The Spanish Love Deception: A Novel

“Mamá,” I said for the hundredth time. “Mamá, escúchame, por favor.”

It wouldn’t really matter if I asked her to please listen to me a thousand more times. That wasn’t something my mother excelled at, much less ever practiced. Listening was reserved for those whose vocal cords took breaks.

A long and loud sigh left my lips as my mother’s voice traveled from my phone to my ear in heavy spurts of Spanish.

“Madre,” I repeated.

“… so if you decide to go with that other dress—you know which one I’m talking about?” my mother asked in Spanish, not really giving me a window to answer. “The one that is all flimsy and silky and falls to your ankles. Well, as your mother, I need to tell you that it’s not flattering. I’m sorry, Lina, but you are short, and the cut of the dress makes you look even shorter. And green is not your color either. I don’t think that’s a color the madrina of the wedding should wear.”

“I know, Mamá. But I already told you—”

“You’ll look like a … frog but in heels.”

Gee, thanks, Mother.

I chuckled and shook my head. “It doesn’t matter because I’m wearing the red dress.”

A gasp came through the line. “Ay. Why didn’t you tell me this before? You let me talk for half an hour about all your other options.”

“I told you as soon as it came up. You just—”

“Well, I must have let myself get carried away, cariño.”

I opened my mouth to confirm that, but she didn’t give me the chance.

“Perfect,” she cut in. “That is such a beautiful dress, Lina. It’s classy and flirty.”

Flirty? What was that supposed to mean?

“Your boobs will be entering the banquet before you.”

Oh … oh. So, that was what she meant.

“But the color does really flatter your skin, body shape, and face. Not like the frog dress.”

“Thanks,” I muttered. “I don’t think I’ll ever wear green again.”

“Good,” she said far too quickly for taking it as a good-hearted comment. “So, what’s this boyfriend of yours going to wear? Are you going to match? Papá got a tie in the same shade of baby blue I’ll be wearing.”

A tiny groan slipped out of my mouth. “Mamá, you know that Isa hates that. She specifically told us not to match.”

My sister had been very insistent—no matching couples. I even had to fight her over not adding that instruction on the invites. It’d cost me a lot of energy and patience to convince her that she didn’t want to be that kind of bride.

“Well, given that I gave birth to the bride and that I already bought that tie for Papá, I think your sister is going to have to make an exception.”

Leave it to her to be stubborn. I certainly was, my sister probably even more, but our mother? The woman had created the term bullheaded as she opened her eyes to the world the day she was born.

“I think she’ll have to,” I admitted under my breath.

Reaching for my planner, I scribbled on my to-do list to call Isa to warn her.

“I have an online voucher you can use, I think,” Mamá commented while I unlocked my laptop and absently checked my inbox. “Although maybe it does not work outside Spain. But it should, shouldn’t it? You are my daughter, and you should be able to use my vouchers, no matter where you are in the world. Isn’t that what the internet is supposed to be for?”

I clicked on an email notification for a new series meeting I had received. “Yeah, sure.” A quick scan of the contents of the description told me I should have probably waited for my mother to hang up before opening it.

“Yeah, sure, the internet is for that? Or yeah, sure, you’ll use my voucher?”

I leaned back on my seat, reading through the information attached.

“Lina?”

What are we even talking about? “Yes, Mamá.”

“Well, you’ll have to check the voucher yourself; you know I am not good with this internet thing.”

“Of course,” I said, still not knowing what I was agreeing to.

“Unless he has a tie already?”

He.

All my attention returned to the conversation.

“Does he?” she insisted when I didn’t answer. “Your new boyfriend.”

Small beads of sweat formed on my forehead at the prospect of discussing this.

Him.

The boyfriend I didn’t have but my family believed I did.

Because I had told them.

Lied to them.

All of a sudden, my lips were magically sewn together. I waited for my mother to conveniently change the topic in that chaotic and speedy way she always did while my mind went on a panicky frenzy.

What am I supposed to say anyway? No, Mamá. He can’t have a tie because he doesn’t even exist. I made him up, you see. All in an attempt to look a little less pathetic and lonely.

Perhaps I could hang up. Or pretend to be busy and terminate the call. But that would fill me with remorse, and frankly, I didn’t think I was able to take on any more of that. Also, my mother wasn’t stupid.

She’d know something was up.

This was the woman whose womb I had come out of.

More seconds ticked away as nothing came out of my mouth, and I couldn’t believe that for the first time in probably ever, the Martín matriarch was waiting for my answer in silence.

Shit.

A few more seconds ticked away.

Shit, shit, shit.

Confess, a little voice in my head said. But I shook my head, focusing on one of the little droplets of sweat trailing down my clammy back.

