“Well, the feeling is mutual.”
Lupe arched a brow.
“Have you told her that?”
The song ended, and I didn’t answer.
Then the music changed.
A younger cousin had gotten ahold of the aux cord and turned on much faster music, which cleared some folks to the edges while others ran in from their tables. Lupe spun off toward a cousin with a loud grito, and Selena was suddenly in front of me with her eyebrows raised.
“Okay, surf star. My turn now.”
I caught her hand, set the frame, and took her into it—the fast footwork, the turns, the lean—and she met me on every count, laughing, her hair whipping around.
She was a powerhouse on the volleyball court, and she was a powerhouse here too, reading my lead, anticipating, adjusting, pushing.
The whole yard noticed.
Somebody whistled.
I spun her out and reeled her back against my chest. She was breathing hard and grinning up at me.
There she was again. Glowing.
“Where,” she demanded between turns, “did you learn to dance quebradita?”
“Let a man have his secrets, Torres.”
“Absolutely not. Pro surfer, DJ, and now dancer. That’s really just not fair.”
“Maybe I contain multitudes.”
“Maybe you’re showing off.”
“For you? Always.”
I dipped her, just to watch her roll her eyes upside down, and she laughed. It was the easiest I had felt inside my own skin in years. My fingers sank into the soft fabric of her dress and the warm flesh beneath. I pulled her closer so I could feel her racing heart, and I never, ever wanted to let go.
“Selena.”
Selena went rigid in my arms.
One word, and the woman I was holding changed beneath my hands. I brought her up out of the dip, and she stepped back out of my grasp. The music kept going, but we’d stopped. I turned to find the source.
Marina Torres stood at the edge of the patio, dressed for a different and fancier party than the one she was standing in.
Selena shrank before my very eyes. This wasn’t the stubborn, fierce woman I knew, and it wasn’t her customer-service face either.
It was worse. It was small, as if someone had extinguished all the light that poured out of her. I looked across the yard at the woman who had done it.
Her mother.
Her family.
Her greatest opposition.
Try telling my mother that.
