Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
But Javier had thought of me when he bought it.
He thought about me . . . even when I wasn’t around.
I didn’t know what that meant exactly, but knowing so caused constant flutters in my stomach.
Thirteen
Javier
The Ravens, unfortunately, did not make it to the NBA Finals.
Los Angeles and Houston did.
It sucked that we didn’t. Our team had worked harder than ever, some of us clocking in early and late hours at the gym just to better our game. We had a good season, despite not making it, and truthfully, I was relieved it was done for now.
It was never the game that I grew weary of. It was all the traveling and missing out on time with my family. Going from state to state, jumping on and off charter planes, waking up in different hotels with different views. Sometimes jet lagged, sometimes not. It was completely exhausting.
Now that the season was officially over and summer had peaked, it meant I could focus more on Aleesa. We were one week away from her birthday party. My mother was flying in from Argentina and would be staying with us for a few weeks, and my sister, Catalina, was flying in from New York.
Octavia, as promised, had taken care of everything for the party.
And I mean everything.
Every decoration, party bag, table setting, and food choice and even the custom cake. She’d even hired someone to come and set up a large glass tank so an actress could use it and pretend to be a mermaid. This was per my request. I wanted Aleesa to have something she could remember. Perhaps it was too much, but there was no such thing in my mind when it came to her.
The morning of the party, Octavia was there bright and early, helping my mother and sister get Aleesa ready. Octavia took care of bathing her and styling her hair, while my mother and sister helped her get dressed before taking about a million photos of her.
I handled the caterers and determined how the backyard would be set up, and about an hour before the party, my mermaid princess waltzed out the back door, calling my name.
“Oh, mi princesa! Look at you!” I lowered to a squat and held my arms open as she ran toward me in a shimmery blue dress and a matching tiara. Her sandy hair was in two curly pigtails, and she had blush on her cheeks.
I frowned.
“Catalina, I told you no makeup.” I stood up with Aleesa in my arms, locking eyes on my younger sister. “She’s four, not fourteen.”
“It was just a teensy bit,” my sister said, waving a hand at me. “It’s her birthday. Let her look pretty.”
Catalina was forever the rebel. A lot of our facial features were similar, especially our eyes, brown and framed with thick, long lashes. When you saw her dark-brown hair that cascaded into a fierce ombre of red orange to her shoulder blades, you knew to expect some sort of trouble from her.
I prayed for the man who would one day take my sister’s hand in marriage and have to deal with her for the rest of his life. She was a free spirit, never one to be shackled by life. If you did not support that, she would happily shove her middle finger in your face.
“Oh, please,” my mother said, approaching us, ready to squeeze Aleesa’s cheeks. “Mi niña is always pretty. Muy, muy bonita.” She made kissing noises, and Aleesa giggled. My mother was no taller than five feet, with wavy deep-brown hair that reached the middle of her back. Her skin was slightly darker—more a rich beige—most likely from a recent tan on one of the beaches of Argentina.
That was one thing about my mother. If she was not in the United States with us or checking in with my grandfather in his retirement home in Argentina, she was soaking up sun at one of the nearby beaches.
My daughter left my arms, and when my mother had her, she carried her toward the empty water tank, where the mermaid actress would be soon.
I carried my line of sight to Octavia, who was wearing a one-piece black bathing suit under jean shorts. She had piled all her hair into a ponytail on top of her head, so her locs went in all sorts of directions. Messy and cute. She straightened up one of the snack tables, then flipped her wrist to check her Apple Watch.
Catching where my attention had gone, Catalina brushed against my side and said, “You look at her in a very familiar way.”
I dropped my gaze to hers. “What are you talking about?”
“In that familiar way, you know?”
“No, I do not know, because you are not making sense.”
“Yes, you do.” She grinned, then strolled away, heading in Octavia’s direction. She plucked a cherry from under the plastic wrap covering a fruit tray while saying something to Octavia. Octavia turned her head and locked eyes on me.