“Lina?” she finally said, her voice unsure. Worried. “Did something happen?”

I was a horrible, lying human being who had unquestionably put that concern I could hear in her voice.

“No …” Clearing my throat, I ignored the heaviness that felt a lot like shame settle in my stomach. “I’m okay.”

I heard her sigh. It was one of those sighs that smacked into you. Making me feel bad about myself. As if I could see her looking at me with eyes filled with defeat and a little sorrow, shaking her head. I hated it.

“Lina, you know you can talk to me if something happened.”

My guilt deepened, souring my stomach. I felt awful. Stupid too. But what could I even do besides keep lying or coming clean?

“Did you guys break up? You know, it would make sense because you have never talked about him before. Not until the other day at least.” There was a pause, in which I could hear my heart drumming in my ears. “Your cousin Charo said something yesterday, you know.”

Of course Charo knew. Anything Mamá knew, the rest of the family knew.

“So, she said that,” she continued when I didn’t say anything, “you don’t have any photos of him on Facebook.”

I closed my eyes.

“Nobody posts anything on Facebook anymore, Mamá,” I told her in a weak voice while I kept battling with myself.

“And Prinstanam? Whatever it is that you young people use now. No photos there either.”

I could picture Charo scouting all my social profiles, searching for this imaginary man and rubbing her hands when she hadn’t found any.

“Charo said that if it’s not Prinstanam official, then it’s not serious.”

My heartbeat hammered louder in my chest. “It’s called Instagram.”

“Fine.” She sighed again. “But if you broke up with him or if he ended things—I don’t care who did what—you can talk to us about it. To Papá and to me. I know how much you have struggled with this dating thing ever since … you know, since Daniel.”

That last comment was a knife to the chest. It turned that heavy sensation into something ugly and painful. Something that made me think of the reason why I’d lied, why I struggled—as my mother had put it—and why I was in this predicament in the first place.

“You have never brought anybody home in all these years you’ve been away. Never talked about a man you were seeing. And never talked about this one before you told us you were dating him and that you’d bring him to the wedding. So, if you are alone again …”

A very familiar and very sharp pang pierced my chest at her words.

“That’s okay.”

Is it?

If it was really okay, I could tell my mother. I had the chance to end this lying circus, bury all that regret somewhere deep and dark, and breathe. I could tell her that, yes, I was no longer in a relationship, and consequently, I was no longer taking my—nonexistent—boyfriend home. That I’d attend the wedding alone. And that it was okay.

She had said it herself. And maybe she was right. I just needed to believe she was.

Taking a deep breath, I felt a surge of courage and made up my mind.

I’ll come clean.

Attending alone wouldn’t be fun. The pity looks and whispers of a past I didn’t want to think of would certainly suck. And that was putting it lightly. But I had no options.

Aaron’s scowling face popped up in my mind. Unannounced. Definitely unwelcome.

No. I kicked it out.

He hadn’t even mentioned it again since Monday. It had been four days. Not that if he had, it would have changed anything. I was on my own. But I had no reason to believe he had been serious.

And it was okay; Mamá had said so.

I opened my mouth to follow up with my decision of growing the hell up and to stop acting like a compulsive liar for something I should have the maturity to face alone, but of course, luck wasn’t on my side. Because my mother’s next words immediately killed whatever I was about to say.

“You know”—the way her voice sounded should have tipped me on what was about to come—“every person is different. We all have our own pace to put back together our lives after going through something like that. Some people need more time than others. And if you haven’t managed to get there yet, then there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Daniel is engaged while you are not. But that isn’t important. You can come to the wedding alone, Lina.”

My stomach dropped to my feet at the thought.

“I’m not saying Daniel needed to put his life back together in the first place because, well, he jumped off that boat, unscathed.”

And wasn’t that the damn truth? Something that, on top of everything, would make things even worse. He had merrily continued his life while I had … I had … gotten stuck. And everybody there would know. Every single person attending that wedding would know.

As if reading my mind, my mother uttered my thoughts, “Everybody knows, cariño. And everybody understands. You went through a lot.”

Everybody understands?

No, she was wrong. Everybody thought they understood. Nobody did. They didn’t realize that all those pobrecita, poor little Linas, accompanied by all those pitiful looks and nods, as if they got why I had been scarred and not able to find somebody else, were the reasons why I had lied to my family. Why I wanted to crawl out of my skin at the prospect of showing up alone when Daniel—my first love, my ex, the groom’s brother and best man—being there with his fiancée would only reinforce their assumptions of me.

Single and alone after fleeing the country, heartbroken.

Stuck.

