The-Spanish-Love-Deception-www.indianpdf

me in her head for just a few moments a day.”
I dipped my head, staring at my empty plate. Was that true? Aaron had
had a way of popping up out of thin air. But had that been intentional? Even
if it was to get on my nerves. I was beginning to struggle with something as
simple as telling apart what was real from what wasn’t. Everything that left
Aaron’s mouth was based on reality—us working together, us knowing each
other for almost two years. And then it had a part of deceit—us dating, being
in love. But everything else, everything that somehow lay between those two
sides—all those ornaments he hung off both truth and deceit—belonged to a
gray area I did not know how to define.
“Qué maravilloso.” My mother beamed.
Then, she translated what Aaron had said for Abuela, and the old woman
I owed my slightly frizzy hair to beamed too. Honestly, Abuela had been
charmed by Aaron since the moment he had greeted her with two kisses and
told her how proud she must be of her granddaughter. Which, in turn, had
turned me into a beaming idiot too.
“You know,” my dad chipped in, “not everyone is able to handle our
Lina. She has the biggest heart in the family, but she can be a little …” He
trailed off, one of his eyebrows rising on his forehead. “Ay, what’s the word
in English?” My dad paused, his lips puckered with frustration. “She can be
—”
“A total dork?” suggested Isabel, who had just—very conveniently—
come back from the dead.
“Oye!” I exclaimed.
At the same time, my dad answered, “No. Not that one.” He scratched the
side of his head.
“Short?” offered Gonzalo. “Clumsy?”
My head whipped in his direction.
Aaron hummed. “Ridiculously stubborn?”
Not bothering to turn toward him, I rammed my elbow into his side. He
gently grabbed my arm and laced our fingers together, placing them on top of
the table. I stared at our linked hands, all outrage immediately vanished.
Then, Aaron dipped his head and told me in a low voice, “I didn’t want to
be left out.”
I looked over at him and found yet another of those smiles that made me
weak in the knees. Something fluttered low in my belly. Dammit.
“Gracias, all of you,” I murmured.