“No, you’re good.” He took a gentle swat at her chin with a paper napkin. “Especially with salsa hanging on your face in case we need some for later.”
She nodded gravely. “I can do that for you, Santiago Valentino. Salsa on tap. Not a problem.”
They both dissolved into another round of gut-clutching laughter, only just managing to calm themselves when the waitress reappeared, arms laden with plates holding carnitas and all the essential accoutrements. Hot-sauce heaven.
Santi dug in, suddenly ravenous. Hungry not only for the food but for the next day and the next, when his life would no longer be a solo voyage. Sure, a huge part of it was make-believe, but for all the pretense, what was growing between them felt real. Two lost souls trying to find their place in the world. Maybe this time it really would be here...home.
“Right, then,” he said, after enjoying a savory mouthful of carnitas. “Guess we’d better start talking practicalities. Your place or mine?”
“SO,” AMANDA STARTED, all casual like, as if the tension in the air wasn’t already almost palpable, “have you cleared out a couple of drawers?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?” She jumped up from the sofa. “Santiago’s moving in. Today.”
“It’s all a bit fast, don’t you think?” Turned out having a few nights on her own to think about things had been long enough to reopen the worrywart drawer Saoirse had thought she’d nailed shut. Tense didn’t even begin to cover how she was feeling.
“Cutting things to the wire is more like it.” Amanda pressed her lips together as if it would help make her point. Saoirse was between a rock and a hard place and needed to quit trying to find an escape route.
“I know but don’t you think...?” It’s a bit too real. “Do you think he’ll have his own furniture?”
“Oh, come on! The guy’s a nomad. It’ll be the contents of his motorcycle panniers and nothing else.” Amanda held up her hand as a visual tick list. “He lives in a serviced apartment. He’s been overseas for, like, a decade or something with the Marines. He probably didn’t even have a tent he’s so hard-core. I bet he wove himself a fresh duvet out of swamp reeds every night, taking shelter in the crook of a solitary oak tree.” Her eyes took on a faraway look that didn’t look altogether faithful to her own husband.
“I hope you’re not daydreaming about my future husband,” Saoirse half joked. “And I don’t think there’s an abundance of oak trees in Afghanistan.” Amanda’s eyes widened with amusement.
“I’m just messing with you, Saoirse. No need to get testy.”
“I’m not getting testy,” Saoirse replied...testily. “It’s just—it’s going to be a busy day.”
“Yes, honey. You keep on telling yourself that, but I think someone’s got a crush on her arranged-marriage husband!” Amanda’s grin was so self-satisfied there’d be no wiping that thing off her face. Saoirse glared. It was all she had left in her armory of rebuttals.
“Point being, Murph, he doesn’t have squat. He needs you as much as you need him.”
“I think I’m going to have to disagree with you there, Amanda.” Saoirse tried to put on her own comedy voice, but felt the truth of her statement weight her feet to the floor. Santi didn’t need to marry her. At all. She was the only beggar in this scenario.
“Oh, come on! Look at all of the pluses. You two meet on the job, then at Mad Ron’s where I bet you any amount of money he was hoping to find you. The two of you hit it off right away and now—ta-da! We’ve got a groom! We’ve got a plan! I just need to book a date down at the courthouse as soon as you fill out the paperwork, which...” she pushed a piece of paper across the coffee table “...I have generously printed out for you here. And I think I’ll put in an order for those coconut cupcakes you like so much. Want to have a bridal shower?”
Saoirse scowled.
“Okay—maybe not. But c’mon, Murph,” her friend lovingly wheedled. “Planning your Big Fat Fake Wedding is going to be wicked awesome!” Amanda could barely contain her excitement.
“Who says that sort of thing? ‘Wicked awesome’?” Saoirse grinned, despite herself. The antiwedding wedding. It could work.
She put the paper on the breakfast bar and started hacking at some avocados to make her version of guacamole. Even though the situation was all a bit mad, Santi’s rescue mission had relieved a massive load of tension.
“People from Boston,” Amanda riposted, then immediately tried to stuff the words back into her mouth. “Sorry, sorry. I know I shouldn’t mention Boston.” She handed Saoirse a lime. “Here, squeeze some of that in. Keeps it from going brown.”
“Thanks. And don’t worry about the Boston thing. You can’t help where you’re from.” Saoirse mashed the avocados a bit more aggressively than was strictly necessary. “I probably shouldn’t hate a city forever just because it has one devious ex lurking around its thoroughfares.”
“And you know for sure he’s there?” Amanda started fastidiously folding paper napkins as if they were preparing to host the First Lady and not just four people for an alfresco lunch.
“I know he finished at the academy so I guess he’s busy laying down the law in Boston by now.”
Amanda arced a curious eyebrow.
“My parents. They keep me up to date with the news in jolly little emails designed, I am quite sure, to have life go back to normal, i.e., the good ol’ days of Saoirse and Tom.”
“They’re still rooting for him after what he did?”
“They...” Saoirse pushed the bowl of smashed avocado away and began chopping tomatoes into itsy-bitsy cubes. “They want their little girl back.”
“But I thought you and Tom were going to live in America.”
“Yeah, sure, but—I don’t know. I suppose they played along but were convinced once we had children we’d come back. And now they’re not so sure anymore.” She gave Amanda a quick glance before returning to work. “I’m not the Saoirse I was nine months ago, am I? I mean, if you’d told me then I was going to have short, sun-bleached hair, would be driving an ambulance and going to racing school, not to mention marrying a superhot doctor I’ll have to pretend I haven’t pictured naked just to stay in Miami, I would have told you that you were stark raving—”
“You’ve pictured me naked?”
Santi appeared in the open French doors that led to her tiny backyard, holding a barbecue in his hands. It made his biceps stand out that perfect amount of sexy.
It was far too easy to picture Santi naked. Or wrapped only in a towel, little droplets of shower water still clinging to his—
She clenched the edge of the counter to disguise her knee-wobble.
“Yeah, right, hombre! In your dreams.”
Even blind people would have the hots for Santi. His scent was every bit as scrumptious as his aesthetics.
“Where do you want this thing?” Santi’s satisfied grin proved he knew she was telling porky-pies.
“Wherever there’s space. It’s not as if I’ve got acres of land to choose from.”
“Better than the two-by-four balcony off my sad excuse of an apartment.”
“The