I laugh when my head and right arm get stuck inside my blouse.
“It’s not funny!” he says. “Do something!”
“You’re the surgeon. Figure it out.”
He gets me free of the fabric and makes love to me the first time right there in the foyer, with me pressed against the wall still wearing my bra and with his pants around his ankles.
“Oh God, Carmen.” He releases a deep breath. “I’ve been a fucking mess thinking I blew it with you.”
“I’m still here, and I love you. I love you, Jason.”
Now that I can tell him that, I want to say it so many times he won’t ever forget it.
The second time we make it to my bed. We’re napping after the third time when Jason hears his cell phone is ringing in the other room. He disentangles from me and runs naked from the bedroom as I laugh at him from the bed.
He brings the phone back to bed. “Three-oh-five area code.”
My heart stops.
He puts the call on speaker. “Dr. Northrup.”
“I’m so glad I caught you. This is Roy Augustino.”
Jason sits on the bed and takes hold of my hand. “Hi, Mr. Augustino.”
I grip his hand, close my eyes and hope for the best.
“The board has asked me to extend an offer of employment. I’ve emailed a formal offer that I hope will meet with your approval. I consulted with the board in New York. We agree that we need to keep you in our family, and you should be able to decide where it is you want to work.”
I open my eyes to look into his, which are glowing with happiness.
“Thank you. I’ll take a look and let you know.”
“Outstanding. Assuming the offer is sufficient, we set your official start date as a week from Monday, to give you time to work out housing.”
“Perfect. Thank you very much.”
“My pleasure. I hope I’ll soon be saying welcome aboard, Dr. Northrup.”
“I’ll be in touch and hopefully will see you next Monday.”
“Sounds good.”
He puts the phone on the bedside table and slides into my outstretched arms.
“Congratulations.”
“There’s no way this would’ve happened without you and everything you did.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s one hundred percent true. You make the difference in every possible way.”
We kiss like two people who just got the keys to forever.
“I love you, Carmen.”
“I love you, too, Jason.”
“That’s the best news I’ve had all day.”
EPILOGUE
JASON
Two days before the one-year anniversary of meeting Carmen, I wake up in bed with her like I do every day now that she’s unofficially officially moved in with me. Since her grandmothers would, in her words, “have a brain hemorrhage that you’d have to operate on” if they knew we’re living together, we haven’t actually told them we’re cohabitating.
Carmen thinks we’re fooling them, which is what she needs to believe in order to actually live with me. I’m under no such illusions where her grandmothers are concerned. From what I’ve observed, they know everything before it happens, but far be it from me to say or do anything that would make Carmen uncomfortable in our new home.
After I bought the condo we both loved in Brickell, I asked her to move in with me almost right away. She turned me down repeatedly, even as we spent every night together, either at her place or mine. We kept clothes, toothbrushes and personal items at both places, and as I told her, we were wasting money by paying for two homes when we need only one.
On the six-month anniversary of the day we met, I took her to the Bahamas for a long weekend, during which I presented her with her own set of keys to my condo over a romantic dinner on the beach. “Move in with me. Please.”
I could tell from the way she looked at me that she was wavering, so I went all in.
“I love you more than Priscilla. I want us to have every minute we can together.”
“You really love me more than Priscilla?”
“I’ve told you that before.”
“No, you haven’t.”
“Well, I do. You should know that.”
“We don’t already spend every minute we can together?”
“It could be more.” I stuck my lip out. “Don’t you want to live with me?”
“Of course I do, but . . .”
I groaned dramatically. “Ugh, the worst word ever invented. But.”
She laughed at my agony. She does that a lot, but that’s okay. She can do whatever she wants as far as I’m concerned. I reached across the table for her hand. “Talk to me, Rizo. Tell me what’s on your mind.”
“It’s really important to me that I pay my own way. If I move in with you, you’ll want to pay for everything, and I don’t want that.”
“Fine. Negotiate.” At this point, I would have signed the deed to the place over to her if it would mean we’d share an address.
“You paid for the condo. I pay for everything else.”
“No.”
“Just no?”
“I’m not letting you pay when we go out for dinner or when I take you away to the Bahamas or anywhere else for that matter.”
“I pay for utilities, cable, Wi-Fi, groceries. Nonnegotiable.”
“Do I get to pay for my own dry cleaning?”
She raised the eyebrow that cuts me down to size every time. “You aren’t making fun of me by any chance, are you?”
“Never.”
“Sure you aren’t . . . You can pay for all the dry cleaning since your guy got that veneer stain off my navy suit. Clearly you’re better at picking dry cleaners than I am.”
“All right, but I’m allowed to pay for surprise extras anytime I want. Nonnegotiable.” Have I ever had more fun in my life than I do with her? Nope. Never.
“Fine.”
“Fine.” And then the sand beneath me seemed to shift. “Wait . . . Did you just agree to move in with me?”
“I think I did.”
I let out a whoop that had other beachfront diners looking at us.
“Sit down, Jason.”
I didn’t realize I’d jumped out of my seat. “Yes, dear.”
“One more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You cannot, under any circumstances, tell my grandmothers.”
“They won’t hear it from me.”
“And you can be the one to tell my father.”
“Wait, what?”
She lost it laughing, and sure enough, she made me tell Vincent we were moving in together.
“What took you so long to convince her?” Vincent asked, shocking me. I was prepared for disapproval, but I suppose when you’ve watched your only child go through the pits of despair, seeing her happy again mellows a guy.
“She drives a very hard bargain.”
“That’s my girl,” Vincent said, glowing with paternal pride.
I love him and Viv, as well as Nona and Abuela, as if they’re my own family. Vincent has been giving me bartending lessons so I can “make myself useful” around the place. It’s nice to have a father again after so many years mostly estranged from my own.