Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
And I know that feeling too.
I start my car, but don’t drive off immediately. Instead, I glance over at the passenger seat, where one last box of pasteles and a bottle of coquito rest. I can lie to myself, but when I packed the extra box, I knew who it was for.
I drive almost on autopilot for the few miles it takes to reach my destination. I pull out my phone to send a text.
Me: Hey! What are you up to?
Judah: Nothing much. The boys are spending Christmas Eve with Tremaine. We fly out tomorrow to see my parents.
Me: So you’re home?
A string of dots hovers, and my heart seems to be suspended too. Waiting to beat.
Judah: I’m home, yeah. Why?
Me: I’m outside.
Judah: Then come in.
CHAPTER THIRTY
JUDAH
It’s like I “talked her up,” as my mother used to say. I’ve been thinking about Soledad a lot since the kiss at the party. I’m usually focused on whatever is right in front of me, and my attention rarely wavers. But since she came into my life—since the first night I met her—she has intruded on my thoughts and broken my focus more than anyone or anything ever has. I don’t want to crowd her, so I haven’t called. I’m resigned to this friends-at-a-distance arrangement, even though I’ve wanted to touch her every day.
Guess not reaching out paid off, because she came to me.
I leave my suitcase open on the bed, already filled with neatly folded clothes for tomorrow’s flight to see my parents. I force myself to take the steps slowly, like an adult man who helps manage a multibillion-dollar budget for one of the state’s largest corporations instead of a horny, nervous teenager anticipating his date to the prom.
Not that I had any interest in going to the prom. I wasn’t so much a late bloomer as a disinterested gardener for a long time.
The doorbell rings as I reach the foyer, and I refrain from yanking the door open. How is it possible to miss someone you’ve barely gotten to spend any real time with? But I’ve watched Soledad’s platform grow, her confidence soar over the last year. I, like so many of her followers, feel like she’s a friend. Someone I can trust and am rooting for. She’s an influencer. She influences me, and she probably has no idea.
“Hi.” She stands on my front porch, bathed in the glow of Christmas lights and early-evening moonbeams.
“Hi.” I step back. “Come in.”
She glances over her shoulder and bites her bottom lip, the battle clear on her face.
“Did I imagine a text message where we said you’d come inside?” I ask, her obvious reluctance drawing a smile to my lips.
“No.” She clutches a gold box and a glass bottle of milky-looking liquid to her chest. “You’re right. I just…”
She’s obviously conflicted about coming inside. Maybe even about coming here at all. I hope that means she has to fight the desire to seek me out the way I fight every day to stay away from her. A noble impulse urges me to take the box and the bottle and send her back to her Honda… for her own good. It’s been a week since I saw her. Since I tasted her sweetness for the first time. Felt the effect of our kiss on her, how her heartbeat answered mine, knocking between our chests. Even if I can’t have another kiss, I could have that. The closeness and the hunger, even if I must deny it. The possibility of even a few minutes with her crushes my noble urge.
“Five minutes,” I negotiate, stepping back to clear her path into the foyer. “And then you can leave.”
She still hesitates, looking down at the box and the bottle and drawing a deep breath.
“What could happen in five minutes?” I ask, even though myriad things I could do to her in five minutes that would satisfy us both filter through my thoughts.
She gives me a Really? look but finally relinquishes half a smile and steps inside, holding out the box and the bottle.
Accepting both items, I frown. “I didn’t get you anything. I didn’t think—”
“It’s nothing. Believe me. Pasteles and coquito. I’m giving them as gifts to friends this year.”
I lift the box to my nose and inhale. “This smells fantastic. You made it?”
“Well, the girls and I made them. And my sister who’s in town. Making pasteles is always a family affair.”
“I can’t wait to taste.” I nod in the direction of the kitchen. “Have one with me?”
She clutches the strap on her bag and gives a tight smile. “Seems like that might take more than five minutes?”
I turn down the corners of my mouth. “Ten tops.”
She rolls her eyes but nods and follows me into the kitchen.
I set the box on the counter and pull back the lid. An unfamiliar but enticing scent wafts up from the leaf-wrapped treats nestled together on wax paper. They are bundles of two pasteles each tied together with string. Soledad pulls a pair out and unties them, then unfolds the paper. She opens the green leaves to reveal what resembles a tamale.