Page 29 of The Score

"They're going to lose it."

"We can make it fun. What do you think?"

The evening goes by easily. We keep it casual, making a huge bowl of salad she and her parents love— buckets of chopped celery, tuna, mayo, a few avocados,cilantro, and what seems like a cup's worth of fresh lemon juice. We all take big spoonfuls onto our plates, going for seconds and even thirds until it's all gone. I accompany it with toasted buns, but everyone else just digs at the salad like it's their favorite meal.

Just like in those months I stayed with them before college, Pen's parents go upstairs earlier than their daughter. She goes up eventually and, unlike when we were teenagers, she kisses my cheek. I smile and bid her goodnight.

I'm turning off the light next to my bed when I hear footsteps on the stairs.

It's Tía Antonia.

"I hope I didn't wake you up." She speaks quietly, not to disturb the growing quiet in the home.

I sit up. The covers tumble to my waist.

"You didn't," I say.

"I just wanted some water but— be right back."

I stay in place and wait. She comes back with a glass and sits at the feet of my bed.

"I always felt bad that you had to sleep here." She smiles. "Ever since the first time you stayed over. You've always been too big for standard furniture."

I smirk. "That's why I gifted you this particular sofa bed later on, right? Don't worry about it."

"You know—" she sips water— "when you were teenagers, I used to get up in the middle of the night to check on you guys."

I frown. "Check on us?"

She nods. "To make sure you didn't sneak up to her bedroom… or she came down to sleep with you."

"Oh." My gesture changes slowly, until both eyebrows are high up. "Oh."

She chuckles. "I always knew how this was going to end. I just didn't want you both to start popping kids out until you were older."

"Tía," I groan. "Is that why you sat us down and gave us the talk about contraceptives, consent, and responsible sex together?"

It was one of the most awkward moments of my life. Tía sat at the head of the table, with Pen on one side and me on the other. I couldn't look at my best friend, and she couldn't look at me either, as her mom told us all about the birds and the bees. How she stressed that the birds should wait until much later in their lives to think about children. How the bees should always be respectful because if a no is a no, the lack of a yes is a problem too.

She also had a lot to say about how important condoms were, but if it's an issue of contraception alone, then vasectomies are the best option.

She laughs. "Yes, that's right. Just in case."

"We were not doing things like that at the time."

I bit the inside of my cheek. It's not like we're doing those things these days, either.

"Sure, sure," she says, "but the conversation must have come in handy at some point. You're fully grown now, and I'm a modern woman."

"Please don't try to give me the sex talk again."

Ironically, I listened to her advice. Always wore a condom and even got a vasectomy, since they can get reversed. I may want kids, but I wanted certainty more. Besides, who knows how long I'll have to wait, or how my person may feel about children. Not that I'm going to tell Tía Antonia that.

"I won't." She smiles. "All I wanted to say is that I'm really happy you two finally saw what we all saw through the years."

My stomach twists. If that one kiss had gone differently, I might have seen these exact things happen around us. Now I'm seeing what I've only dreamed of for myself with other people, but with Pen and her family. The things I read about, the things that hook me to my TV, that were only there for my future romance, they're all around me… and they scream danger.

"I know you always wanted us to end up together," I say.