I was over him; I truly was. But, man, all that had happened had … messed me up. I realized that now—not because it’d suddenly hit me that I had been single for years, but because I had lied—and what was worse was, I had just made up my mind not to go back on my lie.

“Everybody understands. You went through a lot.”

A lot was a very gentle way to put it.

Nope. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be that Lina in front of my whole family, the whole damn town. Daniel.

“Lina …” My mother said my name in that way only a mother could. “Are you still there?”

“Of course.” My voice sounded wobbly and heavy with everything I was feeling, and I hated that it had. I exhaled through my nose, straightening in my chair. “Nothing happened with my boyfriend,” I lied. Lies, lies, and more lies. Lina Martín, professional liar, deceiver. “And I am bringing him, just like I said I would.” I forced out a laugh, but it sounded all wrong. “If you’d just let me talk before jumping to silly conclusions and sermonizing me, I could have told you.”

Nothing came through the speaker of the phone. Only silence.

My mother wasn’t stupid. I didn’t think any mother was. And if I believed for a second that I was out of the storm, I was probably wrong.

“Okay,” she said oddly softly. “So, you are still together?”

“Yes,” I lied again.

“And he’ll come to the wedding with you? To Spain?”

“Correct.”

A pause, making me realize my hands were sweating so much that the phone would have slipped if I hadn’t been gripping it as tightly as I was.

“He’s in New York too, you said?”

“Yep.”

She hummed and then added, “American?”

“Raised and born.”

“What’s his name again?”

My breath got stuck somewhere along my throat. Shit. I hadn’t given them a name, had I? I didn’t think I had, but …

My mind raced through my options very quickly. Desperately. I needed a name. What an easy, manageable thing. A name.

A simple name.

A name of a man who didn’t exist or I still had to find.

“Lina … are you there?” my mother chimed. She laughed, somehow sounding nervous. “Have you forgotten your boyfriend’s name?”

“Don’t be silly,” I told her, hearing my distress in my voice. “I …”

A shadow caught my eye, distracting me. My gaze shot to my office door, and exactly how he had wedged himself into my life one year and eight months ago—with horrifyingly bad timing—Aaron Blackford walked through the threshold and placed himself in the eye of the storm.

“Lina?” I thought I heard my mother say.

In two strides, he was in front of me, across my desk, letting a stack of papers drop on its surface.

What is he doing?

We didn’t visit each other’s offices. We never needed, wanted, or bothered to.

That icy-blue gaze of his fell on me. It was followed by a frown, as if he were wondering why I looked like a woman currently dealing with a life-threatening crisis. Which was exactly what I was doing. Getting caught in a lie was far worse than lying. After only a couple of seconds, his expression morphed into an appalled one. I could see the judgment in his eyes.

Out of every single person who could have walked into my office right now, it’d had to be him.

Why, Lord? Why?

“Aaron,” I heard myself say in a pained voice.

I was vaguely aware when my mother somehow repeated his name, “Aaron?”

“Sí,” I murmured, my gaze locked with his. What in the world does he want?

“Okay,” Mamá said.

Okay?

My eyes widened. “¿Qué?”

Aaron, who had caught the Spanish words, put two and two together with an ease that shouldn’t have surprised me.

“Personal call at work?” he queried, shaking his head.

My mother, who was still on the line, asked in Spanish, “Is that him, the voice I’m hearing? This Aaron you are dating?”

My whole body locked up. Eyes wide and mouth agape, I stared at him as my mother’s words resonated inside my clearly empty skull because what in the world had I done?

“Lina?” she pressed on.

Aaron’s frown deepened, and he sighed with resignation as he stood right there. Not leaving.

Why isn’t he leaving?

“Sí,” I answered, not realizing she’d take that word as confirmation. But she would; I knew she would do exactly that, wouldn’t she? “No,” I added, trying to backpedal.

But then Aaron tsked and shook his head again, and whatever had been about to leave my lips scattered.

“I …” Oh God, why is it so warm in my office? “No sé, Mamá.”

Aaron mouthed, Your mother?

“¿Cómo que no sabes?” came at the same time.

“I … I …” I trailed off, not really knowing who I was talking to. The scowling man or my mother. I felt like I was flying on autopilot while my plane approached the ground at a breakneck speed, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it from crashing. None of my controls were responding.

“Ay, hija,” my mother said with a laugh. “What is it? Yes or no? Is that Aaron?”

I wanted to scream.

All of a sudden, I had this powerful urge to cry or open the window and shove the phone out and onto New York’s merciless traffic. I wanted to break something too. With my bare hands. While I stomped my feet with frustration. All at once. I wanted to do all those things.

