Chapter 10- Bésame Mucho
Lizzie didn’t know what to do with the bomb Will had just dropped in her inbox.
So she did what any self-respecting Miami girl does in a crisis: she went straight to Abuela.
She sat on the plastic-covered couch while Abuela read the email, hand dramatically pressed to her mouth, computer screen glowing in her thick bifocals. Abuela might dodge English for bills or doctor forms, but for chisme this juicy? She was fluent.
“?Lo sabía!” she finally exploded, whipping off her glasses. (I knew it!)
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Lizzie, ?tú me quieres decir que este hombre estaba enamorado de ti y lo rechazaste… por ese George?”(You mean to tell me that this man was in love with you and you rejected him for that George guy?)
“No! That’s not—” Lizzie flailed. “There was more to it… I thought…”
Abuela raised one perfectly drawn eyebrow and waited. The silence was devastating.
“Fine,” Lizzie muttered. “What do I do? Do I tell Lidia?”
“?Estás loca?” Abuela hissed. “Esa nina no piensa cuando está enamorada.”(Are you Crazy? That girl doesn’t think when she’s in love.)
Lizzie winced at the word enamorada. She knew they had gotten close, but she didn’t think her sister was quite in love yet. But she shouldn’t be surprised, Lidia fell “in love” the way other people changed handbags.
“So we just let her stay with a creep?”
“Creep ni creep. His advances aren’t being rejected, are they? She’s grown. She’ll learn.”
Lizzie groaned and dropped her face into her hands. “Okay, but… should I answer Will?”
Abuela looked at her like she’d suggested streaking through Sunday Mass. “?No te da pena? The man said he wants to forget the whole thing!”
The shame hit Lizzie like a cafecito sugar crash. She—who prided herself on never being swayed by pretty faces or pretty money—had let George play her like a dollar-store guiro. And she’d thrown Will’s words back in his face because of what George had told her.
Lizzie dropped her face into her hands. “I was harsh. I know I was. But he’s been cold to me from day one. He never thanked me for anything. He just… dismissed me.”
Abuela’s eyebrow arched higher. “And you dismissed him right back. Two fools throwing hearts at each other like they’re trash.”
Lizzie winced. “It’s not the same.”
“Nina, it’s exactly the same. You both think you know the other one so well, y mira lo que pasa.” Abuela patted her knee. (Look what happens.) “Now you need to give him space. You rejected him, so you have to live with that for now.”
“Maybe I can respond and explain it wasn’t my fault…”
Abuela cut her off. “No? So who forced you to insult him and turn him down? Who forced you to believe el George without following up? No mija, no. It was your fault, perdón, pero no eres la ultimate Coca-Cola en el desierto.” (Sorry but you aren’t the last Coca-Cola in the desert.)
She knew Abuela was right, and Lizzie knew that some of the perceived slight was her own ego and need to be acknowledged. She was the one acting like a brat. And she couldn’t just take it back now.
Abuela was still talking—something about how she’d sized George up the first second he walked in, how she’d warned Lizzie about raising crows, how grandchildren never listen—but Lizzie only caught fragments.
At least, she thought grimly, the next two weeks were inventory.
Night shift.
6 p.m. to 3 a.m.
Will wasn’t likely to set foot in the warehouse after six.
Perfect.
She could hide in the dark with the pallets and pretend the last forty-eight hours had never happened. Thank you Jesusito for small miracles.
Lizzie was not a night owl. She also wasn’t a menial-task, counting-beans person; so she really wasn’t a night-shift-inventory-in-a-lonely-warehouse-while-she-avoided-the-shame-of-her-employer person.
But here she was at 6 p.m., starting what would be the beginning of a two-week sentence.
Milo, the security guard, greeted her warmly; then she met Jose, Karl, Dino, and Max—four college kids who worked nights for tuition remission.
They showed her the basics: unload boxes, shelve product, update counts, and load tomorrow’s orders if time allowed.
Inventory was like the warehouse’s alter ego.
The DC warehouse was buzzing, lively, and was all about what you could move out.
Inventory was repetitive. Soul-crushing.
It was the setup for everyone else’s success.
She hadn’t analyzed this process before her proposal, so the first days were spent watching Max put box after box on a shelf, then make a note.
Or Jose explaining that he counted product A, then found product A on the sheet, and wrote the number, as if this would shock her to her core.
Breaks were the guys sharing class horror stories or arguing about Call of Duty load-outs.
They were polite, but she was clearly the visiting aunt they tolerated.
She missed Carlota’s fire, Ignacio’s booming laugh.
This felt like punishment. Or self-flagellation for her rotten judgment.
The one bright spot was Milo—sixty-something, ex-cop, gave off wise-tío energy.
Third night in, she confessed the hours were killing her. The next night, and every night after, a fresh colada waited on her desk. God bless you, Milo! Lizzie thought.
At home, Lidia was in full lovey-dovey delirium.
George picked her up in a different luxury rental every time.
Lizzie had to bite her tongue while Lidia gushed about how he waited five whole minutes when she changed shoes or offered to buy her breakfast. Every sentence out of Lidia’s mouth seemed to start with “George says,” or “When George does that…” Saint George could do no wrong.
Thankfully, night shift meant Lizzie avoided seeing George, and she only had to deal with Lidia for an hour or two at most before she left.
