“You’re not seriously going to call me that in public?” sheasked.
Of course I wouldn’t. Justin would string me up if he ever heard me wax poetic over a pastry. I kept my voice low. “We can keep it between us if youlike.”
“But you hatenicknames.”
“Sayswho?”
“Justin.”
I sniffed, easing back a bit. “He only thinks that because my sister complains that I refuse to call my niececaramelainstead ofCarmen.”
“Why won’tyou?”
“Because she’s not a piece ofcandy.”
“So how come you can’t see the rest of us thatway?”
The exposé had blasted me for referring to women as food. I was about to tell Georgina she shouldn’t believe everything she read—obviously, I didn’tactuallydisregard her as some empty-calorie breakfast treat. But I had called her that when I wouldn’t do the same to my niece, so maybe she had a point. “Does it make you uncomfortable?” Iasked.
“To be seen as a lowly cinnamonbun?”
“Nothing lowly about it.” I leaned in. “Don’t tell anyone, but most days, I prefer buns overdonuts.”
She sighed. “It doesn’t bother me, because I don’t think it’s coming from a malicious place. But you can see how some women might find itbelittling.”
I’d wanted to best Georgina, challenge her, run her out of the job—but I never wanted to make her feel small. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I guess I can seethat.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Are you only agreeing to get me off yourback?”
“No.” If it wasn’t her job tobeon my back, having her there wouldn’t have sounded too bad. I didn’t relish the idea of admitting I’d been wrong, but I got where she was coming from. “I hate nicknames because I grew up with them,” I explained. “As a twin, and with a Hispanic surname, sometimes they were cutesy and other times derogatory. So I dounderstand.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, sliding her fingers under the edge of the hat. “I wouldn’t have thoughtQuinnwould give you anytrouble.”
It’d given me plenty of trouble all right. “It’s Quintanilla,” I said. “When my sister and I entered middle school, my mom chopped it off. Kids made fun of it. Teachers couldn’t pronounce it. She worried it would hold usback.”
“I . . . I had noidea.”
“Nobody does.” I looked her over. I’d shared something with Georgina, someone who could possibly end me, that only my immediate friends and family knew. “It isn’t publicknowledge.”
She hid her hand in the sleeve of her shirt and asked, “Why are you telling methis?”
It was a valid question without an answer. Nor could I explain why I’d gone overboard just to tag along on this date with her. I searched her eyes, and though the idea of Georgina scared me in more ways than one—both what she meant for my career and the fact that she’d brought out a side of me I didn’t like—I wasn’t afraid of the person I saw right then. We were even closer now. Had I moved, or had she? She wore the same alarmed look that’d crossed her face near the end of our walk in the park. Fear that I might kiss her? Or anticipation? The old Sebastian might’ve taken what he wanted, consequences be damned, but I was trying to be better. For my mom. For my job. “I don’t know why I told you that,” I said, except I did. I trusted the Georgina in front of me. It was George at the office who made mewary.
“Your sister’s name is Libby, right?” she asked. “She still lives inMassachusetts?”
I pulled back in surprise. “Yeah.”
“You light up when you talk about them. And Boston too. Do you think about moving backthere?”
Maybe I lit up over my family, but not the city itself. Since Mom’s death, Boston remained a dark cloud over my memories. “No,” I said. “Except to visit my sister’s family in the suburbs, I’ll never go back to thecity.”
She tilted her head. “Never?”
A couple guys passed us on the way to the counter and said, “NiceRed Suckshat.” One sniffed at Georgina. “Go back toBoston.”
As the guy turned his back, Georgina paled. She took off the hat and glanced up at me. “I’m a Yankeesfan.”
“I know. Why are you tellingme?” This was what I didn’t understand. At the office her first day, she’d practically told us, a group of men she barely knew, to love it or shove it about her devotion to the Yankees. Yet, she struggled to do the same to some drunk chowderhead. I crossed my arms. “You want to say something, sayit.”
