CHAPTER 59
“He wants to fight for you, you know.” Leila plops into the seat beside me in a fashion at odds with her gorgeous, puffy ballgown.
“Shouldn’t you be enjoying your party?” I ask as she wraps her arms around me in an awkward hug.
“Shouldn’t you?” she shoots back with a pointed look in her uncle’s direction. “Plus, I had to thank you for coming, and I couldn’t let you hoard all the sugar cookies, if all you’re going to do is pick at them.”
I set down the cookie that I hadn’t realized I was crumbling into a pile of soft, sugary dough and fluffy, white icing. With a sheepish look, I open my mouth to apologize, but she simply pops a piece of the cookie into my mouth instead.
“They are delicious,” I admit with my mouth full. “Family recipe?”
“No. They’re a reference to one of my favorite books. Ironically enough–” she lifts the other cookie from my plate and turns it between her long fingers, “they’re a bit of an apology gesture between two characters who everyone else can tell are ridiculously in love with each other and would be perfect for each other if they would both just get out of their own way.”
“Are you sure you’re only eighteen?” I ask, slightly embarrassed to be getting a lecture about my love life from a teenager and even more embarrassed because I know she’s right. “I owe you a thank you, by the way.”
“For giving you the perfect opportunity to win back my tito?” she teases with a little shimmy of her shoulders, raised brows, and a close-lipped grin.
I stare back until she laughs. “Did you know your uncle gave me one of your old bats during practice a couple months ago?” She shakes her head with confusion widening her dark eyes. “He wanted me to stop sandbagging during batting practice, and he gave me one of your bats to prove that I could handle the men’s bat–”
“It’s not a men’s bat,” Leila’s partner says, joining us with a cup of punch in each of their hands. Gray perches on the chair beside Mateo’s niece in a position that shouldn’t be comfortable, especially not in a formal dress. “Just a slightly bigger one.”
I nod, appropriately chastened by a teenager for the second time in a handful of minutes. “Right. Well, after my usual bat broke. Yours is the one he handed me.”
“You hit a World Series grand slam using one of my bats?” Leila shrieks. Heads turn toward us, but people only smile and go on with their business. She hugs me again, this time standing and leaning over me until I’m half-concerned we’re both going to tumble out of the chair, fancy dresses and all. “I am seriously going to be the coolest person on the team. Between you and my tito–”
“Speaking of–” Vanessa interrupts her daughter and snags the free chair. “Leila, Gray, why don’t you two get back on the dance floor.”
Leila kisses her mother, and the two teens skip off hand in hand, leaving me oddly nervous to face Mateo’s sister alone. I fight the urge to crumble another cookie and try to find something to say.
“Are you in love with my brother?” she blurts out.
“I’m fall–” I pause and take a deep breath. “I should probably tell him that first.”
“Oh?” Vanessa raises her brows and cocks her head to the side, and I almost giggle at the family resemblance in that shared gesture. “Are you going to tell him that? Or are you going to sit over here avoiding him all night long?”
“Touché.” I should leave it at that, but I can’t help adding, “He’s been avoiding me, too.” And cringing immediately at how childish I sound to my own ears.
“He’s not avoiding you, honey. He’s giving you space.” Vanessa reaches out and squeezes my hand. She has the courtesy to maintain a straight face as she pulls her hand back and subtly wipes the sugar from her fingers. “We all saw that moment between the two of you before your asshole teammates drenched you in a victory shower.”
If we were talking about anything about Reyes and me, I might have giggled and told her that ‘victory shower’ makes it sound dirty. Instead, I lose myself in the memory of that almost kiss.
“He held back because he didn’t want to do anything to harm your reputation. The ball’s in your court now, honey, and I suggest you do something with it.” She stands before I can blurt out something along the lines of, never forget the balls, and squeezes my shoulder. “It would be nice to finally get a sister-in-law.”
My jaw drops, but she’s already gone, floating onto the dance floor and into Oliver’s waiting arms. I feel a twinge of jealousy–followed by a deeper twinge of guilt–seeing how easily they move together. Though, from what Mateo told me, I’m sure that the two of them making their relationship work was anything but easy.
And I don’t hate the way it sounded. Sister-in-law.
I make my way to the DJ booth and leave a few special requests and a generous tip. I almost feel bad for taking over the music at a teenager’s birthday party, but their whole family has practically been commanding me to make my move all night. After the way I handled things the last time we were together, if I’m going to make my move, I’m going to do it right.
Go big, or go home, I tell myself and force my suddenly leaden feet to move across the dance floor to the man dancing with an elderly family friend.
I hover awkwardly nearby, not wanting to cut in when he’s making an old woman smile.
I’m not sure what happens first. Oliver appears out of nowhere to cut in for a dance with the older woman. The music changes to the opening chords of a reggaeton song that I will always associate with a warm summer breeze, dancing barefoot on artificial turf beneath floodlights and a starless city sky, and the scent of him. Mateo turns away from his last dance partner and locks eyes with me.
“May I have this dance?” I ask.
I hold one hand out–stilted and awkwardly formal–and wish I could run away and start over. Until Reyes laughs. It’s not a cruel laugh. Not at me. It’s rich and beautiful, dynamic and full of depth. It’s a laugh from simpler times when we were both still denying the chemistry between us, and I couldn’t stop making a fool of myself.
“How could I say no?”
He takes my hand and pulls me into his body, but the distance he leaves between us shouts all of the things his flippant question leaves unsaid. Our bodies move in the perfect harmony that our hearts and heads are still trying to find. A timely sway of the hips. A graceful spin that brings us closer, but never close enough. It’s not lost on me that he keeps us near the edge of the dance floor, as if he might need to bolt at the first sign of trouble.
I drink him in like a woman parched and pray this moment between us is more than a mirage.
He pulls me close enough to whisper in my ear, “I love this song.”
I love you. The thought is so loud, I’m almost surprised he doesn’t hear it, too.