Page 69 of Yours, Forever

I pulled myself together. "It's fine. The hills, the ocean, the forests, they're ancient. The town will never leave, right? That's one of the reasons I love it so much. But enough about that. I've heard great things about your parents, Gabe."

"Oh, yeah." After a short pause, Gabe graciously let me change the subject. "They're wonderful."

Everyone around the table agreed.

"If you're married to Max for long enough," he added, "they'll try to adopt you, too."

"How many years would that take?" I asked. "I expect we have a couple of years to go."

Max cut a glance in my direction.

"One weekend is enough," Gabe said, and they all laughed to some degree.

"I guess I can never meet them, then. I wouldn't want that kind of welcome and invitation only to lose it after the divorce."

Max wiggled next to me.

I gazed at him. "What? I thought they all knew that's the plan—that ours is a business arrangement."

He took a second to respond. I gazed around the table; Gabe and Lina exchanged a weird look, but otherwise they all paid attention to the interaction. No shock over the news.

"Yes, they knew," Max confirmed.

Gabe's head shake was vehement. "You can't go a few years married to Max andnotmeet my parents, though. What about Christmas and New Year's? Or Dieciocho at the lake?"

"Dieciocho?" I asked.

"Gabe, Vi, and I are Chilean." Max still wiggled on his seat, but less. His arm remained around my back. "Dieciocho is technically about the country's independence. We celebrate each September on the eighteenth, but it's typically a week-long excuse to get together with friends and family over barbeque, drinks, and other traditional stuff."

"Sometimes ten days of it," Vi said.

"There must be Chileans here in Laguna Island, right? Siempre hay un Chileno," Gabe added.

I shrugged. "Sure. The Quintanas are Chilean, but they don't really celebrate for a week in September each year. No one does."

"Weird." Jake frowned, humor in the line of his mouth. "After more than twenty years with the Sotomayors, I would have thought every Chilean took Dieciocho seriously."

"Anyway," Gabe continued, "you should come with Max in September. We're getting together at the lake."

"But your parents wouldn't know this is fake, would they?" I bit the inside of my cheek. "So they would try to adopt me."

"I called them a couple of weeks ago," Max said. "I explained everything to them. They know."

"But they'll still try to adopt you," Vi insisted.

We laughed, but I didn't know if knowing that made it better or worse.

"Are you ready for me to flirt with you, darling?"

We had a gloriously sunny day on the second day of Semana Lagunina. The whole group planned to spend the day at the beach again, and this time I would join them. They planned to leave early the next morning and all of us, including Lina's cousin Enrique, wanted to make the most of the last day together.

Sand castles sprouted among us, carefully crafted by locals who joined the event every year, and more than a few people who came from nearby towns to take a shot at the prize. Max's friends stood watching the artist building a fantastical sand castle nearby, but he and I remained behind. Slightly off, closer to where the waves lost power and began their retreat, and quite close to each other.

I lifted my eyes at him. "Are you planning to flirt with me?"

My question was rhetorical; of course he would. He would also make outrageous jokes.

"For sure." His lips tilted in a come-hither smile. "My dad could have sent several spies today and we wouldn't know. For once, seeing outsiders around isn't strange."