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Alex rested her hand between Charlotte’s thighs. “Vera was always a stick in the mud,” she explained, her breath warm against Charlotte’s skin.

“Me?” Vera shrieked, accepting the glass full of wine and fruit Lidia handed her. “You’re the one who wouldn’t sneak backstage with us that time? Remember? When was that?

Ninety-two? Martica, you remember.” She looked at the redhead for support.

“Oh, I remember,” Martica agreed. “We convinced our parents to let us go all the way to Seville. No easy feat,” She looked at Charlotte, telling her the story. “Your girlfriend,”

she used the label as easily as Alex’s parents, “chickened out after we talked our way into Luis Miguel’s dressing room.”

“She doesn’t know who that is,” Vera said with a laugh as she filled Charlotte and Alex’s glasses.

“I know who he is,” Charlotte replied with a good-natured laugh. She didn’t specify that she only knew him from the Netflix dramatization of his life Jayson had become obsessed with a few years back.

“I told you to go on without me,” Alex replied with a shrug before taking a sip of her drink.

“I bet if it would’ve been Alejandra Guzmán you would have done it,” Martica decided before sitting back, glass in hand.

“That’s a di erent story. That raspy voiced queen of rock? She would have been worth getting in trouble for, but Luis Miguel? Did you forget that was his colorful silk shirt phase?” Alex countered, earning a glass clink from Martica and Vera’s husbands.

“Can we stop boring La Guiri with ancient stories,” Lidia said, already refilling her glass.

“Don’t call her that,” Vera complained.

Charlotte didn’t know she was supposed to be o ended by the term. They used so many words she’d never heard before.

“No pasa nada . I use it with love, tia,” Lidia said before lifting her glass in a toast. “In just a few trips we’ll make you a proper Españolita, vale?”

Unsure what she was agreeing to, Charlotte raised her glass and reached over to clink it with Lidia’s outstretched one.

“We should do this every year,” Martica’s husband said, joining their toast.

“Here, here,” Vera agreed.

A moment later they were all clinking glasses and making plans for a summer gathering. From the sound of it, Saint John’s Eve sounded like a riot. An actual one.

Charlotte maintained her smile even though it was excruciating. She created a mental image to take with her for

the future. Next year Alex would be with them again. Without

Charlotte, but free and happy.

She wanted to remember her like this, her head tipped back and laughing with her cousins. It might comfort her in the future, but right now it was a vice squeezing the life out of her heart.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE Lidia went home with that acrobat,”

Charlotte decided, her body buzzing from the copious amounts of sangria she’d steadily imbibed for the hours they spent at the cabaret. Now, near sunrise, they were the last ones left at the back of the van. The last to be dropped o .

“His flexibility was pretty impressive,” Alex replied. Her Spanish accent had grown thicker than it was back at home.

“I bet she’s going to be late to lunch.”

Charlotte closed her eyes, grateful that lunch in Spain was late and dinner even later. She needed time to rest even if she didn’t want to miss a moment with Alex.

“We’re almost home,” Alex whispered as she slid her hand in hers.

Charlotte rolled her head to the side before opening her eyes. She watched Alex looking out the window. Watching the lights of her city speed by, Alex was at her most beautiful. Despite not having slept a minute since they arrived, she looked like she could stay up for another day.

You should stay. You should stay here and never look back.