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“You can’t date celebrities, Luz. Fame corrupts those people,” her dad says.
“Are you hungry, Max?” the older woman asks, completely ignoring her husband. She has the same light brown skin as her daughter, the same head of hair. But Luz’s eyes are more like her dad’s. The man who is still staring daggers at me.
I’m not completely clueless. Even though I ate a full meal at home, I’m not about to decline an offer of hospitality. “Um. Yes, ma’am.”
“You have not answered my question, young man.” If anything, this ruckus seems to have made Luz’s dad angrier.
I rack my brain, trying to remember what he’s talking about. Without thinking too hard, I blurt out, “Honorable ones, I swear.”
“That’s not what it looked like to me!”
“Dad, please.”
Her mom stands up and brushes the wrinkles out of her cardigan. “Do you like arepas? I can make you one right now.”
“You don’t have to bother?—”
“Oh, it’s not a bother.”
A scream outside the door makes me jump out of my skin. No one else bats an eyelash, though.
“That’ll be Brooke,” Luz’s sister says. A moment later, the door opens, and I hear frantic steps.
“Where is he?” A boy the same age as Luz’s sister appears before me, puffing air as if he ran all the way here. His messy, dirty blond hair confirms he probably did. “Whoa, it really is him. Can I have your autograph?”
I blink really fast.
My supposed anchor to reality offers me a spoonful of tiramisu. “Say ah.”
All the emotions of the day rush up my throat in a guffaw. My chest was full of them, the sadness, the anger, the fear. But a single emotion dominates over them now. Happiness.
Tinker Bell’s lips twitch, and soon, she’s joining in too. Hearing our intertwined laughter echoing in her living room makes this the best Thanksgiving of my life.
CHAPTER 32
LUZ
The Sunday night before our big business plan presentation, Max and I are holed up in a secluded corner of the library. There has not been a single table available all day, so we had no choice but to camp out on the floor behind the bulky shelves in the history section. The old Tiffany lamps overhead that pepper the entire building are dimmer in a few areas, and this is one of them. If I were on my own, I’d feel like I was in a horror movie.
The true horror here, though, is that despite having worked so hard all semester, there was still so much crap left for the last minute. Even worse, every time Max takes a break from working, his hands find me and threaten to topple my concentration too.
“Max.” I hiss his name like a warning when I feel him sneaking behind me. His arm circles my waist, and I feel his chin rest on my shoulder. “Someone might see.”
“And what are they going to see, exactly?” His breath is hot against my ear. I’m glad it’s cold enough that I’m wearing thick leggings and an oversized hoodie. This way, he can’t see how he’s given me goose bumps everywhere. “We probably look like two cave trolls in this corner. No one will know it’s us.”
“Even then, I’m pretty sure PDA isn’t acceptable here.”
“Isn’t it?”
Max obviously takes this as a challenge.
His teeth close around my earlobe ever so softly before he trails his lips down my neck. He places hot little kisses, suckling strategic areas that won’t be too visible if they leave a mark. My spine melts, and with his arm, he pulls me back up against him.
I abandon the keyboard of my laptop and trail my hands up and down his legs where they frame mine. I feel him pull my hoodie over my shoulder, and with it, the T-shirt underneath, so he can bite my shoulder just enough to make me shudder.
Oh, this is getting too dangerous.
It takes a lot of effort to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth to say, “If you keep this up, we won’t be able to finish the presentation and get any sleep before practice.”
