In her case, those wise words were best applied to AM Fitness.
They might encourage Alejandro to work at reconnecting with his father. She could pass them along and see.
But as for her and Alejandro, no amount of “hard work” would change the fact that her close ties to their island weren’t ones she was willing to cut, while he’d shown no signs of wanting to drop anchor here in between jobs.
They’d come full circle to where they’d been twelve years ago. Only now they were mature adults planning for their eventual separation.
Planning, while also dreading.
* * *
“One more story, por favor?” Lulu begged. Her purple sheet and comforter tucked under her chin, the little tyke peered up at Anamaría with big, pleading eyes.
How could anyone resist such cuteness?
On the other side of the twin mattress, the three books they’d already read resting on his lap, Alejandro smirked. He probably knew she was about to cave. But really, why deny a child’s love of books, especially in this day and age of electronics?
“Okay, one more, and then”—Anamaría tapped Lulu’s nose playfully—“bedtime. And when you wake up in the morning, we’ll have news about your new baby brother or sister!”
Lulu’s face lit with excitement. “’N’-’n’-’n’ I can see da baby. ’N’ holded da baby. ’N’ hug da baby! ’N’ wuv da baby!”
With each new item on her list of things she planned to do with her new sibling, Lulu’s excitement grew. Her eyes widened. Her engaging grin plumped her round cheeks, turning her into the exact opposite of a sleepy child ready for bed.
Anamaría shared a raised-brow, uh-oh glance with Alejandro. They’d been in the throes of Lulu’s nighttime ritual for almost forty-five minutes. This after the little bugger had convinced her uncle to give her an extra serving of chocolate ice cream. Second dessert, they had called it while mugging for Anamaría’s cell phone camera with matching chocolate mustaches.
With Lulu, he turned into such a gooey pushover. An endearing quality that inevitably stirred Anamaría’s imagination into picturing him with a child of his own. Of their own.
Dangerous musings that had no place in their here and now.
“’N’ I can—”
“But first,” Alejandro interrupted his niece, tucking the edge of her lilac-colored blanket around her tiny shoulder, “you have to go to bed and get some rest. Or you’ll be too tired to hold the baby tomorrow.”
He combed his fingers through his niece’s dark curls, the tender gesture matching the expression softening the chiseled angles of his face.
Anamaría’s heart melted a little more as she watched his sweet interactions with Lulu. Earlier, Alejandro and his niece had sat at the round kitchen table, heads angled close, sharing crayons as they worked on a page in her Wonder Woman coloring book together. Later, Alejandro had sprawled patiently on the floor, his healing leg propped up on a decorative throw pillow, while Lulu had carefully clipped every barrette in her plastic box on top of his head.
In high school, those selfies of him and Lulu might have been useful bribery footage. Few teen boys wanted a pic of them playing hair salon on the internet.
Adult Alejandro, all six foot plus of gorgeous, mushy-hearted maleness of him, had already posted a photo to his Instagram Stories with the caption “This tío is #blessed!”
“We’ll read one more,” he told Lulu, bending to place a goodnight kiss on her forehead. “Then sleep time. Deal?”
The tip of her chin disappeared under the blanket’s edge with her nod.
Alejandro smiled, the tenderness spreading warmth through Anamaría’s chest. He brushed a curl off Lulu’s forehead with his thumb, then ducked low and whispered to her, “Te quiero.”
“I wuv you, too, Tío Ale,” Lulu said, her high-pitched voice solemnly sweet. Her hair rustled against her sheets when she turned her head to look at Anamaría. “Quiero leer Alma.”
“Oooh, you want to read Alma? Good choice!” The story about a little girl who complains that her name is way too long but then in learning the story behind each of her namesakes comes to see that one day she will have her own story to tell was also one of Anamaría’s favorites. She held up the two versions of the child’s beloved book. “In English or Spanish?”
“Both,” Lulu suggested.
Anamaría and Alejandro laughed.
“Your tío Ale said one book, but nice try.” Anamaría wagged her finger at Lulu, who giggled in response. “Let’s read in Spanish.”
Alejandro shifted to lie down beside his niece. Lulu snuggled closer to him, and damn if seeing the two of them nestled together didn’t send a pang of yearning for the dream that would never be searing deep in Anamaría’s soul.
Rubbing at the anguish deep in her chest, she prayed that it would crest, then eventually fade away like the concentric circles that formed when a fish jumped in the ocean.
But when Lulu’s and Alejandro’s similar eyes gazed up at her expectantly, she realized with sudden clarity that this dream would probably never go away. She’d simply have to learn to live with its loss.
“I’s weady,” Lulu singsonged.
Overcome with love for this precious little girl and the man who would always own her heart, Anamaría opened the beloved children’s book and began reading.
* * *
An hour later, she and Ale lounged on the leather sofa in the living room of Cece and Ernesto’s modest two-and-one home on Seidenberg Avenue. An Amazon rainforest documentary played on the thin television mounted on the wall in front of them. Ale reclined on the buttery yellow leather cushion beside her, a muscular arm draped over her shoulders. Her head nestled in the comfortable crook of his arm, one hand at home on his chest.
“So, the art consultant from Chicago you and Marcelo have been working with arrives . . . when?” she asked Alejandro.
They’d been going over their respective schedules, hers busier than normal now that everything with Brandon and AllFit was speed racing.
“Let me check again. I skimmed the message quickly while you were bathing Lulu.” He pressed a kiss where her hairline met the top of her forehead and thumbed through email on his cell.
She closed her eyes, the contentment of them simply being here together, doing absolutely nothing other than enjoying each other’s company flooding over her.
“Looks like Natalia gets here the second week in June and plans to stay for . . . a few days,” he summarized as he scanned the email. “Then she’ll return on the . . . where is . . . oh, here. On Monday before we open that Friday, July third.”
“I hope I can meet her. It’ll depend on how my training schedule shakes out.” Anamaría circled a clear button on his shirt with her fingertip, then traced the material’s wavy pattern of small blue and white lines with her nail, following them as they undulated over his pecs.
“Mmm, that feels good,” he murmured.
Dropping the cell phone on his lap, he nudged her chin up with a knuckle, then ducked down to brush her lips with his in a featherlight caress. Once. Twice.
Her hand fisted in his shirt, pulling him toward her as desire simmered to a low boil inside her. His mouth opened over hers and their tongues brushed. Languidly twisting and savoring and seeking each other. Mimicking the act her body craved.