Page 122 of The Best Shot

Yasmine smirked, entirely unrepentant. She’d feel bad about it in an hour. For now, though, her mean little smile was cute as hell.

She wore a green bikini she’d bought in Mexico, the color deep against her brown skin, with small gold rings at the hips. She’d told me once she’d almost left it in the store because she thought it was too much.

It had not been too much.

It was currently nowhere near enough.

She caught me looking.

I took a drink and turned toward Nico.

“Yo, Nico. Your cousin still making flan?”

His sunglasses stayed tipped toward the sky. Nothing moved except his mouth. “Why?”

“Just asking.”

“Mm-hmm.”

I glanced back toward Yasmine.

The bikini had reminded me of Mexico, and Mexico had reminded me of flan.

She’d told me about it once, half asleep against my chest. Some tiny restaurant whose name she couldn’t remember.

Best thing I ever put in my mouth, she’d said, which had turned into a very different conversation about ten seconds later.

“Hermano,” Nico said slowly. “What’s with you and desserts lately?”

“It’s for Yaz. She likes it.”

“So what did you do?”

“What do you mean? Nothing.”

“You know pie only works after an apology, right? You trying to get your order in early?”

“Preemptive flan is crazy,” Carter called from the grill without turning around.

I took another drink.

It was a little crazy. I’d been bringing her something sweet every few days, and now here I was trying to source flan through Nico’s cousin like it was a covert op.

I wasn’t looking too closely at it.

In the pool, Annie grabbed for Yasmine’s ankle.

Yasmine kicked free, splashing hard enough to send Ava’s float drifting into Tabby’s.

Tabby jerked upright, one hand flying to the scarf knotted over her hair before the float could tip. “Watch the hair!”

Annie eyed her. “We cannot keep allowing Eurocentric beauty standards to dictate Black women’s relationship with water.”

“Sat three hours for this silk press, Annie. You gonna pay me for my time?”

Annie frowned. “Black women deserve freedom from fear of⁠—”

“No.” Tabby pointed toward the deep end. “Go decolonize over there.”