48

Marianna.

"From Monaco. Well—from Monaco and the Nice airport duty-free, which technically counts."

He pulls out a plastic bag. Inside is a box of Florian candied violets—the ones from that famous confectionery in Nice that's been around since 1820 or whatever. Not the fancy €40 gift box. The small one. The €12 tourist version that comes in a tin with a painting of the French Riviera on the lid.

"For you," he says, handing it over. "Because you used to steal Abuela's violet candies from the jar in her kitchen and think nobody noticed."

My throat tightens. I did steal them. Every Sunday after church, while Abuela was making arroz con pollo and Mami was gossiping with Tía Rosa in the living room. I'd sneak into the kitchen and take exactly three—never more, because I'd read somewhere that people don't notice small amounts going missing but they notice large amounts, and even at eight years old I was doing loss prevention mathematics.

"Marco—"

"Wait, there's more."

He digs deeper into the suitcase. Pulls out a second item: a keychain. One of those tacky tourist keychains with a tiny Monaco flag and a miniature Formula 1 car dangling from a metal ring. The kind you buy at a gas station for €3.50 when you realize you forgot to get souvenirs and your flight leaves in two hours.

"For your keys," he says. "When you get an apartment. Which you will, because you're employed now and I'm incredibly proud of you even though I express it through sarcasm and cheap gifts."

I hold the keychain. The little F1 car spins on its chain, catching the light.

"It's perfect," I say. And mean it.

"And last thing—" He reaches into the bag one more time. Hesitates. His expression shifts to something softer. More careful. "This isn't from Monaco. I've actually been carrying it around for a while. Kept meaning to send it to you, but..." He shrugs. That particular Reyes shrug that means I'm about to be emotionally vulnerable and I'd rather die.

It's a photo. Printed, not digital. Slightly bent at one corner from being in his suitcase.

Abuela and me. I'm maybe six, sitting on her lap in the kitchen of the house in Bayamón. She's wearing the yellow housedress she always wore—the one Mami said was ugly and Abuela said was cómodo and that was the end of the discussion. I'm holding a wooden spoon covered in something—tembleque, probably, the coconut pudding she made every Christmas—and laughing with my mouth wide open, showing the gap where my front teeth used to be.

Abuela's arm is around me. Protective. Certain.

She died when I was seventeen. The necklace I lost—the one the airline swallowed along with everything else—was hers.

"Found it in a box at Mami's house last month," Marco says quietly. "When I was looking for my old passport. Thought you should have it."

I can't speak. If I speak, I'll cry. And if I cry in front of both Marco and Duane, I will have to relocate to a new continent and assume a false identity.

I hug him instead. Quick. Tight. The kind of hug that says everything my mouth can't.

He hugs back. Pats my shoulder twice—the Marco version of an emotional outpouring—and then clears his throat.

"Okay," he says briskly, clearly uncomfortable with the feelings we just had. "Enough of that. I'm starving. Duane, you're taking us to dinner. Somewhere good. Somewhere that doesn't have a dollar menu."

He says this last part looking at me. Because he knows me. Knows my financial situation without either of us ever saying it out loud.

Duane, who has been standing silently through this entire exchange like a very expensive piece of furniture that occasionally breathes, says: "I know a place."

"A place" turns out to be a restaurant on Ocean Drive that I will never, ever, in my entire life, be able to afford.

Not because I haven't looked at the menu. I have. The menu has no prices. Which, in my experience, means the prices are so astronomical that displaying them would be considered a public health hazard.

The hostess—a woman whose cheekbones could file a police report on their own—leads us to a table on the terrace. Ocean view. Candles. The kind of ambient lighting that makes everyone look like they're in a perfume commercial.

Marco slides into the booth. Duane sits across from him. Which leaves me—

In the middle. Between them. Because the booth is a semicircle and Marco has already claimed one end and Duane the other and the only remaining space is the exact center, equidistant from both of them, like I'm the disputed territory in a geopolitical negotiation.

