Chapter Nine
Cece
“You’re folding that wrong.”
Bexley looks down at the baby blue bikini tangled between her hands, turns it over like a second angle might help, then looks back at me with the kind of patience usually reserved for toddlers and drunk people.
“It’s six strings and two triangles, Cece. There is no right way to fold this.”
“There absolutely is. You’re twisting the bottoms into the top.”
“Yeah, because they’re basically the same piece of dental floss.”
Before I can stop her, she gives up and drops the entire thing into my open suitcase in one messy pile.
I stare at it.
She smiles sweetly. “There. Packed.”
“Don’t touch anything else.”
“You invited me over to help.”
“I invited you over because you said you were one bad practice test away from throwing your laptop into traffic. The packing was optional.”
“Then why did you hand me a pile of clothes the second I walked through the door?”
“Because you were standing there doing nothing.”
Bex grabs another top from the bed and holds it against herself. She’s wearing one of Talon’s oversized shirts with tiny shorts underneath, her hair piled on top of her head, and she somehow still looks cute while actively destroying the organization system I spent forty minutes creating.
“Actually, I was eating the chips I brought.”
“And dropping crumbs in my bed while you did it.”
“I was sharing them with Guac.”
“That little gremlin does not need chips.”
Guacamole lifts his head from the middle of my pillow at the sound of his name. He’s been supervising us for the last twenty minutes, wrapped in a soft gray blanket with only his bald head and enormous ears sticking out. His eyes narrow at me like I’ve personally insulted his nutritional choices.
Bex glances over at him. “He disagrees.”
“He also eats lint.”
“Still less questionable than half the men you’ve dated.”
“I don’t date men.”
“Exactly. You just occasionally make terrible decisions with them and then pretend it never happened.”
My hand pauses over the toiletries spread across my dresser.
Bex keeps her eyes on the shirt she’s folding, but there’s a tiny curve at the corner of her mouth that tells me the comment wasn’t random.
I narrow my eyes at her reflection in the mirror. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
“It was a general statement about your deeply healthy relationship with emotional intimacy.”
“Wow. One psychology elective and suddenly you’re Dr. Phil.”
“I’ve known you since we were fifteen. That’s basically a doctorate in whatever the fuck is wrong with you.”
I grab a rolled pair of socks and throw them at her. She catches them against her chest, laughing, then tosses them into the suitcase without even checking where they belong.
“Seriously, stop helping.”
“You’re welcome.”
I turn back to my dresser and start sorting my makeup into two bags. One for tomorrow morning and one for the festival, because I’m not digging through six lip liners at five in the morning while Revel stands outside my house running his mouth.
Just thinking his name makes my stomach do something stupid.
Not butterflies.
Absolutely not.
More like indigestion with abs.
I zip the smaller makeup bag harder than necessary and move it beside my purse. My equipment is already packed into the car, every cable wrapped, labeled, and checked twice. My clothes are almost done.
Everything is under control.
Mostly.
Bexley has started untangling the straps of my blue bikini bottoms when the doorbell rings.
Guacamole explodes out of the blanket so fast he nearly takes the pillowcase with him. He launches off the bed, lands with an offended little grunt, then tears down the hallway like somebody has come to steal the food he doesn’t pay for.
“Who the hell is that?” Bex asks.
“Probably my mom. She texted she might stop by before work.”
“At this hour?”
“She works nights.”
I follow Guac through the house while Bex trails behind me, still carrying the bikini for some reason. By the time I reach the front door, he’s standing on his back legs with both front paws against it, yelling at whoever rang the bell.
“Move, chismoso.”
He does not move.
I scoop him up with one arm and open the door to find my mother standing on the porch with two foil-covered containers balanced against her chest and a reusable grocery bag looped over one wrist.
“Hola, mi amor.” Her whole face brightens when she sees me. “Take this before I drop everything.”
I quickly grab the containers while she steps inside, bringing the smell of roasted peppers, seasoned meat, warm tortillas, and cinnamon with her.
My mom is forty-eight and still one of the prettiest women I’ve ever seen.
Not in a polished, tries-too-hard way either.
She’s wearing navy scrubs with little silver hoops, her dark hair twisted into a loose bun with a few gray strands showing near her temples.
Her face is soft, warm brown eyes framed by laugh lines she used to complain about until I told her they made her look kind.
They do.
Everything about her is kind.
Even when life gave her every reason not to be.
“You made all this tonight?” I ask, carrying the food toward the kitchen.
