She looked at me like she was reading the words I wasn’t saying. “You don’t have to be afraid to want things,hermana.”
I swallowed hard, unable to answer.
Maria lifted her chin and said brightly, “Thirty minutes. Everyone changed. At the dock.”
Then she marched off to find her swimsuit like she was leading a military mission. None of us moved, waiting for her to realize, and a second later she was back. “I have no idea where I’m going.”
Diego picked up her bag, I grabbed mine, and Mac led our little entourage up the stairs to the bedrooms. She and I were going to be sharing a cute little room with a massive king-size bed and Diego set her bag down before she shooed him out the door so we could change. Maria immediately started rummaging through her bag like a woman on a mission.
“You’re sure you’re ok to swim?” I asked.
She shot me a flat look. “Holly, I’m fine. I can float.”
“People who ‘float’ don’t go around saying they’re rotund.”
“You said I wasn’t rotund.”
“That was me being nice.”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a purple maternity swimsuit that lookedshockinglycute, then paused to squint at me. “Where’s yours?”
I held up the one-piece I had added to my bag after she left. Black. Simple. Conservative. Safe. The emotional equivalent of a brick wall. Maria stared at it like it offended her ancestors.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Maria—”
She marched over, plucked it from my hands, tossed it onto the bed, then went back to my duffel like a general conducting a search-and-seizure raid. She let out a triumphant little sound when she found it. The red one. The one that made me look like I had a waistline sculpted by the gods. The one I had privately planned to wear in my room and then never again.
Maria shoved it at me. “Put. It. On.”
I wanted to argue. I did. But she was looking at me with those big brown mom-friend eyes, and I caved like a wet cardboard box. Ten minutes later, I was standing in front of the mirror wearing something that should have come with caution tape. Maria let out a low appreciative whistle.
“Damn,hermana. Jackson’s gonna die.”
“Maria.”
“He deserves it.”
“Maria.”
“He does! Mr. Macho Man, no feelings. Take that.”
“Maria.”
She winked at me, grabbed her towel, and waddled—yes, waddled, I said what I said—toward the stairs. I stood alone for a second, staring at the girl in the mirror. Legs too long. Stomach too tight. Skin that still didn’t always feel like mine. And beneath it, the quietest sliver of something that hadn’t existed in years. Want. I swallowed hard, grabbed my towel which I wrapped around me like armor, and followed.
Outside, Maria was hustling toward the shoreline with a determination I couldn’t help but admire. I stood there watching her, knowing just how badly she needed this after the disaster that was prom. Then Mac cleared his throat and I looked overat him. He looked pointedly from me to the purple menace who was kicking off her flip-flops.
I groaned. “Oh my God. I’m responsible for her, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” all four boys said in unison.
I frowned at Diego, who was watching Maria closely. “Why aren’t you chasing after her?”
