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“Ay.” I sucked my teeth at her ridiculous claim, but she didn’t take the hint.

“No, you mark my words. In fact, I’m putting it in my diary.” From under her pale pink silk pillow, she pulled out a well-worn notebook. She wrote everything down in that damn thing. “What’s today’s date? Never mind. Ariella and Dalton will fall in love for real, and this will be their meet cute,” she said, writing furiously while I rolled my eyes.

“Oh, right, because that will go over well with my family.” I flopped onto my back, staring at the ceiling with its exposed ductwork and pipes.

“Sure, my uncle and primo will be a little bit pissed at first, but they’ll come around.”

I looked over at her, narrowing my eyes. “Did he pay you to be supportive or something? You don’t even know Dalton.”

“No,” she drew out the word. “But I know you, and the fact that you even gave this guy the time tells me all I need to know. Think about it, Ari. You never go on dates with anyone, yet you took him when he was a complete stranger.” I pursed my lips. She had a point, but I wasn’t ready to relent. “And you trusted him with this whole charade, too.”

“Yeah, but that’s because I had no choice,” I argued, but there wasn’t a lot of conviction to my statement.

Gracie scoffed. “Please, no one can tell you what to do. That’s why Ricky had such a hard time keeping you in line when we were in college. You don’t fall in line. You stand up for yourself.”

Her words simultaneously were like a warm hug and a kick to the gut.

On one hand, I was proud of paving my own path, but it was also a reminder that some of my choices went directly against what my family expected of me.

“Have you talked to them?” she asked, her voice soft.

I took a deep breath. I had, but every time they called, I came up with an excuse to cut the conversation short. It wouldn’t be long before they caught on, and then I’d have to explain why I was dodging them.

“Yeah, I’ve talked to them, but not since—” I shot up, pointing at Gracie, who was watching me with wide eyes. “No digas nada. Okay? Not a damn thing about me dating Dalton.”

She pursed her lips and flipped me off. “Right, because that was my first instinct to tell them about your love life.”

“I’m not in love.”

“Not yet,” she threw back, face sobering. “But seriously, what are you planning on telling them about you dating him?”

I flopped back on the bed, staring at the exposed ceiling pipes. “Nothing. I’m going to find a solution, break up with Dalton, and then resume life here as originally planned…they never have to know.”

Gracie laughed so hard I thought she’d need an inhaler to breathe again.

“Ari, as the queen of ignoring my problems and living in delusion, even I know that’s a dumb as shit plan. He’s literally the NHL’s golden boy. His dad owns a team. Like, you two are about to be all over the news.”

She wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t already thought of. And she was right, I’d been pretending these realities didn’t exist. “My dad re-watches the same soccer matches from years ago,” I argued—with her or with myself, I wasn’t really sure. “The man is not going to be watching the hockey game.”

“And Ricky?” She gave me a pointed look. “You really think your twenty-seven-year-old brother, who watches you like a hawk, isn’t going to watch the team he knows you are coaching? Or look up your name to see if there’s anything new about you online?”

I groaned, throwing my arm over my face.

She’d said the quiet part out loud—the only hiccup in this arrangement I’d been dreading besides meeting Dalton’s father. Then, because the universe apparently hated me, my brother’s name popped up on my phone screen.

Gracie and I stared at the vibrating device before locking eyes, both of us wide-eyed with panic. It felt like the time we both said we were spending the night at each other’s house, only to sneak out to a party. Ricky called ten minutes to us being there, demanding to know where the fuck we were.

“Not. A. Word,” I whispered to my cousin as I answered, pasting on my best innocent tone. “Ricky, so nice of you to call. I was just talking about you.” Oh, god, he’s going to know something is up.

“¿Qué chingados estás haciendo?”

I froze. “What…what do you mean? I’m not doing anything. Gracie and I are sitting in our apartment, doing nothing…not a thing.”

She mouthed at me, “What the hell?” before cutting in to save me from my ramble. “Hey, primo. How’s California?” she asked, pulling the phone away and putting it on speaker.

Ricky made me more nervous than my dad. It was like he could sense when I was about to do something he would disapprove of.

“Don’t try to change the subject, Gracie,” he replied, his tone softer with her but still firm. “I know my sister. Her voice gets high-pitched when she’s hiding something.”