Deja had to bite her lips again. “Amazing,” she whispered.

He leaned over the table toward her again. “Take a break and let me take care of you tonight,” he whispered to her.

She knew by the way his whisper was deeper than it had been and the way his hand covered hers that he wasn’t just talking about dinner.

She licked her lips, and he boldly licked his own as he watched.

“Okay,” she said, turning her hand over so their palms touched.

Alejandro sat back in his chair, the look of happiness and relief so clear on his face that it made Deja feel something she still wasn’t ready to name, but she knew that she liked it. She liked so much about every minute she spent with Alejandro.

Twelve

He and Deja decided to split up for a few hours. She needed to do a few loads of laundry, and he needed to drop some suits off at the dry cleaners before they closed. He also needed to go to the grocery store because he’d somehow thought it was a great idea to invite Deja over for dinner when just this morning, he’d opened his fridge and closed it because there wasn’t anything in there besides a few stray bottles of beer and kombucha. He also needed to call his brother, because Alejandro couldn’t cook.

Alejandro preferred to go grocery shopping between eleven at night and two in the morning on weekdays because he was often so busy that was sometimes the only time he could make it there and when undergrads were less likely to be buying energy drinks and frozen burritos. He never went to the grocery store in the middle of the day if he could help it, not because it would be packed, but because if he did, he usually ran into someone from work and was unwittingly dragged into a fifty-minute-long conversation about fall enrollments; a subject he didn’t give a single fuck about.

But for Deja, he’d take the risk.

After the dry cleaners, he pulled into the parking lot and parked. Before he got out of his car, he put his earbuds in and called his younger brother, Angel.

“I’m busy,” Angel said by way of a greeting.

Alejandro rolled his eyes and hopped out of his car. “Then why did you pick up?” He grabbed his reusable grocery bags from the trunk and then headed toward the grocery store entrance.

“To tell you I’m busy. Obviously,” Angel laughed.

“I need your help,” Alejandro said, ignoring him.

“I agree. There’s so much wrong with you. Where do you want to start?”

“With dinner,” Alejandro said irritably. “I need you to tell me what to make for dinner.”

“I’d ask if this was a joke, but this is pathetic, even for you. Make whatever the fuck you want to eat.”