Curiosity filled Aaron’s blue eyes. He tilted his head, watching me as I struggled to even take a decent breath.

I covered my phone with my other hand and addressed the man in front of me in a broken, defeated voice, “What do you want?”

He waved one hand in front of him. “No, please, don’t let me—or work—get in between you and your personal call.” He crossed his arms in front of his stupidly wide chest and brought a fist under his chin. “I’ll just wait here until you are done.”

If smoke could physically leave my ears, a black cloud would have been trailing up and circling over my head.

My mother, who was still on the line, spoke, “You sound busy, so I’ll let you go.” I kept my eyes on Aaron, and before I could even process her words, she added, “Wait until Abuela hears about you dating someone from work. You know what she’ll say?”

My dumb brain must have been still flying on autopilot because it didn’t skip a beat. “Uno no come donde caga.”

Aaron’s lips puckered lightly.

“Eso es.” I heard my mother chuckle. “I’ll let you get back to work. You’ll tell us about this man you are dating when you two come for the wedding then, okay?”

No, I wanted to tell her. What I’ll do is die, choked in my own web of lies.

“Of course, Mamá,” I said instead. “I love you. Tell Papá I love him too.”

“Love you too, cielo,” my mother said right before hanging up.

Filling my lungs with much-needed air, I glared at the man who had just complicated my life tenfold and dropped my phone on the desk as if it were burning my palm.

“So, your mother.”

I nodded my head, incapable of speaking. It was better that way. God knew what would come out of my treacherous mouth.

“All good at home?”

Sighing, I nodded again.

“What does it mean?” he asked me with what might be genuine curiosity. “What you said in Spanish at the end.”

My head was still swirling with that horrible, catastrophic phone call. With what I had done and how big I had messed up. I didn’t have time to play Google Translate with Aaron, who, on top of everything, was the last person I wanted to chat with at the moment.

Jesus, how did he manage to do that? He showed up, and in the span of a few minutes just—

I shook my head.

“Why do you even care?” I snapped.

I watched him flinch. Only slightly but I was almost sure he had.

Immediately feeling like a jerk, I brought my hands to my face as I tried to calm myself.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “I’m a little … stressed. What do you want, Aaron?” I asked him, softening my voice and fixing my eyes somewhere on my desk. Anywhere but on him. I didn’t want to face him and give him a chance to see me this … unsettled. I hated the idea of him seeing me at my lowest. If it wouldn’t be completely inappropriate, I would drop to the floor, crawl under my desk, and hide from him.

Given that I refused to look at him, I could only notice the difference in his tone when he said, “I printed out some more documents you can use for one of the workshops we outlined.” His voice was almost gentle. For someone like Aaron, that was. “I left them on your desk.”

Oh.

My gaze tracked down the wooden surface, finding them, and I felt like an even bigger jerk.

That emotion churned in my gut, turning into something way too close to helplessness for me to feel any better.

“Thanks,” I muttered, massaging my temples with my fingers and closing my eyes. “You could have just sent them by email.” Maybe that way, all this could have been avoided.

“You highlight everything by hand.”

I did. When something required my full focus, I needed to print it on paper and then review it with a highlighter in hand. But how … oh hell. It didn’t matter that Aaron had somehow noticed. He probably had because it was a waste of paper or bad for the environment anyway. And that didn’t change that I was still a jerk for snapping at him like that.

“You are right, I do. That was …” I trailed off, keeping my gaze on the desk. “That was nice of you. I’ll go through them over the weekend.”

Still not lifting my head to look at him, I reached for the thin stack and placed it in front of me.

A long moment passed where neither of us spoke.

I could tell he was still standing there, all statuesque, not moving and just looking down at me. But he didn’t say anything, not giving me an excuse to look up. So, I kept my eyes trained on the papers he had so nicely printed out for me.

That long moment seemed to stretch into a painfully awkward amount of time, but right before I was about to lose the weird battle and look up, I sensed him leave. Then, I waited a full minute until I was sure he was long gone. And … I let it all out.

My head fell on my desk with a muffled thud. No, not on the desk. My head had fallen on the stack of papers that Aaron had come to deliver—very nicely—right before I put my foot in my mouth and somehow told my mother that the name of my made-up boyfriend was Aaron.

A groan slipped out of me. It was ugly and miserable.

Just like I was.

I softly bumped my head against the surface of my desk.

“Estúpida.” Bang. “Idiota. Tonta. Boba. Y mentirosa.” Bang, bang, bang.

That was the worst of all. Not only was I an idiot, but I was also a lying idiot.

The realization pushed another groan out of me.

“Whoa,” came from the door. It was Rosie’s voice.

