50

Marianna.

The food arrives. Thank God. Something to do with my hands. Something to look at that isn't Duane's face or Marco's gleeful expression or my own reflection in the wine glass, which currently looks like a woman experiencing a slow-motion psychological event.

I ordered the sea bass. It's beautiful. Artfully plated. The kind of dish that looks like it was designed by a sculptor and tastes like the ocean distilled into something gentle and perfect.

Marco got the steak. Duane got—I don't even know. Something with very little on the plate and very precise placement. Athlete food. Fuel, not pleasure.

For a few blessed minutes, we just eat. The conversation slows to the comfortable rhythm of forks against porcelain and the occasional murmur of this is good and the sound of the ocean beneath us.

And then Marco, because he is genetically incapable of letting silence exist for more than ninety seconds, says:

"Oh—I almost forgot. Mami called me yesterday. She wants to know if either of you are bringing anyone to Tío Roberto's sixtieth in August."

"No," I say immediately.

"She specifically asked about you, Mari. Her exact words were—" He puts on a high-pitched voice that sounds nothing like our mother. "—Pregúntale a Marianna si ya tiene novio, porque tu Tía Rosa's son Miguel is single again and he's a podiatrist now."

"I would rather eat glass than go on a date with Miguel."

"He's a podiatrist. That's a real profession. Mami was very impressed."

"Miguel once ate a worm at a family barbecue to prove he wasn't scared of worms. He was twenty-three."

"People grow." Marco turns to Duane. "What about you? You could come. Tío Roberto loves you. He still talks about the time you let him sit in the McLaren."

"That was seven years ago."

"He brings it up at every family gathering. Shows the photo on his phone. The man peaked that day and he knows it."

Duane almost smiles. Almost. The corner of his mouth does that microscopic thing where it threatens to curve upward before his facial muscles catch it and force it back into submission.

"I'll check my schedule," Duane says. Which is Duane-speak for I will do anything to avoid a Reyes family gathering but I'm too polite to say so.

"You should come," Marco says, completely misreading the room. "Bring someone. Or don't. Actually—don't. Every time you bring Alina to family things, Mami spends the whole night whispering about how skinny she is and trying to feed her pernil. It's exhausting."

I choke on my sea bass.

"You good?" Marco glances at me.

"Fine," I wheeze. "Swallowed wrong."

"Anyway—" Marco's on his third whiskey now, which means he's entered the philosophical phase. The one where he starts sharing unsolicited wisdom like a discount Confucius. "I've been thinking."

"Dangerous," Duane and I say at the exact same time.

We glance at each other. Look away. Marco doesn't notice.

"I've been thinking," he repeats, "about how weird it is. That my two favorite people are living together."

Silence.

"Like—my little sister and my best friend. Under one roof." He shakes his head, grinning. "It's either the best idea I've ever had or the worst. There's literally no in-between."

I pick up my wine glass. Put it down. Pick it up again.

"Good thing there's nothing to worry about," Marco continues. "Because that would be weird, right? If something happened between you two? Like—" He laughs, genuinely laughs, like the concept itself is comedy. "Can you imagine? Duane and Mari? That would be—"

He doesn't finish the sentence. Just laughs again, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all.

"Hilarious," I say. My voice sounds normal. Possibly. "Completely hilarious."

"Right?" Marco is still chuckling. "No offense, Duane, but you'd destroy her. You'd chew her up and spit her out. You're like—you're a category five hurricane and she's a garden shed."

"Thanks, Marco. Really."

"I mean that with love. You're a beautiful garden shed. But still." He points his fork at Duane. "And you—you need someone who can handle your shit. Someone who's not going to take it personally when you go full robot-mode for three weeks straight. Someone tough."

"Someone tough," he repeats.

"Yeah. Like, emotionally bulletproof. You know?"

"I know," Duane says.

"Anyway." Marco signals the waiter for a fourth whiskey. "I'm just glad you two are getting along. I was worried it'd be awkward—you know, you being you, her being her. Like putting a cat and a fish in the same room."

"Which one's the cat?" I ask.

"Duane, obviously. You're the fish."

"Why am I the fish?"

"Because you have the survival instincts of a goldfish and approximately the same memory span."

"I hate you."

"You love me." Marco grins that grin again—all dimples and warmth and the complete, blissful ignorance of a man who doesn't know that the cat and the fish have already kissed twice and that the fish cried into the cat's pillow and that the cat sat on the floor next to the fish's bed at 3 AM making chamomile tea.

I stare at my plate. At the beautiful, half-eaten sea bass that costs more than my daily income. At the candle flickering between us, casting warm light on Marco's oblivious face and Duane's carefully blank one.

This is the most complicated dinner of my entire life.

And somewhere between Marco's fourth whiskey and his fifth unsolicited theory about my romantic failures, I realize something.

I don't want to be the fish.

I don't want to be the garden shed.

I want to be the storm.

"Dessert?" Marco asks, already flagging down the waiter. "They have tres leches here, Mari. The real kind, not that American grocery store shit."

"Yeah," I say. "Okay."

His hand stays. My knee stays.

Marco orders tres leches for the table, because some things are sacred, and the night stretches on—full of laughter and old stories and the specific agony of wanting someone you can't have while your brother sits between you, blissfully unaware that the garden shed is on fire and the hurricane is the one who lit the match.