Before dessert, dulce de leche, bourbon pecan, or pumpkin pie (or all three if you’re me), Abuela reached for my hand. “Mija,” she called me, short for mi hija. My daughter. “Tell me when you first knew you loved Simon.”

My Thanksgiving dinner turned to cement in my stomach. It felt horrible to lie, especially when Abuela seemed so sincere.

“Don’t be shy,” she urged. “We all love a good love story.”

“I don’t know, really. I guess it happened gradually.”

“I can tell you when I knew,” Simon said.

I looked up, trying to catch his gaze. He didn’t need to do this. I wanted to tell him as much, but he seemed intent on avoiding any eye contact with me. He focused instead on Abuela, and she smiled her encouragement.

“One afternoon, I stopped by the inn where Lane works to drop off some paperwork. I’d been helping her with some accounting needs the inn had, but this time around, she didn’t know I was coming. I thought it might be fun to surprise her during her lunch break, only she was the one who ended up surprising me. I found her in the middle of her office, shoes kicked off to the side, dancing.”

I covered my face, silent laughter making my shoulders shake.

“Dancing?” my dad asked. “To what?”

Instead of answering, Simon started to sing. “You’ll get me back! You’ll get me baa—acck.” His voice was high-pitched and awful, an intentional fake out since I’d heard him sing with his brothers before Cooper had left on his mission.

I gave his shoulder a playful shove. “You are terrible.”

Abuela giggled right along with us. “You loved her dancing?” she asked Simon.

“No. Her dancing was terrible. But I loved that she would dance. That she was willing to let stuff go and have fun. I need more of that in my life, and I think that’s what I recognized. That being around her will always make me a better person.”

“Amen to that,” my dad said from the other end of the table. He raised his water glass. “To love that improves and inspires us.”

John, sitting directly across from me, raised his glass to me, his eyes like lasers burning questions into my brain.

What is going on?

Does he really mean the things he’s saying?

What on earth are you going to do now?

I could only shrug my shoulders. Because I had no earthly idea.

Jamie: Dude. I can’t get Lane to answer my calls. Is she avoiding me?

Simon: I am just the pretend boyfriend. Not the for-real go-between.

Jamie: Is she okay?

Simon: She’s fine. She’s with her family. Remember, she hasn’t seen her grandmother in years.

Jamie: Just ask her to call me, would you? Or at least text.

Simon: Fine. I’ll tell her you asked about her.

Chapter 21