Good. I needed someone I trusted to retrieve me from this madness I had gotten myself into and register me into the closest mental facility. I couldn’t be trusted to … adult properly.

“Is everything okay, Lina?”

Nope.

Nothing about what I had just done was okay.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait.” Rosie shoved her hand between us, making the universal sign to hold your horses. “You told your mom what?”

Gobbling down the rest of my pastrami panini, I shot her a look. “You gnow whatf I saifd,” I told her, not caring that my mouth was still full.

“I just want to hear that last part again.” Rosie leaned back on her chair, her emerald eyes wide with shock. “You know what? How about you start from the beginning again? I must be missing something because this whole thing sounds a little too much, even for you.”

Narrowing my eyes at her, I gave her a fake, toothy smile that I was sure showcased some of the contents of my lunch.

I didn’t care that anybody in the coworking space on the fifteenth floor, where we were having lunch, could see me. At this time, there weren’t many people left on this floor anyway. Leave it to a company in New York City to dedicate this much space—and money because the decor was right out of hipsterland—to a coworking and shared space for a bunch of workaholics who didn’t make use of it outside of their lunch break. No more than a couple of tables to my right were occupied by now—the ones closest to the impressive floor-to-ceiling windows, of course.

“Don’t look at me like that.” My friend pouted across from me. “And please, I love you, but that’s not a nice look. I can see some … lettuce hanging out of your mouth.”

I rolled my eyes, chewing and finally washing down my mouthful.

Contrary to what I had hoped, food had done nothing to appease my mood. This pounding ball of anxiety was still asking to be fed. “I should have ordered a second panini.” On any other day, I would have. But the wedding would be in no time, and I was trying to watch what I ate.

“Yes, and something else you should have done? Told me about all of this before.” Her voice was soft, just how all things Rosie were, but the weight behind those words prickled at my skin all the same. “You know, like from the moment you decided to make up a boyfriend.”

I deserved it. I had known Rosie would—sweetly—kick my ass as soon as she found out that I had kept from her all that me lying to my family about being in a relationship business.

“I’m sorry.” I reached my hand out across the table, taking hers. “I’m so sorry, Rosalyn Graham. I should never have kept this from you.”

“No, you shouldn’t have done that.” She pouted some more.

“In my defense, I was going to tell you on Monday, but we were interrupted by you know who.” I wouldn’t say his name out loud, as he often appeared out of thin air when I did. I squeezed her hand. “To make it up to you, I will ask my abuela to light a few candles to one of her saints, so you are rewarded with many children.”

Rosie sighed, pretending to think about it for a moment. “Fine, I accept your apology.” She squeezed back. “But instead of children, I’d much rather get introduced to one of your cousins maybe?”

I reared back, shock etched on my face. “One of my what?”

As I watched the light blush rise in her cheeks, my surprise only grew when she said, “The one who surfs and has a Belgian shepherd? He is kind of dreamy.”

“Dreamy?” None of my savage cousins could ever be considered dreamy.

Rosie’s cheeks turned a darker shade of red.

How the hell is my friend acquainted with one of the members of the Martín clan? Unless …

“Lucas?” I sputtered, immediately remembering that I had shown her a few of his Instagram stories. But it had all been because of Taco, his dog. Not because of him. “Lucas, the one with the buzzed head?”

My friend nodded casually, shrugging her shoulders.

“You are too good for Lucas,” I hissed. “I’ll let you take part in the kidnapping of his dog though. Taco is also too good for him.”

“Taco.” Rosie giggled. “That’s such an adorable name.”

“Rosie, no.” I retrieved my hand and reached for my bottle of water. “No.”

“No, what?” Her smile was still there. Hanging on to her lips as she thought of my cousin, I supposed, in ways that—

“No. Ew. Yikes, woman. He is a barbarian, a brute. He has no manners. Stop daydreaming of my cousin.” I took a cleansing gulp of water. “Stop, or I’ll be forced to tell you some horror stories from our childhood, and in the process, I’ll probably ruin the male specimen for you.”

My friend’s shoulders fell. “If you must … not that it would help my case anyway. I don’t think I need extra assistance for that.” She paused, sighing sadly. Making me want to reach out again and tell her that her prince would eventually show up. She just needed to stop picking up only the assholes. My relatives included. “But before that, we can actually talk about your horror story.”

Oh. That.

“I already told you everything about it.” My gaze fell to my hands as I played with the label on the bottle. “I gave you a play-by-play recap. From the moment I blurted out to my parents that I was dating a man who doesn’t exist to the moment I somehow made my mom believe his name was Aaron because of a certain blue-eyed jerk who had appeared out of thin air.” I scratched harder, ripping the label completely off the plastic surface. “What else do you want to know?”

