can you text Paulina and get an ETA?”
He snagged the phone from his back pocket.
“While you’re at it, remember to put tomorrow’s fitting on your calendar,” I said.
He sighed, but a small smile crept to his lips. “I will. Between Pau’s collection of lightsabers and your no doubt equally impressive one of loafers, I can’t get on either of y’all’s bad side.” His fingers tapped across the screen. “Guess I’ll have to double up on episodes with Mom tonight.”
In classic Javi fashion, he went deeper. Telling me how they didn’t have much extended family here. Watching shows became a default (and fun) way to keep up with their Spanish and Korean.
The love dripping from his voice made my heart flutter. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t feel a couple of pangs alongside it. I breathed through them, focusing on Javi’s joy. On his invitation to talk about my mom as freely as he was able to talk about his.
“Watching movies was how Mom learned English,” I said. “Lots of cheesy rom-coms.” The things I’d give to be able to watch some of those with her again. Another ache. I kept going. “But mostly tons of Disney movies.”
“She loved a happily ever after?”
“She didn’t just love them.” I plucked the pencil from the back of my ear, rolling it between my fingers. Mom not getting her HEA only made me more determined to make sure the rest of my family did. “She believed in them more than the healing powers of caldo.”
“Huh,” he said, tipping his chin up. “Mom and I sorta adopted shows as our chicken soup for the soul, too. Now that I think of it, we also gravitate to shows with an HEA.” He fidgeted with the Mickey appliqué on his sling bag. “Do you still watch movies with Po or your dad?”
“Oof.” I slumped against the window display. “Short answer is no.”
“And the long one?”
“I doubt I can share that version. Paulina and Po will be here any second.”
“Give it a shot. You know how bad traffic is,” he said. A massive delivery truck zoomed down the street. The shine of its side-view mirrors strobed off our skin like magic dust from a wand.
Enchanted by it, or the opportunity to get my frustrations out, I said, “After Mom, Dad’s either working or playing Star Wars video games twenty-four seven. Which is why I’m familiar with some things related to a galaxy far, far away.” I shifted on my loafers. “And Po’s got the attention span of Geppetto’s goldfish now, so neither of them are the ideal movie buddies anymore.”
He pushed some hair off his face. “That’s too bad. You know how Mom and me talk about Dad a lot?”
I hugged the planner to my chest, nodding.
He cleared his throat. “Well, bingeing’s good for when we don’t want to talk, in any language.”
My fingers twitched. I’d never considered that not talking didn’t have to be such a bad thing… so long as there was someone by your side to not talk with.
“Plus, you can still get your weekly fixes of HEAs that way,” Javi added.
Without missing a beat, I said, “I still get them through Mandy Whitmore. ‘Happily ever afters are our business’ is her motto, after all.”
I pictured her Insta grid, imagined each of her beautiful photos as a layer of stucco. Working for her would plaster my heart’s fractures in ways the Krazy Glue wasn’t able to with the ice sculpture.
“Interning for her must be very fulfilling,” Javi said.
The earnestness in his voice nearly broke my resolve to keep his assumption intact. But if I fessed up now, wouldn’t he just run to Paulina and tell her everything? More the actions of a concerned friend than a snitch, but still. The fallout would jeopardize my chances with Mandy.
“Yes,” I said. “Interning with her is the best.” I tried to channel Po’s “believing is seeing” philosophy. If I’m manifesting tomorrow, I’m not really lying today, am I?
Wrong. Guilt slithered through me. I closed my eyes, wishing for the cars rumbling past to squash it.
A bell-like chime. For a second, I thought the sound came from the flick of Soraya’s fairy godmother wand, granting my desire—not an incoming notification on Javi’s phone.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he said, laugh-snorting. He turned the screen around, showing me a text from Pau AKA Sister from Another Mister:
Bro, can’t make it to the fittings. Something came up
“What?” I squealed. The guilt stayed lodged inside my belly, but at least I didn’t have to tell Paulina I’d screwed up. Spared—no, saved—by Hurricane Po. I cracked up at the irony.
Another chime.
Considering I’m not going to miss watching you squirm in a penguin suit, please have your crush reschedule the tux fitting for same time tm, por fa.
The world went fuzzy when I reached “your crush.” And when Javi’s eyes glittered unabashed, inviting and caring, it encouraged me to cup the back of his neck and pull him in for a kiss.
Once more I was swept off my loafers.
This time, I made didn’t try to plant myself back on Earth.