It’d always been this way with us. Easy.
“Goddamn, Pres. What’s it been, five years?”
I laughed so I wouldn’t have to answer the question directly. Because it was somewhere around four years and nine months, if we were counting.
“What are you doing here?” I asked stupidly.
“I was looking for donuts without holes. It’s inhumane what you people do to them, disfiguring them like that.”
“I tried to petition Bettie about it, but she laughed, took a drag of her cigarette, and told me to fuck off.”
“Savage.”
For a moment, we were silent, just standing there staring at each other with stupid smiles on our faces.
At the same time as I asked, “What have you been up to?” he asked, “Where’ve you been?” and a customer said, “Excuse me!”
Sebastian smiled at me. I smiled at him.
“Can I see you tonight?” he asked.
“Only if you bring me hole-less donuts.”
“Order up!” Frankie called from the kitchen window. I ignored him.
“I mean, why should I have to pay separately for the donut and the holes?” he asked. “It’s bullshit, frankly.”
As I laughed, he reached for a cocktail napkin and stole a pen out of my apron.
“Excuse me,” the lady said again with much less patience and an unkind look on her face.
“Be right with you,” I assured her.
Aggie waggled her brows from behind the lady before stepping in to help her in my stead.
Sebastian handed me the napkin with his number on it, the numbers square and his letters written in even, slanted caps. “My new number. Text me later.”
“Now you’ve got me wanting donuts, so bring some, or no deal.” I pointed at him and lowered my chin.
God, his smile could have powered half the town. “You’re gonna make me drive to Austin, aren’t you?”
I shrugged. “Do what you’ve gotta do, Vargas.” When he took a step back, I called, “Wait!”
“Yeah?”
“Did you need to order something?” I reached for my notepad.
“Nah.”
“Then why’d you come in?”
“To see you.”
“Order up!” Frankie pinged the bell like nine times.
I glanced back at him and stuck out my tongue when I caught him maddogging me. “I probably shouldn’t get myself fired on my third day.”
“Not on my account, at least. Go on. I’ll see you later.”
“All right,” I answered with hot cheeks and a truly outrageous smile on my face. For a second, I watched him walk away.
And then Frankie went bananas on his bell again.
I put my hands up in surrender. “All right, all right, sheesh. God forbid somebody have a conversation around here, Frankie. I’m gonna remember this next time I hear you talking to the salad dressings when you think no one’s listening.”
He rolled his eyes, but he was smiling just a little. I considered it a win.
As I stacked plates up my arm again, and my dopamine metabolized, dread took the place of my giddy excitement. Because I had a secret, one I’d been trying to tell him for those four years and approximately nine months since I’d seen him last.
And her name was Priscilla Marie.
2
Stuck On You
SEBASTIAN
I remembered the first time I ever saw Presley Hale.
It was twelve years ago and about a thousand degrees, a day much like today, I thought as I stepped out of Bettie’s with a smile on my face. That day, a pack of us had gone down to the bend in the river where the best rope swing was, only to find half the town’s high schoolers had the same idea.
I’d instantly caught sight of the Blum sisters sitting on the other side of the river, sunning on a rock overhang. They were impossible to miss. One of them could change the gravity of a room, but the three of them in close proximity could upset the balance of the solar system. Dark hair, electric blue eyes, lush lips, and completely unattainable. I’d seen enough guys try to know better than to put any faith in that particular endeavor.
What I didn’t know was who the fourth girl was. Taking her hair and eyes into account, she could have been another Blum sister, but I’d never seen her before.
If the Blum sisters could upset the balance of the solar system, Presley could have swallowed up the universe with the voracity of a black hole. I didn’t know if I heard her laugh or if I imagined it, but the sight of her face tilted up to the sun did something to my insides. I hadn’t realized I’d stopped until Wyatt Schumacher slammed into me and damn near sent both of us hurtling down the trail.
She looked over at us as the Blum sisters talked around her, and I think I knew the second our eyes met that I was going to fall in love with her.
It was then that I decided I was going to find out exactly who she was before staking my claim.
We were fifteen. That first summer was all stolen kisses and second base. But when she showed up the next summer, we hooked up the second we were alone. I guessed she’d been thinking about me all year like I’d been thinking about her. And every summer for three years was made for me and Presley Hale.
It was sick that she lived so far away. Long distance was never going to work, and we both knew it. And after I graduated high school, I left for college in Austin and left Presley in my past, the highlight of my high school years, the first girl I ever loved. My what if.
We’d spent one more summer together, the summer before I left for the Peace Corps and the last time I’d seen her. After that, we lost touch—I was virtually inaccessible at my station in Zambia where I worked helping make a cluster of villages sustainable, and just weeks after I made it home, we learned Mom’s cancer had come back. So off we went to our home in Houston where she could get the best possible care, first through chemo, then a double mastectomy, and then the fight to ward off the spread into her lungs. We’d only been back in Lindenbach for a month, just enough time to make sure Mom and Abuela were happy, healthy, and settled before leaving for another Peace Corps tour to Zambia at the end of the summer.
A summer that’d be blessed with Presley.
Never did a luckier man exist.
I trotted across Main Street to Abuelita’s, our family restaurant, in search of food. The bell over the door chimed, though no one could have heard it over “Hermoso Cariño”. Or over Abuela singing along from behind the hostess stand.
She didn’t stop when she saw me either. Instead, she really put her weight behind it, which was slight considering she weighed a solid ninety pounds with her coat on and a couple rolls of quarters in the pockets. When she brought her hand up, palm first, I filled it with my jaw per her unspoken request, and she serenaded me, only stopping to kiss my cheek.
“Hungry, mijo?” she asked.
“Can’t a guy just come say hello to his abuela?”
“Sí, but you’re here for sopapillas.”
“Sopapillas and a kiss.”
“Well, you got your besos, so go get your food. Tell Manny I said to make your avocado rellenos.”
One of my brows rose. “Off menu at nine in the morning? You want me to get hit?”