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I walked away. “You know what? You’re right. I have heard it enough.”
“Too late!” Thunderous footfalls chased me out of the kitchen.
I didn’t have a chance to run before she grabbed me, shrieking, around the waist and dropped us both howling on the couch.
“One day, they’re going to make this story into a movie,” Mom said, settling us both properly. “A tale of fate. How Crisanto and Irida met.” My mom smiled at the chrysanthemums like she always did. It was like they were telling the story together.
“I was at a coffee shop that morning,” she began. “After I graduated, my parents gave me a month—thirty days—to find a job, or they’d kick me out of the apartment they put me up in through school.”
“Those thirty days were really a deadline to force you to accept a job at Grandma’s company,” I filled in, resting my head on her shoulder.
“As bold and blatant as blackmail can be. Take a marketing job at Princess Press, or be cut off. Can you imagine that? Me? The face of turtles strangled by six-pack rings?”
I snorted. “No way.”
“That’s what I said. They left me no choice, so I hustled, worked, interviewed, and walked all up and down the city in terrible, pinchy shoes that blistered my blisters,” she said. “That morning was day thirty, my last day, and I had an interview at my dream company. Everything I worked for at my fingertips. I just needed to walk outside and turn right.”
“But you turned left.”
“I turned left,” she whispered, eyes shining. “Seconds after I stepped outside, I got a call from my best friend. My favorite band was doing a surprise concert in Central Park. It was only ten minutes away, and I had plenty of time to see them, freak out, then run back to the interview.”
“I have plenty of time,” I repeated, “said everyone who’s ever been late or never showed up.”
Mom laughed. “Exactly. Crisanto came out of nowhere. One minute, I’m booking it across the grass, and another, I’m colliding into a cute, buff guy playing gladiator in the park. I hit my head hard on his armor, and then next thing I knew, I was on the ground, vision spinning, and my head in the lap of the cutest stranger I ever laid eyes on.”
She rubbed my arm, resting her chin on my head. “He helped me up, dusted me off, apologized profusely, then gave me a flower.” I didn’t have to see her to know she was smiling. “Middlemist’s Red. The rarest flower in the world.
“I still had time,” she said. “I could’ve waved him off and ran back to the interview, but I found myself asking where he got the Middlemist and why he was walking around the park in the middle of the day with a suit of metal and rare flowers?
“He said he couldn’t tell me. It was a secret and I wouldn’t understand, then he walked off.”
I chuckled. “So you chased after him.”
“Of course I chased after him. He was the most fascinating thing I’d ever seen. Right up to and including the minute he drew his sword on a cyclist who rode up on him and stabbed his wheel through the spokes. Sent the poor man flying into a lake,” she said over my laugh. “To add insult to injury, he went wild on the poor thing. Hacked his bike into metal bits. People were already on their phones, calling the cops.”
“And then they came.”
A gusty sigh whooshed through my hair. “A whole pack of cyclists came at him, and he took his stance, wielding his sword, ready to attack. I had to haul his weird ass away for everyone’s safety. My interviewer would’ve heard my tale of heroics if the world hadn’t spun.”
I bounced in my seat. I loved this part.
“The next thing I knew, I was flat on my back with a sword tip pressed to my throat. People started running around and screaming while Crisanto demanded to know who I was, who sent me, and why I was interfering in his mission.”
I giggled, picturing Mom blinking up at him from the dirt. “I know you’ve got to be committed to the role, but are all actors as dedicated as Dad was?”
“Oh, a— No,” she said, voice faltering. “But Daddy was different. Special. And about that, Aella, there’s something I need to tell you—”
“After, Mom, you have to finish the story.”
“But I—” She sighed, smiling down at me. “Of course, baby. Where was I?”
“Dad was about to skewer you in the middle of the park.”
“Maybe he thought he was, but your mom doesn’t mess around. I disarmed him, flung the sword into the lake, and blew up on him. He sat there with his brows up his head while I ranted about crazy, medieval-loving lunatics begging for a good kick up the ass. And you know what he does?”
“He laughs.”
“He laughs! The guy starts cracking up like my panic attack is the funniest thing he’s ever seen. Then, out of nowhere, he pulls out a Jeremiah rose. The most beautiful, most expensive rose on the planet, and he’s holding one in his rough, calloused, strong hand and offering it to me like it’s nothing. Then he said—”
