The silence successfully broken, conversation flows naturally for a while. Pops laughs at something Abuelo says. Dad stares at him, something tender in his expression. The knot in my stomach untangles a bit.

“If you have a boyfriend, you should buy him flowers,” Dave whispers into my ear. There’s a turkey leg hanging out of my mouth. I glance up, but no one else is paying attention to him.

“I’m telling you, London is worse than here,” Tía Camila is saying. Abuelo shakes his head. “There’s so much smog, way different than fog, and it’s always dark. You should’ve seen the apartment that the company put me up in. It was actually ridiculous.”

“Don’t be such a snob, Cami,” Dad says, a teasing note to his voice. “We all can’t go jet setting around the world at the drop of a dime.”

I glance at Dave out of the corner of my eye. “Who says I have a boyfriend?”

“Dad was talking on the way back from the airport,” he says, rolling his eyes like I’m stupid. “I hear things. But anyway, boys like flowers sometimes. If he doesn’t, you should do it just to get rid of him.”

I snort, and Abuela glances over at me.

“What happened to the braids, mi amor?” she asks, running her nails through my curls. I can feel them getting stuck, even though she pretends they aren’t. “I thought they were stylish.”

“Abuela—” Dave starts. That’s the cool thing about Dave: I don’t always have to say things for him to understand.

“Leave Simone alone,” Abuelo says, clucking his tongue. “She doesn’t want your hands in her hair while we’re eating.”

Don’t get me wrong; I love both of my grandparents. But there are some things they don’t understand. Abuela is weird about my hair, while Abuelo is weird about me having HIV. He still hesitates before he kisses me. It’s probably something he thinks I won’t notice, but it’s hard not to. He holds my head in his hands and stares at me, almost like he’s not sure he should be doing it.

The doorbell rings. Dad turns to me expectantly.

“What?” I say, glancing around the table. “Everyone is already here.”

“Miles is supposed to come over for dessert,” Pops says, speaking slowly. “Don’t you remember?”

Shit. In all my wallowing, I forgot our plan. It was Dad’s idea in the first place, but Miles was all for it. I don’t mind seeing him. It’s just that doing it today feels like bad luck. With a sigh, I push myself away from the table.

“Simone has a boyfriend?” I hear Abuela say behind me. “But she’s just a baby.”

I grin, swinging the door open.