“Okay, then look at me. You have two choices here.You can take me with you and go to the wedding to make your mom happy…or you can just not go. Stand up to your mother and say fuck you all, bitches!”
“Daisy...” Mateo shakes his head.
“Miss Daisy!” Ms. Kim shouts from behind the deli case. She’s always telling me to watch my language.
“Sorry, sorry. I got carried away.” I shrug apologetically and look at my best friend, a smirk on his face.
I lower my voice. “Sorry. Anyway, you have choices here. Just make one.”
“And what? Bring you and then leave you to spend the rehearsal, wedding, and the noche buena dinner by yourself?”
“No, silly. We pretend we’re dating.” This time, Mateo is the one practically choking.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll call Ms. Ada, tell her you’re bringing a plus one, and we’ll pretend we’re dating each other. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” I sit back in my chair and cross my legs in victory.
“You can’t be serious, Daze.”
“I am one hundred percent serious. It won’t bethathard. I already know you better than anyone else. It will be so much fun!”Daisy, what are you thinking? It will be so much fun? Fake dating the man you’ve always loved?
“You’d do that?” he asks, almost shyly. “It’s such a big sacrifice. I don’t want you to do this just to make sure I’m not alone.”
“What’s a big sacrifice? Spending time with you? Laughing with you? Going swimming with you? Things I do willingly all the time. Add doing all that in the Dominican Republic and pissing off Violeta? Sounds like child’s play to me.”
I should get an award for this performance. My wordscarry a strength and steadiness that my heart doesn’t share. I’m both giddy and terrified, but I can’t let him know. If he finds out I’m nervous, he’ll say no, and he’ll be miserable watching that harpy twat marry his cousin.
He sits back, pushing his plate forward like it will hurt him, letting me steal the rest of his broccoli salad. He doesn’t reply. He just sits and waits for something. Whatever it is, I don’t want to overthink it, so I continue eating the salad like my heart isn’t skipping beats in my chest.
“But also, Teo, you don’t have to decide anything right now. Offer stands. You have four months to figure it out. Just keep me posted, yeah?”
He nods, gladly taking the change in conversation, waiting for me like he always does.
2
December & We’re Not Married
‘TIS THE DAMN SEASON BY TAYLOR SWIFT
Daisy
“Hello, my darling.” I drag my bag out through my condo’s front door. Mateo shakes his head and steps toward me quickly.
“Let me get that for you, Daze.” He tries to run around me, and I huff. “It doesn’t make you less independent to let me carry your bags for you. You can be a badass woman—” I cross my arms over my chest; he knows how hard I work to be perceived as exactly that. He raises his hands in defense “—like you already are, and let me carry your bag.”
“I can do it.” I all but pout, walking behind him since he ripped the suitcase from my hands.
“I know you can, but that doesn’t mean you should.” He walks ahead of me towards his SUV and tosses my bag in his open trunk. He offered to drive us to the airport, since it’s about an hour away and we didn’t both need todrive. His family is already in the Dominican, but because we didn’t have a lot of time off, we’re arriving today.
It took me weeks to convince Mateo to take me with him to this wedding. Eventually, it was his mom hovering, pushing him to accept the invitation from his girlfriend, who made it happen. He told her he was bringing a girlfriend but nothing else, that everything was new and he didn’t want to jinx it, so nobody knows it’s actuallymegoing. It all makes me extremely nervous, because I’ve known his family just as long as I’ve known Mateo. It feels weird to lie to everyone, but at least it will be just for the weekend—right? We didn’t talk that far about it.
“Hey, Teo?” I ask, looking out the window and admiring how beautiful the spring-fed lake looks with the soft colors of dawn cast over it.
“Mmhmm?” Though Mateo is a morning person, he doesn’t talk much, so him answering with sounds is very on track for him.
“We need to talk logistics about this whole thing. We literally just agreed and rolled with it, but now the day is here, and we need to get our ducks in a row.”
“I know.” He lowers the volume to the music I didn’t even notice was playing. “I figured we would tell them we’ve just been testing things out and we didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable.”
