Chapter 5 #2
Which, I’m learning, is what usually happens when I lead with my heart… and that’s really what most of my “impulsive” decisions have been. The real me, trying to break free and live life on my own terms.
Out in the event space, the DJ turns on a Karol G song, and the fun beat pounds through the building.
“Come on,” Carlos says, taking my hand. “Let’s get out there before Esme and Mamá send out a search party. Esme’s gonna wanna dance with her favorite uncle.” He rolls his eyes. “And if I’m lucky, maybe she’ll have time to dance with me too.”
I laugh.
The party’s in full swing when we emerge from the bathroom.
The community center’s been transformed with burgundy and gold decorations, fairy lights, and more flowers than your average wedding and funeral combined.
Esme—who has Carlos’s gorgeous features, dark eyes, and stubborn nature packed into a pixie-like form—looks radiant as she holds court on the dance floor wearing a burgundy dress I helped her pick out.
Carlos steers us to the edge of the floor as the DJ switches to a slower Camila Cabello song. I don’t understand all of the lyrics, but I know she’s singing about her favorite person and how his beautiful face brings her light and peace.
When Carlos pulls me into his arms and we start to sway together, I feel like the song’s about us. It feels so natural dancing with him, swaying to the rhythm, being pressed against him. I love being able to hold him like this.
“Your mom’s watching,” I murmur, catching sight of her across the room. She waves at us with a huge smile, and I can’t help but smile back.
I’ll never forget my first dinner at her house back in February.
I’d been low-key terrified, despite Carlos’s reassurances, that she’d take issue with him dating a guy—and a city guy, at that.
But five minutes into me saying hello in halting Spanish, she’d hugged me and whispered, “Thank you for making him smile, mijo.” And when I’d tried to explain the fake-relationship situation Carlos and I had agreed to, she’d laughed her ass off.
“My son must be crazy about you if he agreed to this. There’s no other explanation. ”
“Probably planning our wedding in her head,” Carlos teases, following my gaze.
“Well. She is a hell of a party planner,” I say softly, already getting accustomed to the idea.
Carlos’s eyes go warm. “She is,” he agrees. Then he spins me out dramatically, making me laugh as he twirls me around the dance floor. When he pulls me back in, he dips me so low I have to grab his broad shoulders for support.
“Carlos!” I gasp.
“Trust me?” he says as he pulls me back up, and the crowd hoots and claps.
“Always,” I whisper. And it’s true. I’ve trusted him with every part of me, and he makes me feel safe and cherished and seen every damn day. And he’s always down for whatever impulsive thing I decide to do. I know with him my heart is in the best possible keeping.
He spins me out again, and this time when he pulls me back, he holds me close and whispers in my ear, “I love you, Erick Nelson.”
“Oh.” It’s the first time he’s said those words out loud, and they zing through me like electricity.
Don’t get me wrong—I’ve felt Carlos’s love for months. Since the day I moved here, since the day he came to New York, maybe even longer than that. But having him say it out loud, hearing the weight and the… the certainty behind his words? It hits different.
“I love you too,” I whisper back, my voice rough.
“Thank fuck. Because I love you so much, I can’t hold it all. Every smile, every laugh, every oh. Every damn time I see you, it gets bigger and bigger.” His arms tighten around me. “And I will never regret a single impulsive decision either of us has made because they got us here.”
Once again, he manages to say exactly what I was thinking, and my whole chest squeezes. But I still manage to tease, “Not a single decision? Even Marnie and the mechanical bull?”
Carlos laughs. “Yes, mi amor, even that.” Then he kisses me, right there in the middle of the dance floor. I hear his mother laughing indulgently and Esme cheering somewhere behind us. “This—you—are worth all of it.”
As we dance under the fairy lights, surrounded by his family, I think about all the impulsive choices that brought me here.
Messing up Griffin’s marketing campaign, confessing it to my father, kissing a lumberjack behind a restaurant, following my heart to Vermont, being with this man who makes everything better just by existing. And I decide Carlos is right.
I wouldn’t change a single thing either. Not one single silly, impulsive decision.
And I can’t wait to see what we decide to do next.