enchiladas we didn’t eat and set down the buñuelos I prepared for dessert.
“These do look good,” Jared says, plucking one of the doughnut-like sweetened balls from the basket I placed them in.
“They’re so good.” I breathe in their aroma and sigh. “Mama used to cook them for us all the time. I haven’t had them in years.”
Jared chews one, groaning his approval.
“Delicious.” He grabs another one, biting half and offering me the other half. “Taste.”
I hesitate, unable to turn off my inner calculator, tallying points.
“Just one bite,” Jared persuades, rubbing the sweet fried dough across my bottom lip. “We’re on vacation.”
I nod and accept it, squeezing my eyes shut when the flavor explodes on my tongue along with a thousand memories from my childhood.
“So good,” I say, swallowing the last of the dessert. “It’s been forever since I had them. A few Christmases ago when Mama made them.”
I look up and catch a thoughtful expression on Jared’s face, the one I’m learning usually precedes a probing question.
“How do you think your family will react to you and Zo breaking up?” he asks.
I’d left that question with my points, checked at the door of this island villa, but now it intrudes. The closer we come to leaving, to returning to LA and dealing with the inevitable fallout of what we did, the harder it is to forget I have several difficult conversations awaiting me, including my family.
“They’ll be surprised.” I turn off the light in the kitchen, and we stroll back to the well-appointed salon. As we walk, Jared takes my hand, linking our fingers and drawing me into his side. He touches me constantly, possessively. Each caress and kiss and touch subtly establishing ownership. I don’t mind. I touch him the same way. I feel the same way, like I need to mark my territory even though there’s no one here to threaten my claim.
“Surprised and upset?”
Jared flops onto the leather couch positioned prominently in the center of the room and pulls me onto his lap. There was a time I would sit tense and tight, wondering the whole time if I’m too heavy, if my weight is too much for him, but I relax, sitting sideways, my shoulder pressed into his chest and my head tucked into his shoulder.
“They will be upset. As I’ve thought about it, my family was part of the reason I ignored the little voice that kept telling me not to start with Zo. They’ve wanted us together for years.” I toy with the collar of his T-shirt and squeeze the hand linked with mine on my knee. “I can’t sugarcoat it. They’ll have a million questions, and I need to think about how I’m going to answer them.”
“Honestly,” he says. “Tell them about the doubts you had and the things that convinced you to ignore them. Tell them about us. I mean, you don’t have to go into details about how we practically broke your desk.”
I suppress a grin, not quite prepared to see any humor, but knowing one day I might be able to.
“And me?” he asks, a forced lightness to the question. “What will they think of me? Of us together? I know compared to Zo, I’m not exactly the boy you bring home to Mama.”
I look up from my spot on his shoulder, studying his face for the things he’s not saying. The tightness around his mouth. The concern in the eyes searching mine.
“I didn’t think you would care what they think,” I say and flatten my hand over the hard muscles of his stomach under his T-shirt.
“I don’t. For me, I don’t care. We’re going to be together if the Pope himself doesn’t approve.”
“I don’t think our relationship requires Papal approval.” I laugh and caress his back. My hand freezes under the shirt as the word “relationship” lingers in the air. Even after all he said on the terrace, telling me he wanted more than sex, that he wouldn’t share me and I wouldn’t have to share him . . . it still feels like I’m assuming too much to call what we’re building a relationship.
“Not Papal,” he agrees with an easy smile, obviously not nonplussed by the word. “Is Mamal a word? I think your mother will be the hardest to get on board.”
“True.” I nearly shudder thinking of the tongue lashing in store for me over Zo.
“I know you love your family,” Jared says soberly, reaching down to gently grip my jaw. “I love mine, too, but they have no say in this. No one does except us.”
I search his face for perfidy or any duplicity, but there’s only the same sureness I saw in him last night. Sureness about me and our relationship. I simply nod and lay my head back on his shoulder, content to listen to his heartbeat and the wash of waves a few yards beyond the villa door.
In the distance, a phone rings shattering the comfortable quiet we’ve been lounging in.
“Ugh,” I groan, shifting on his lap. “My phone.”
“Leave it,” he urges, kissing the curve of my neck. “Stay here and fuck. We’ve only had sex once today. Are we losing the magic already?”