“Okay, those are the facts. But what’s on your mind?”

“Right now?” I asked, to which she nodded. “That we should have picked up dessert.”

“Lina …” Rosie placed both arms on the table and leaned on them. “You know what I am asking.” She glanced at me sharply, which, when it came to Rosie, meant patiently but without a smile. Or a smaller than usual one. “What are you going to do about all of this?”

What the hell do I know?

Shrugging, I let my gaze roam around the coworking space, taking in the chipped, old barn tables and the hanging ferns adorning the red brick wall to my left. “Ignore this until my plane touches Spanish ground and I have to explain why my boyfriend is not with me?”

“Sweetie, are you sure you want to do that?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Yes.” Bringing both hands to my temples, I tried to massage away the start of a headache. “I don’t know.”

Rosie seemed to take that in for a long moment. “What if you actually consider him for this?”

My hands dropped from my temples to the wooden surface, and my stomach plunged to my feet. “Consider who?”

I knew exactly who. I just couldn’t believe she was even suggesting it.

She humored me by replying, “Aaron.”

“Oh, Lucifer’s favorite son? I don’t see how I should consider him for anything.”

Watching how Rosie clasped her hands together on the table, as if she were readying herself for a business negotiation, I narrowed my eyes at her.

“I don’t think Aaron is all that bad,” she had the nerve to say.

All I gave her was a very dramatic gasp.

My friend rolled her eyes, not buying my bullshit. “Okay, so he’s … a little dry, and he takes things a little too seriously,” she pointed out, as if using the word little would make him any better. “But he has his good traits.”

“Good traits?” I snorted. “Like what? His stainless steel interior?”

The joke bounced right off. Ugh, that meant serious business.

“Would it be that bad to actually talk to him about what he offered you? Because he was the one who offered himself, by the way.”

Yes, it would. Because I still hadn’t figured out why he had done that in the first place.

“You know what I think of him, Rosie,” I told her with a no-nonsense expression. “You know what happened. What he said.”

My friend sighed. “That was a long time ago, Lina.”

“It was,” I admitted, averting my gaze. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. It doesn’t mean that just because it happened a handful of months ago, it’s now somehow been written off.”

“It happened over a year ago.”

“Twenty months,” I corrected her far too quickly to hide that I had somehow kept count. “That’s closer to two years,” I muttered, looking down at the crumpled paper sheet that had wrapped my lunch.

“That’s my point, Lina,” Rosie remarked softly. “I have seen you give second, third, and fourth chances to people who have messed up far more. Some even repeatedly.”

She was right, but I was my mother’s daughter and therefore stubborn as a mule. “It’s not the same.”

“Why not?”

“Because.”

Her green eyes turned harder; she was not letting this go. So, she was going to make me say it. We were going to talk about it.

Fine.

“How about because he told our boss that he would rather work with anyone else in InTech? On his second day of work.” I felt my blood rushing to my face at the memory. “Key on anyone. Even Gerald for crying out loud.” I hadn’t overheard Aaron mention Gerald in particular, but I was sure I had heard everything else.

“Anyone but her, Jeff. Just not her. I don’t think I could take it. Is she even capable of taking on this project? She looks young and inexperienced.”

Aaron had told that to our boss on the phone. I had happened to walk past his office. I had accidentally overheard, and I hadn’t forgotten. It was all etched in my memory.

“He had known me for two days, Rosie. Two.” I gestured with my index and middle fingers. “And he was new. He came here and discredited me to our boss, indirectly kicked me out of a project, and put in question my professionalism, and for what? Because he didn’t like me after the two minutes we talked? Because I looked young? Because I smile and laugh and I’m not a cyborg? I’ve worked hard. I’ve worked my ass off, getting to where I am. You know what comments like that can do.” I felt my voice pitch high. Same went for the pressure of my blood now pumping into my temples.

Making an effort to calm myself, I released a shaky breath.

Rosie nodded, looking at me with the understanding only a good friend would. But there was something else there too. And I was under the impression I wouldn’t like whatever she had to say next.

“I get it. I do, I swear.” She smiled.

Okay, that was good. I needed her to be on my side. And I knew she was.

I watched her walk around the table and take a seat beside me. Then, she turned and faced me.

Uh-oh. This wasn’t all that good anymore.

Rosie placed a hand on my back and continued, “I hate to remind you of this, but you didn’t even want to be on the GreenSolar project. Remember how much you complained about that client?”

Of course I’d had to go and find a best friend who had a borderline photographic memory. Of course she remembered that I had been glad to be relocated to a different project.

