“Oh, God. It’s okay. Don’t feel so bad.” Ángel tried to smile. “One time I asked Oberon why he came here, and he said, ‘I am a great adventurer.’ That’s me too, no? I mean it. I had a great adventure.”

Victor nodded, not meeting his eyes. “Look. There are the girls.”

Marissa and Chandler were approaching, carrying shopping bags, and Ángel and Victor watched them from a distance. Marissa was bouncing, laughing, chattering, gesturing with her hands. Chandler, just as straight and military as usual, was gazing at Marissa with an expression of dumbfounded fascination that made Ángel smile. “Now that’s a relationship I didn’t see coming.”

“She was Oberon’s security chief?” asked Victor.

“Yes, and a giant pain in my ass.”

“Sometimes,” said Victor, “we thought you and Marissa would be together.”

By we, Ángel knew Victor was referring to the community of Cuban family and neighbors and fellow-parishioners who had helped to raise him. Who he had mostly lost. He scratched his head, pushing his hair away from his face. “I let you think that sometimes,” he admitted. “Sometimes I got tired of being the talk of the town. But no.”

“Don’t you think you could ever—”

“Papá, look at them,” said Ángel, gesturing at the two women. Marissa had taken Chandler’s hands and was now dancing in the middle of the courtyard, swiveling her hips to make her skirts flare out and her hair swing, eyes locked on Chandler’s. “Forget about me for a second, and see the way Marissa’s looking at her. I don’t know Chandler so well, but Marissa could never look at any man like that. It’s not a choice. It’s just how it is.”

Marissa’s face was bright with admiration as she twirled Chandler around. Oberon’s face would never brighten that way when he looked at Ángel. Or anyone. But he’d called Ángel his love.

He tapped his new phone’s screen and dialed Neil Jeremy’s number. This time Emma the secretary didn’t put him through: “I’m sorry, Agent Jeremy is in a meeting for the rest of the afternoon.”

“I wanted to give him my new phone number, so that Oberon can call me.”

Was there an infinitesimal pause on her end? “Okay, that’s great. What’s the number?”

He gave it to her. “It’s really, really important. You’ll make sure he sees it as soon as he’s out of the meeting?”

“Of course.”

“Or, you know, you could just text my number straight to Oberon; how would that be? That way, he can call me directly, and we wouldn’t have to waste Agent Jeremy’s time.”

“I’ll check with Agent Jeremy as soon as he’s free,” she promised.

He sighed and hung up, and got up to go see what the women had bought.