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“And you are special to me. Very special indeed.”
“It’s enough for now to know that.” He leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Have you eaten anything since breakfast?”
I think about that for a minute. “I can’t say that I have.”
“I’ll go find you a snack. Be right back.”
After he goes, my mind races with thoughts I never expected to have again. Marriage. My goodness, the man is full of surprises!
Livia comes into the room. “There you are.” She’s as tall as I am petite, and while my hair has gone snow-white, hers is still dark with streaks of silver running through it.
“Alfredo made me take a break.”
She sits next to me and puts her feet up on my coffee table, as at home here as she is in her own home. I wouldn’t have it any other way. “He’s a good man.”
“Yes, he is.” Lowering my voice, I tell her, “He wants to get married.”
“That’s no surprise.”
“It was to me!”
“Because you’re stupid that way. Can’t see the forest for the trees when you’re standing in the middle of them.”
“Can we talk about the ways you’re muy estúpida?”
“We’re talking about you right now. That man is hopelessly devoted to you, and of course he wants to marry you.”
“We’re old, Livia!”
“So what?”
“What in the world am I going to do with a husband at my age?”
“Are you so demented that you really need me to tell you that?”
I scowl at her, which only makes her laugh. The bitch. That’s one of my favorite English words. “There hasn’t been anyone since my Jorge passed.” I lost my husband suddenly a lifetime ago, when we were forty-two. “I’m not sure I could do… that… with someone else.” Jorge was my one and only, my one true love.
“You could.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I see a man who adores you and would do everything he could to make you comfortable.”
“I can’t picture it, no matter how hard I try.”
“So, you have thought about it…”
She makes me want to smack her, which of course she knows.
“I wish I could find a nice man like Alfredo.”
That shocks me. “You do?”
“Yes, I do. I’m tired of being alone. Aren’t you tired of it?”
“No,” I say, glancing at the doorway. I wouldn’t want Alfredo to overhear us.
“You want to hear a secret?”
Siempre. “Always.”
“I have a crush on my flight instructor.” Ever since Vincent decided the four of us needed lives outside of work, Livia has been fulfilling a lifelong dream of becoming a pilot.
“How old is he?”
“Sixty.”
“That’s fifteen years younger than you!”
“Believe it or not, I was able to do that math myself. And besides, it doesn’t matter. I like him. He likes me, and if he asks me out, I’m going to say yes.”
“You’d be a cradle-robbing cougar.”
“I liked you better before your English was so good.”
That makes me laugh harder than I have in days. I’m still laughing when Alfredo returns with a bowl and a glass of iced tea with lemon, just the way I like it.
“I never know if I’m going to find you two laughing or locked in mortal combat.”
“It’s a minute-to-minute thing,” Livia says, standing to give him her spot on the sofa.
“Don’t get up on my account,” Alfredo says.
“I need to go check on the boys and the pig. I heard Domenic is taking regular samples,” she says of her grandson, who’s home from New York City, “and with his appetite, there won’t be anything left for the rest of us if he’s not stopped.”
“Get right on that, then,” I tell her, well aware of Domenic’s ferocious appetite. Although not even he could put a dent in the gigantic pig roasting in the backyard.
“Sofia was putting the finishing touches on the moro,” Alfredo says of the black beans and rice that are a Nochebuena staple. “She wanted you to try it.”
The smell has my mouth watering as I take the steaming bowl from him. As I take the first bite, flavor explodes on my tongue. “Oh yes, that’s muy bueno.”
“Your protégé is coming right along.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Lovely Sofia has blossomed under your tutelage and Livia’s this year.”
“She’s a wonderful young woman, and we’re thrilled to have her as part of our family.”
“I think you’re a wonderful woman with the way you made her and her son part of your lives. You have no idea what you’ve done for her.”
“She’s a very special person and so is her little Mateo. We’re the lucky ones.”
“And you wonder why I love you.”
“Actually, I don’t. I’m very lovable.”
His laughter rocks his entire body. “Yes, you are.”
“I want you to know… I appreciate having you in my life, and I’m very happy I finally said yes to you after all those years of you asking me to join you for dinner.”
“But?”
“No buts. Just that. I will think about what you asked me.”