"This is nice," Marco says, picking up the menu with the casual confidence of someone who's spent the last three years schmoozing rich people in European cities. "Duane, you're paying, right?"

"Obviously."

"Great. I'm getting the lobster."

"There's no lobster on this menu."

"Then I'm getting whatever costs the most. Out of principle."

I'm studying the menu like it's going to be on a final exam. The appetizers have ingredients I can't pronounce. The mains involve preparations I'd need a culinary degree to understand. There's a section called "From the Sea" that I'm pretty sure costs more than my monthly student loan payment.

"Mari." Marco leans over. "Stop doing math. I can hear you doing math."

"I'm not doing math."

"You're calculating the per-ounce cost of the appetizers. Your left eye twitches when you do math. It's been doing it since we sat down."

My left eye is not twitching. My left eye is exhibiting a minor involuntary muscle spasm that is completely unrelated to the fact that the cheapest thing on this menu appears to be a side of roasted vegetables for what I estimate is approximately thirty-seven dollars.

"Just order something," Marco says. "Duane's buying. He can afford it. The man has a Bugatti."

"Two," Duane corrects.

"See? Two Bugattis. He could buy this restaurant and use it as a storage facility for his cars."

The waiter appears. Young, handsome, with the specific energy of someone who's an aspiring actor and considers this job "temporary" even though it's been four years.

"Good evening. Can I start you with drinks?"

"Whiskey, neat," Marco says. "Whatever's good."

"Water," Duane says.

The waiter looks at me.

"Wine," I say. "Whatever's..." I almost say cheapest and catch myself. "...the house recommendation."

"Excellent choice. I'll give you a moment with the menu."

He disappears. I mentally calculate that the whiskey probably costs $25 and the wine probably costs $18 and Duane's water is the only financially responsible decision at this table.

"So," Marco says, settling back into the booth with the easy sprawl of someone who owns the room even though he clearly doesn't. "Catch me up. How's the job? How's Miami? How's life as a single woman in the most aggressively horny city in America?"

"Marco."

"What? I'm asking genuine questions. I care about your wellbeing."

"You said 'aggressively horny.'"

"It's an accurate descriptor. Have you been to South Beach? Everyone looks like they're in a constant state of almost-hooking-up. The humidity alone is basically foreplay."

Duane takes a sip of his water. Says nothing. But I catch the slight tightening of his jaw. The micro-flex of his fingers around the glass.

"The job is great," I say, aggressively steering the conversation away from anything related to sex, horniness, or foreplay. "I love it. The team is amazing. Dr. Lindholm is incredible."

"And you're working with F1 drivers." Marco's grin widens. "My baby sister. Fixing the bodies of the fastest humans on Earth. Mami would be so proud."

"Mami doesn't know what F1 is."

"Mami thinks F1 is that vitamin supplement Tía Rosa takes for her joints."

I laugh despite myself. He's not wrong.

"Speaking of F1—" Marco turns to Duane. "How's the shoulder? You looked rough in that Monaco crash replay. I almost had a heart attack watching it."

"It's fine," Duane says.

"'Fine' meaning actually fine, or 'fine' meaning 'I'm going to pretend it's fine until my arm falls off because I'm allergic to admitting weakness'?"

"The former."

"Convincing." Marco's voice is thick with sarcasm. "Your shoulder's fine. Just like Mari's face is fine. Everyone's fine. We're all fine. The 'I'm fine' table at the world's most overpriced restaurant."

The drinks arrive. I take a very large sip of my wine.

"You know who's not fine?" Marco continues, apparently on a roll. "Alina. I saw her in Monaco. She cornered me at the Leclerc after-party—"

My wine goes down the wrong pipe.

I cough. Violently. The kind of cough that makes heads turn at neighboring tables and makes waiters reach for the Heimlich maneuver.