“And,” she continued, “as you very well said, Aaron didn’t know you.”

Exactly. He hadn’t bothered to do that before he decided to label me as a hindrance and talk shit about me to our boss.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “What’s your point, Rosalyn?”

“My point is that, sure, he judged you based on only a couple of days,” she patted my back. “But you can come across a little … informal. Relaxed. Spontaneous. Sometimes loud.”

My scoff was heard all the way in Spain. “Excuse me?” I gasped loudly. Dammit.

“I love you, sweetie.” My friend smiled warmly. “But it’s true.” I opened my mouth, but she didn’t give me the chance to speak. “You are one of the hardest workers here, and you are amazing at your job while you manage to create a light and fun working atmosphere. That’s why you are a team leader.”

“Okay, I like this direction far better,” I muttered. “Keep going.”

“But Aaron didn’t have a way of knowing that.”

My eyes widened. “Are you defending him? Shall I remind you that we—as friends—should hate each other’s enemies and nemeses? Do you need me to print a copy of the best-friend code for you?”

“Lina”—her head swiveled, looking frustrated—“be serious for a minute.”

I sobered up immediately, deflating in my chair. “Okay, fine. Sorry. Go ahead.”

“I just think you were hurt—understandably so—and that bothered you enough to write him off this long.”

Yes, I had been outraged and hurt too. Something I despised was people making judgments based on shallow impressions. And that was exactly what Aaron had done. Especially after I had gone out of my way and tried to welcome him in the division with the best and warmest intention. I couldn’t believe I had shown up in his office with a stupid welcome gift—a mug with a funny quote about being an engineer. To this day, I didn’t know what had come over me. I hadn’t done that for anyone else. And what had Aaron done? He had just looked at it in horror and gaped at me like I had grown a second head as I cracked jokes like a total awkward dumbass.

So, to overhear him say that kind of stuff about me not more than two days after that … it had just made me feel small and all the more pathetic. Like I was being shoved aside after not measuring up to the real adults.

“I’m going to take your silence as confirmation of what I said,” Rosie told me, squeezing my shoulder. “You were hurt, and that’s okay, sweetie. But is it reason enough to hate him forever?”

I wanted to say yes, but at this point, I didn’t even know anymore. So, I resorted to something else. “It’s not like he has been trying to be my friend or anything. He has been a constant pain in my ass all this time.”

Except for that life-saving homemade granola bar, fine. And those papers he’d printed out for me when he didn’t have to, sure. And maybe for the fact that he’d stayed late, working with me on Open Day last Wednesday.

Fine, okay, except for those three occasions, he had been a constant pain in my ass.

“You have been too,” she countered. “You two are equally bad. Actually, it’s even cute how you two have been looking for excuses to trip each other and—”

“Oh, hell no,” I cut her off, turning in my seat to fully face her. “Let me stop you right there before you launch yourself into this weird shit about looks and whatnot.”

My friend had the nerve to cackle.

I gaped at her. “I don’t know you anymore.”

She recovered, pinning me with a look. “You are oblivious, sweetie.”

“Am not. And you seem to need a reminder, so here’s how things are.” I pointed in the air with my index finger. “Since I overheard him saying those ugly and prejudiced things about me, to our boss no less, his name has been on my black list. And you know how seriously I take that. That shit is carved on stone.” I punched my palm with my other hand to be clear. “Have I forgiven Zayn Malik?”

Rosie shook her head, snickering. “Oh, Lord knows you haven’t.”

“Exactly. In the same way that I haven’t forgotten what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss did to us on May 19, 2019.” I waved my index finger between us. “Didn’t Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name deserve better than that?” I paused, just to let it seep in. “Didn’t we, Rosie?”

“Okay, I’m going to take your side on that one,” she admitted. “But—”

“No buts,” I stopped her, holding a hand in the air. “Aaron Blackford is on my black list, and he will stay there. Full stop.”

I watched my friend take in my words, mulling over what I had just said. Or more like passionately stated—whatever.

Rosie deflated with a sigh. “I just want what’s best for you.” She gave me one of those sad smiles that made me think she might be disappointed in me.

“I know.” Like the hugger I was, I launched myself at her, wrapping my arms around her and giving her a good squeeze. Frankly, it probably wasn’t her who needed it the most. This whole thing was draining the life out of me. “But that’s not Aaron Blackford.” Squeezing once more, I let myself enjoy the embrace, my eyelids falling shut for a second or two.

Much to my dismay, when my eyes opened back up, they tracked a large and towering figure that could only be one man.

“Dammit, Rosie,” I whispered with my arms still around her, making eye contact with the approaching man. “We have summoned him again.”

