I blinked at him.
Isabel raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah?”
Oh god. Not the bodega story. I mean, yes, technically, we had met outside José’s, but that night wasn’t exactly a highlight-reel moment. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t charming. It was embarrassing—drunk on the steps, fighting back tears, looking every bit the mess I was. Marco had witnessed a disaster wrapped in too much eyeliner and poor life choices. And now, apparently, we were sharing that delightful memory at family dinner.
Fantastic.
I resisted the urge to kick him under the table, though it wasverytempting.
Marco nodded. “Ran into her many times after that. Hard to forget a face like hers.”
Lucia giggled next to me.
I pressed my lips together, fighting back a smile I definitely wasn’t ready to show. He was being sweet, which was unlike him. Suspiciously unlike him. Maybe he was just trying to charm Isabel, because anyone with half a brain knew Isabel was the gatekeeper in this family.
Or maybe, whispered a stupid, hopeful little voice in the back of my mind,he’s trying to charm me.
Which was absurd, obviously. Marco wasn’t nice just to be nice, and he certainly didn’t say things to impress people—least of all me.
Right?
I took a slow breath, forcing my shoulders to relax as he answered more of Isabel’s questions. She started with the basics—simple stuff like what part of the city he lived in, where he went to school—but quickly moved on to the tougher, more subtle questions. The ones designed to catch inconsistencies or draw out truths no one was ready to share.
Marco was handling this. He wasgoodat this.
The conversation moved on, shifting into safer territory.
Thank God.
Lucia told a long-winded story about school. Daniel talked about work. I nodded at the right parts and laughed softly where I was supposed to, but I was barely listening. My attention kept drifting back to Marco sitting quietly beside me. He’d rolled his sleeves up at some point, revealing the edges of a tattoo on his forearm. Had I seen it before? Maybe I had, but now I couldn’t stop wondering what the whole design looked like, or what the story behind it was.
And there it was again—that insistent curiosity I wasn’t supposed to have. The one that made it impossible to pretend I wasn’t fascinated by every tiny, hidden part of him.
Then, out of nowhere, Isa asked, “Vale, you want a glass of wine?”
My body locked up before my brain had even registered what she’d said. My fingers curled under the edge of the table, nails pressing into my palm as if that could anchor me to reality. Or maybe just distract me from the sudden rush of panic tightening around my throat.
She didn’t know.
To Isabel, this was normal. Just a casual offer. She had no idea those evenings we’d shared a bottle of wine—sisterly bonding—were so much more complicated for me. She didn’t know this table in this warm, cozy house with family photos lining the walls was my loophole. The one place where Icould drink unnoticed and unmonitored. Under the disguise of normalcy, I’d sat here night after night, quietly justifying glass after glass, because here in this kitchen, nobody questioned it. Nobody judged it.
Isabel didn’t know about the bottles hidden in my own apartment, about how I’d found ways to keep my drinking invisible to Max. Invisible to Marco. She didn’t know the lengths I’d gone to, the silent shame I’d felt when I realized just how dependent I’d become on something that felt both necessary and deeply humiliating.
She didn’t know that for the past year, her kitchen had become my refuge—and my secret shame. And I wasn’t proud.
God, I wasn’t proud.
I wasn’t ready for her to find out either. Not here. Not now. Not like this.
Before I could even fully process it—before I could decide if I wanted to say yes or no—I felt Marco shift next to me. Not much. Just enough for his arm to brush against mine, for me to notice the subtle tension in his posture. Like he was already looking at me, aware of exactly why my breath had caught and my hands were shaking under the table.
And when I turned my head, he was.
Not with judgment or disappointment, but with understanding. Awareness. As if he’d already put together every single piece I’d hidden. Like he knew exactly why Isabel’s question felt like an interrogation, why the offer of wine wasn’t simple for me at all. And somehow, there was comfort in that. Comfort and terror, tangled together so tightly I couldn’t tell them apart.
I swallowed, my throat painfully dry. “No, thanks.”
Isabel blinked. She laughed lightly, taking a sip from her own glass. “Since when?”