“I made it this afternoon before I slept. There are breakfast burritos, empanadas, fruit, and the little cinnamon pastries you like. Some for tonight and enough for the road tomorrow.”
“Mom, we’re driving to Miami, not crossing the country.”
“Sí, and you’ll still be hungry before you even hit the highway.” She taps the first foil container. “This one is for tonight. The rest are for tomorrow. No stopping for that gas-station basura and calling it breakfast.”
Bex is already peeling back the foil before Mom finishes. She slides onto one of the stools, steals an empanada, then points it at me after the first bite.
“To be fair, Revel’s going too, and that man is huge. All that muscle has to eat. Mrs. Mendez, you might’ve made exactly enough.”
Mom’s eyes cut straight to me.
“?Revel va contigo?”
I glare at Bex. “He’s helping with the equipment.”
“Mmm.” Mom leans against the island, a knowing little smile pulling at her mouth. “Qué conveniente.”
“Not today,”
“I didn’t even say anything, mi amor.”
“Your face did.”
Bex nods around another bite. “Her face definitely did.”
“He’s a sweet boy.”
“You’ve met him twice.”
“Twice was enough. Muy educado. Very charming. And he looks at you like you hung the moon.”
“His entire existence is just to annoy me.”
“Maybe because you’re cute when you’re annoyed.”
Bex nearly chokes on her empanada.
I point at both of them. “You two are getting way too comfortable.”
Mom only smiles wider. “Ay, Cecilia. You talk about that man far too much for someone who supposedly doesn’t like him.”
“I talk about him because he’s irritating.”
“Claro.”
“Don’t claro me.”
Bex wipes her fingers on a napkin, looking far too pleased. “She’s right, though.”
Mom laughs, comes around the island, and kisses Bex’s cheek before taking an empanada for herself. Since Bex and I have been friends so long, mom stopped treating her like a guest years ago. Bex has slept on our couch, eaten out of our fridge, and cried at our kitchen table.
She’s family.
Mom reaches into the grocery bag and pulls out a smaller foil container, setting it off to the side. “This one is for Mateo. I’m dropping it off before work because, apparently, there’s no food in his apartment.”
“I swear he says that every week.”
“Claro. Your brother suddenly forgets how to cook whenever he wants me to feed him.”
“He’s twenty-two.”
“And still my baby.”
I roll my eyes, but there’s no real heat in it. Mateo is my younger brother and has spent most of his life acting like I exist to answer questions he could easily Google himself. He has Mom’s eyes, his dad, Daniel’s dimples, and absolutely none of my ability to mind his own business.
Daniel came into our lives when I was little, then Mateo came along a few years later.
Technically, he’s my half-brother, but nobody in our family uses the half part unless paperwork makes us.
Daniel made sure of that. He married Mom, loved her the way she deserved, and never once made me feel like the extra kid from the man who left.
He never pushed me to call him dad or pretended my real father didn’t exist, even when I wished he didn’t.
He just showed up. School concerts, parent-teacher nights, birthdays, bad report cards, worse breakups.
Daniel was there through all of it, quiet and reliable, loving me without ever acting like it was some generous thing he deserved praise for.
He tried to make sure I understood that one man leaving didn’t mean they all would.
It didn’t work.
If anything, Daniel only showed me how rare a man like him actually is.
“Daniel already told everybody at work you’re playing Sol Fuego,” Mom says, like she can hear me thinking about him. “He wanted to print the festival poster and hang it in the break room.”
My mouth falls open. “He did not.”
“I stopped him.”
“Thank God.”
“I did let him send it to the family group chat, though.”
“That thing has, like, thirty-seven people in it.”
“Thirty-nine now. Your tía added two cousins from Texas.”
“Of course she did. I don’t even know those cousins.”
“They know you now.” Mom smiles and gives my arm a gentle squeeze. “Daniel is proud of you, mija. We both are.”
Bex leans over the island, grinning. “Your whole family is basically running a marketing campaign.”
Mom laughs softly. “Ay, déjalos. They’re excited for you.”
“Excited and nosy.”
“In this family, it’s the same thing.”
Bex lifts her empanada in agreement. “That’s why I love it here.”
“You say that because they feed you.”
“It’s one of many reasons.”
Mom turns back to me, and the teasing in her expression softens. She reaches up and moves a piece of hair away from my face, smoothing it behind my ear the same way she’s done since I was little.
“I’m so proud of you, Cecilia.”
My throat tightens immediately, which is rude because I have expensive lashes on and no interest in getting emotional in my kitchen.
“I haven’t even played yet.”