I watched Aaron Blackford close the distance with quick strides. His long legs stopped right in front of us. We were still hugging, so I peered at him over Rosie’s shoulder.

Aaron took our embrace in, looking somewhere between appalled and engrossed. I couldn’t be sure because he did a good job at hiding whatever he was thinking behind that infamous frown.

“What? Who have we summoned?” I heard Rosie say as we disentangled our arms from each other under Aaron’s attentive gaze. “Oh. Him,” my friend whispered back.

Aaron had definitely heard that, but he didn’t react. He limited himself to standing in front of us.

“Hello, Blackford.” I forced a tight-lipped smile. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Catalina,” he answered. “Rosie.” He looked at his watch and then back at us—or more, me—with one of his eyebrows up. “Still on lunch break, I see.”

“Break police have arrived,” I muttered under my breath. His other brow joined the one that was almost touching his hairline. “If you are here to impart any of your lessons on how to become a working robot, I don’t have the time.”

“Okay,” he replied simply. Then, he turned toward my friend. “But it’s Rosie who I have a message for.”

Oh.

I frowned, feeling something tug in my stomach.

“Oh?” my friend echoed.

“Héctor is looking for you, Rosie. Something about a project falling through because someone he called Hand-Breaker had a fit,” he explained. “I’ve never seen Héctor so worked up.”

My friend sprang up. “Oliver ‘Hand-Breaker’? It’s one of our clients. He … he shakes hands so hard, you can literally feel your bones grinding together.” She shook her head. “That’s not important now. Oh crap.” She picked up the few things she had—the corporate badge, office keys, and wallet. “Oh no, no, no.” A panicky look took over her face. “That means the conference call is over. I had meant to be downstairs by now, but with this whole mess with Lina and—”

I pinched her arm, stopping her before she said too much.

Aaron perked up—if his eyes narrowing slightly could count as perking up.

Rosie continued, “About Lina’s cat—”

Another pinch. I didn’t have a cat, and she knew this.

“Neighbor’s cat?” Rosie looked everywhere but at Aaron or me, her cheeks turning pink. “Her neighbor Bryan, yeah. Yes, that’s it. Bryan’s cat. Mr. … Cat.” She shook her head.

Aaron’s eyes narrowed further and then jumped to me. He searched my face as my friend stuttered through her obvious lie.

“Lina is taking care of Mr. Cat this week because Bryan’s grandma is sick and he’s out of town. You know how much Lina loves to help.”

I nodded my head slowly, as if Rosie’s gibberish had made any sense.

“Aren’t you allergic to cats?” Aaron asked, shocking the hell out of me.

“I am.” I blinked. “How do you …” I cleared my throat. I don’t care. I shook my head. “It’s a hairless cat.”

His hands slipped in his pants pockets, taking a moment to assess that. “A hairless cat.”

“Like in Friends,” I said, trying to sound as casual as I could. “Rachel’s cat. A Sphynx.” I watched Aaron’s face, not a sign showing that he knew what I was talking about. “You live in New York, and you are American, yet you haven’t watched Friends?” Nothing there. “Ever? Oh, never mind.”

Aaron stayed silent, and I pretended he hadn’t caught us in a blatant lie.

“Okay, phew,” my friend said, gifting us with a wide and toothy grin. The fake one. “I really need to go talk to Héctor.”

She looked at me apologetically. I stood up, too, scared of being left behind to explain more about Mr. Cat.

“Thank you, Aaron, for coming to get me. That was very”—she glanced at me quickly—“very kind of you.”

I rolled my eyes.

Rosie elbowed me softly. “Wasn’t it, Lina?”

She probably thought she was being clever. She wasn’t.

“The kindest,” I said with a clipped tone.

“Right. I’ll talk to you later.” Rosie rushed toward the staircase, leaving us behind.

An awkward silence surrounded Aaron and me.

He cleared his throat. “Catalina—”

“What’s that, Rosie?” I cut him off, pretending my friend was calling for me. Coward, I thought. But after everything that had gone down today and having to relive our rocky start during my conversation with Rosie, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to Aaron. “Oh, you are holding the elevator door for me, you say?” I shot after my friend, not paying attention to how Aaron’s lips had pressed in a flat line as I left him behind. “I’ll be right there!” Then, I turned one last time, quickly glancing over my shoulder. “Sorry, Blackford, I gotta go. You can send me an email maybe? Yes? Okay, bye.”

When I turned my back to him, Rosie came into view. She was repeatedly pressing on the call button for the elevator.

“Rosalyn Graham!” I called after her, willing my head not to turn and check on the pair of blue eyes I was sure was drilling holes in my back.