Page 50 of Yours, For Now

"I brought the proposal, Dad." Gabe put it on his desk. "If you can share any notes you have by tomorrow night, that'd be awesome. The deadline is in five days, and we still need to send it to legal."

Don Raúl nodded. "Sure. Do you two want to come to the event with us? It's a gallery opening for a foundation I'm involved with."

"Yes, yes! Please come with us," Doña Sonia said. "That way I can get to know you better."

"Oh, no, I can't. I should head home," I said. "But I appreciate it. Maybe another time, Señora."

"Okay, but you have to have coffee with us soon," she said, "and you can't call meseñoraanymore. In our country you could call me tía, but if that's weird to you, just call me Sonia, okay?"

"Mom," Gabe laughed. "We're way too old to ask Lina to call you tía."

"I wanted to try," she smiled. "I only got Gabe's closest friends to call me tía."

Gabe leaned toward me, a smile on his face as he gave me what seemed like important background information. "My parents adopt every close friend I make. They're all in the family chat."

I chuckled.

"And I guess Lina doesn't count as a close friend, does she?" The twinkle in Sonia's eyes intensified.

"I don't think I'm a close friend, no," I said.

"It's okay. We won't ask you what kind of friend you are, not yet. But call me Raúl from now on, all right?"

Vi laughed. "I can ask what kind of friend you are. I don't have the same scruples."

"Enough," Gabe said. "Lina must be exhausted. We've worked hard today."

"Bye everyone. Lovely to meet you, Sonia."

I said goodbye and went back with Gabe to his office. His family's smiling faces were the last I saw.

I returned to the Sotomayor headquarters from Martínez and Associates and ran into an empty elevator car. I'd spent a bit too long with Lina, and now I was late for a meeting with my dad and Jake.

It was an ongoing struggle. I was perpetually behind on everything, since agreeing to help Lina. I was sleeping poorly, stressed over the added pressure it had on my responsibilities. Even without faking this relationship with Lina, adding the project for the stadium already stretched my busy schedule. Somehow, I didn't want to stop.

I opened the door to the boardroom and voices went quiet for a second.

"There he is," Jake said.

"I made you coffee, but it might be a bit cold now." Dad pushed a mug to me.

"Yeah, sorry." I sat down at the table and the memory of the past hour sparked a smile. "Lina and I submitted the shortlist proposal."

She'd seemed so giddy, a grin I couldn't stop staring at making my heart flutter. Maybe that helped with the stress, that I enjoyed her so much. And that I knew there was a deadline.

"And now, we wait!" Dad clapped his hands once and rubbed them together. "We should plan a family weekend after the results are in. Maybe right after? At the lake house, of course. And you should invite Lina."

I hid a startle. I shouldn't be surprised; of course they suspected something was going on. It was the whole point of the plan. Maybe my jumpiness had to do with my guilty conscience… or to the fact that I'd started to accept that somethingwasgoing on.

It was the logical conclusion, since I'd been having a harder and harder time not kissing Lina on the lips.

And, since the plan was to stay the course and not run away in response to my realization— I had to stick around, for everyone to believe the ruse— I had to at least ask her about going to the lake for the weekend with us.

I gulped. "I'll let her know, though she might be busy."

"So something isreallygoing on!" My dad exclaimed.

"Yeah." I glanced at my dad, and I couldn't quite lie. "I'm feeling things."