Oh, how I adored her!
“Okay, sounds like a plan. Do you want…” I trailed off, about to ask if she wanted to order an Uber, but Isa was already in the process. I had revealed our next destination on our walk back here, and she’d grinned like I knew she would.
I rounded the Tesla and popped its trunk to grab something. “What are you doing?” Ev asked.
“You’re going to need this at some point,” I told him, and handed him James’s only-worn-on-holidays blue blazer. “Just hang on to it.”
Ev pretended to whine. “But I don’t like carrying things, Mom.”
“Too bad, young man,” I replied, crossing my arms when he tried handing the blazer back to me. “I don’t have room in my purse, and you’re old enough to carry your own stuff.”
Ev casually tossed the blazer over his shoulder and smirked at me.
I swallowed hard.
The whole effect was…
Well, incredibly hot.
“Uber will be here in two minutes!” Isa announced, looking up from her phone and smiling at us.
“Great!” I smiled back. “Now, um, Ev…” My throat was dry. “Get rid of the Mets hat, for real this time.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not going to hide my heritage.”
Isa sighed, but I could tell it was for show. “Everett, we covered this in seventh grade. Being a Mets fan is not the same thing as being Jewish.”
Ev whistled. “Don’t let my mother hear you say that.”
“I will never understand sports,” Isa muttered, but I caught her biting back a bemused smile. One I hadn’t seen in a long time.
“C’mon, Ev,” I said. “For your safety?”
Because seriously, Philadelphia fans wereintense.
By the time our Uber arrived, he hadn’t taken the hat off, but Ihadsuccessfully convinced him to turn it backward. That way his loyalty wouldn’t be so screaming obvious.
The problem now was the backward hat only added to the blazer hotness…. which made me realize that I needed to touch him. Although not his hand, not his arm, and not his dimples. More like his shoulders or his chest or justsomething.My hands were balled up in my shorts’ pockets, two tight fists.Don’t,I told myself.Don’t even think about it.
“Not so fast, Grace Barbour…” Isa held out her arm when Victor and his silver Honda Civic arrived, barring me frompulling open the door and sliding into the car’s backseat. The Cruzes had three specific Uber rules, and no matter the time or place, Isa upheld them.
Rule #1: You did not just jump in the car.
Our driver waved and rolled down his window. “Hello,” Isa said politely. “Who are you here to pick up?”
Rule #2: You did not mention your name; that was a test for the driver. If they didn’t know your name, it was a major red flag.
Victor glanced at his phone. “Isabel?”
“Yes.” Isa smiled. He’d passed. “And you’re taking us to…”
Rule #3: You double-checked the destination.
I didn’t know the logic behind that one, other than the Cruzes were thorough.
“You’re shaking,” Isa commented once we’d finally climbed into our Uber’s backseat and buckled up for our ride. “Are you feeling okay, G?”
By the time our Uber dropped us off at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I’d recovered and could barely contain my excitement. Ev couldn’t either. “Are we doing it?” he asked, bouncing up and down while rolling back his shoulders and shaking his arms to loosen his limbs. “Tell me we’re doing it?”
