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“You’re all here now?”
“Not yet... Should we come back?” There wasn’t a single other person in the restaurant, so it wasn’t like we would be keeping a table from a party that was ready to order.
He shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll get your table now.”
“Thanks, let me just get...” The next two words seemed to get stuck in my throat. I swallowed hard. It was time to start living the part I’d been brought there to play. “...My boyfriend.”
The man made no response to what had been, at least for me, a hugely dramatic statement, instead turning to move two smaller tables together.
Adam was saying goodbye to someone when I called to him from the open door of the restaurant. “They’re getting a table for us.”
He waved his phone before placing it into his back pocket. “They’re leaving the cigar shop now.”
“This is a special place to your grandma?” I whispered to Adam, surveying the empty restaurant.
He offered me a wry smile. “She came here with my grandpa.”
“I have your table ready.” The waiter beckoned us to the center of the room. Adam took a seat, but I opted to stand a few minutes longer, still stiff from the plane.
Adam had his phone out again. I thoughtIwas addicted to technology, but his device could have been another appendage. “We have an appointment to board the ship at one.”
It was eleven-thirty. “How far away is the port from here?” I asked, bracing against the table while I stretched my right calf.
Though my question was directed at Adam, the restaurateur answered. “Port of Miami? Maybe thirty minutes. More, if the traffic is bad.”
I smiled politely. “Thanks.”
Adam passed a hand over his face. “I’m sorry.”
I stared back, confused. “For what?” He was hardly responsible for the traffic.
“No one in my family can keep to a schedule. Well, maybe my sister. You’re in for a lot more of this. We’ll be lucky if we don’t leave them behind on an excursion.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. He looked so dejected that I tentatively laid a hand on his shoulder, trying hard not to think about the muscles I’d seen in action earlier. “Seriously, don’t worry. We’ll make it on the cruise. What time does it—?”
My words were interrupted by the appearance of a giant rodent hurtling across the floor toward me. I screamed and stepped back, bumping into Adam and then falling right onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around my waist to steady me while I squeaked and raised my feet.
“Bravo!Ven acá!” the man yelled, coming toward us. “Sorry, ma’am. He’s harmless.”
I examined the creature closely and realized that instead of an oversized rat, he was a breed of dog I’d never seen before.
Adam’s arm tightened around me as the creature edged nearer. Then the dog growled, and the man came forward to grab his collar.
My breaths came in shallow gasps, and I couldn’t seem to get my heart to stop racing.
“Are you okay?” Adam’s voice, right in my ear, sent pleasant shivers down my neck.
“I—”
“Oh, look at you two love birds!” Adam and I both turned our heads to find an entourage of people at the restaurant door: a woman in her sixties who looked enough like Farrah Fawcett that I had to do a double take, a paunchy man of around the same age, a blonde woman in her late twenties and a tiny, bowed older lady.
The dog was dragged away while I scrambled off Adam’s lap, cheeks flushed from the excitement and the embarrassment of being caught at what surely looked like some serious canoodling. At least it would help sell the relationship.
Standing from the table, Adam bypassed everyone else for his grandma, pulling her into a careful hug.
His grandma stood on tiptoe to kiss both of his cheeks, tears streaming down her own. The reunion even choked me up a little, and I didn’t even know her. “Let me meet your sweet pea.” His grandma—Ruth, from Adam’s dossier—had the most adorable, quivery voice I’d ever heard.
I hurried over to the pair and found myself enveloped in a gentle hug of my own. “I’m Jenna.”
