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“¿Amigos con derecho?” Cesar asks. Not yet, hermano. Until he fell head over heels for Diana, Cesar only had friends with benefits.
“Just friends.”
“You don’t have female friends, Christensen.”
“I do now.”
He lets out a boisterous laugh.
“If it wasn’t for Diana, I’d hang up on you.”
He laughs even harder.
“This, I have to see with my own two eyes,” he says when he regains his composure.
I shake my head.
“We’re just about to order dessert,” I say. “I’ll see you soon.”
“See you and your lady friend when you get here.”
“Fucker.”
I hang up.
I meet Arianne’s expectant gaze.
“Is everything okay?” she asks.
“I know this is last-minute, but my buddy Cesar is throwing a big party for his girlfriend. Diana turns twenty-seven today. She doesn’t know it, but it’s a double whammy tonight. He’s going to pop the question.”
“That’s so exciting!” Arianne claps.
“Yeah, it’s a huge leap for him. He’s a consummate bachelor—”
“Says the playboy sitting across from me.”
I laugh. “I told you not to believe everything you read on Google.”
“Sure.”
I shake my head.
“Cesar is a good friend. In rehab, it was Cesar, Rhys, and me—the three misfits,” I tell her. “If there was trouble to be found, we usually did. He runs a hot sauce empire these days, but he’s still the featured artist on many chart-topping Latin hits. Back in the day, he dominated reggaeton—”
“Oh my God!” She lifts a hand up like a traffic cop, as she draws her eyebrows together. “Are you talking about Gran Herminio, aka Great Soldier, aka Puerto Rican reggaeton king Cesar Navarro and his gorgeous pop star girlfriend from the Dominican Republic, Mayté, aka Diana Estevez?”
I’m surprised by her answer.
“Yes. You know them?”
She bobs her head up and down. “When I was in college in New York, I got a crash course in Latin culture.”
“This, I have to hear.”
“My best friend Phoebe fell hard for this hot guy from the Dominican Republic. He didn’t know she existed, but she was hopelessly in love. She decided to learn everything related to DR and the Hispanic-slash-Latin culture, so when he did finally notice her, she would be ready. She enlisted me as her sidekick. She never caught his eye, but we had a hell of a semester that year. That’s the only reason I can dance salsa, eat hot sauce without my mouth burning, and the reason why I have as many Latin songs as I do on my playlist, even though I don’t understand the lyrics.”
“You dance salsa?”