At least it reinforced that she and Abuela had been right to stay quiet.
No way would Lidia have listened to them about George.
And Lizzie consoled herself with the idea that Lidia, while growing as an influencer and making good money, didn’t make enough to be preyed upon by the likes of George Wick. At least not for financial gain.
Then, at the end of week one, Carlota texted:
Third-party auditors are coming on Monday. Verifying your numbers. Sorry, amiga. Corporate thing.
Lizzie’s stomach dropped. Will didn’t trust her anymore.
The rejection had flipped a switch. She wasn’t worried about the numbers—she knew they were bulletproof—but the implication stung worse than she expected.
She remembered Will saying she was worth every penny.
Remembered the thrill when Jim told her Will had said a directive from Lizzie was a directive from him.
She’d liked that feeling. Liked it more than she had realized until this moment. Now it was gone
Milo walked by just then, seeing her looking downcast. “Lizzie, everything ok?”
Lizzie smiled reassuringly. “Yeah, I’m just tired and hungry, I think.”
On Monday, when Lizzie came in, Milo smiled widely at her and held up a white box. She knew what was inside by the smell before she saw them. Golden, buttery crust, and a sticky-sweet filling; Pastelitos de Guayaba.
Lizzie’s mouth watered. “Oh my goodness, yes!” She grabbed one and took a big bite. The tangy, sweet filling burst into her mouth, and her eyes rolled back. “Mmm! So good!” She said, her mouth full.
Fifteen minutes later, stomachs full and laughing together, Lizzie was feeling better than she had in over a week. The magic of pastelitos.
“Thank you, Milo, this and the coladas have been such a welcome surprise.”
“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it, but I’m not the one to thank for any of that.”
“What do you mean?” Lizzie said, confused.
“I haven’t been bringing you the coffees, and I didn’t bring the pastries.”
Lizzie was genuinely shocked. She had just assumed it was Milo and never even thought to question it. Her head spinning, she asked, “Then who?” But as soon as the words left her mouth, she knew. Will.
“He’s been coming in around 5:30, bringing the coffee and checking to see how you’ve been doing. But I get the impression that he doesn’t want you to know.”
“Why?” Lizzie asked, wondering about his intentions.
Milo assumed she was asking why he told her, not why Will had been coming around. “I think you young people need to stop being so secretive. Life’s too short to be sneaky.”
Lizzie was trying to process it; He’d been coming in every evening, when the warehouse was still quiet, bringing the coffee and checking on her from the shadows. Milo had seen it all but never said a word until now.
Lizzie wasn’t sure what this meant. Did he still care for her? Did she want him to? She didn’t dare get her hopes up that maybe things could go back to how they were. But for the first time in a while, she felt the weight of her embarrassment didn’t feel quite so oppressive.
Milo wasn’t wrong about the secrecy. She assumed that Milo must’ve told him that she knew, but even so, he never said anything. Never sent her a message, or an email, or even left any sign that he’d been thinking of her, other than the small cup of coffee that she found on her desk every evening.
Word of the colada deliveries began to spread, and the college boys started taking bets on how long before El Fantasma Executive actually showed his face.
Someone pulled the security footage: every evening around 5:34 p.m. on the dot, the same dark hoodie slipped through the side door, left something, and vanished.
They turned the clip into a GIF. Caption: “CEO simping hours.”
Lizzie pretended to hate it. She made out like he didn’t trust her and felt she needed a babysitter.
But secretly, she lasted exactly two nights before she started drafting notes and emails to Will.
None ever saw the light of day. They lived in her draft folder, Lizzie incapable of pressing send, or folded up in her pocket to be thrown away later.
Friday was the final night of inventory. The auditors had come and gone—report glowing, savings verified to the penny. Carlota texted a string of crying-laughing emojis and “El Tenso is going to choke on his own pride when the board sees this.”
Lizzie opened her locker to hang up her vest one last time.
Inside sat a brand-new boombox wrapped in a red bow. On top, a cassette labeled in Will’s sharp handwriting:
Warehouse Nights — WP
She waited until the last forklift shut off, until Jose, Karl, Dino, and Max clocked out with sleepy fist-bumps. Then she plugged it in, pressed play, and turned the volume low enough that only she could hear.
Danza Kuduro played first — the warehouse suddenly felt alive, like the pallets were dancing too. She smiled despite herself, remembering her first week at the DC. She skipped to the next song, La Vida Es Un Carnaval — she belted out the chorus as she did weeks ago.
She went to the next, another dance number, Suavemente. She remembered dancing to it on the rooftop with Carlota in her pirate regalia.
And then — Bésame Mucho. Slow. Tormenting. In Spanish. The lyrics wrapped around her like arms she’d never let hold her. She stood frozen between the pallets, safety goggles fogging for reasons that had nothing to do with temperature, and let the song play all the way to the end.
When the last note died, she ejected the tape, slipped it into her pocket next to the note she had drafted earlier but wouldn’t give him.
“Coward,” she breathed, the accusation aimed only at the woman in the safety goggles who still couldn’t hit send.
Then she clocked out, walked past Milo’s booth without a word, and didn’t look back.
Because tomorrow the night shift was over.
Tomorrow she’d have to work in daylight.