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Olive hums. “I don’t know. Have you ever tried to remove glitter nail polish? That stuff would survive whatever killed the dinosaurs.”
“You may be right. There was still glitter in the carpet when my parents tore it out of the craft room three years ago.”
“Your parents have a craft room?”
“My mom likes to make weird stuff and we don’t have the heart to tell her how bad it is.” I dig in my pocket for the Altoids tin. “Mint?”
She takes one and pops it in her mouth.
“I’d like to make weird stuff with your mom.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged. Come on. We should head back before we lose daylight.”
We continue on the path that eventually circles around back to the house. I’m holding her hand again and we’re walking as slowly as possible, neither one of us wanting this to end. A coyote howls in the distance and she crushes herself closer to my side.
“I’ll bet the stars are bright out here at night,” she says dreamily.
“They are. You’ll see them later, although we should probably get to bed in an hour or two.”
“Are we really waking up at five?”
“Four thirty. We surprise Abuelo at five.”
The tradition is to sing Mañanitas to someone on their birthday at the crack of dawn, waking them up in their beds with sweets and music. Mariachis are optional, but it’s a milestone birthday. It’s not every day you turn ninety.
Olive slumps. “Ugh. Have I told you I’m not a morning person?”
“Several times.”
“I’ve been known to sleep through my alarm.”
“Then set two alarms.”
“I sleep through all alarms.”
“Okay. I’ll ask Bernadette to wake you up. It’s a lot of fun. We’ll sing happy birthday, Abuelo will yell at us all, then we’ll go into the kitchen for pan dulce and Mexican hot chocolate.”
“You? Drinking hot chocolate?”
“On special occasions, yes.”
“Okay. It's worth getting up to see that.”
We stroll at a leisurely pace until we reach a fork in the path. If we continue on, the trail leads down a slope to the house. But if we veer to the right, there’s a small terrace overlooking the property. It’s not attached to anything, which I always thought was strange. If you take the trail that way, it just kind of ends with an abrupt drop off. I guess it was easier to build a balcony with a cement railing than something like stairs.
We instinctively curve to the right, feeling this spell between us and milking it until we have no other excuse to stay out here. There’s something different in the air—the soft breeze caressing us with a strange alchemy. We stop at the balustrade and take in the view. Olive sucks in a breath, and with it, a little bit of the tranquility this place affords. The romantic aspect doesn’t escape me. Even I feel it—the gentle weight of it.
A lock of hair falls onto Olive’s face and I sweep it away—my fingers aching to touch her. I want this woman. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to resist her.
“I… I’m looking into hiring a full-time manager. All the other locations are self sufficient—”
“Your mind is still on work? Look at this place.”
“I’m only telling you this because you asked me earlier. And I wanted you to know that I’m not carrying my work with me, but that I’m going to delegate more stuff and take more time off. Being here, away from the restaurant, it’s making me realize there’s more to life than staring at the walls of a restaurant for twelve hours a day.”
I still want to open my own concept, but I’m determined not to work myself into the ground to do it.
“Really? That’s great. Who do you have in mind?”
