Page 182 of From Rivals to I Do

“Thank you.” She looked at him with his T-shirt and jeans, his biceps swelling against the sleeves. He didn’t look too bad, either.

They reached the playset in the center of the park. There were scores of kids around Charlie’s age jumping off parts of the jungle gym and running along the bridged portions linking them together. Charlie’s eyes got as large as saucers. He looked up at his mother for a second as if he’d meant to ask her if he could go play. The excitement got the better of him, however, and before either of them realized it, he was running for the swings with complete abandon. Camilla almost took off after him, but Abel stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“He’s fine. We can see him from here.” He nodded toward a park bench nearby. They sat and watched Charlie as he leaped onto the nearest swing and started swaying back and forth merrily.

“That’s a great son you’ve got there,” said Abel. He slid his hand over to hers, holding it. Camilla felt her breath catch a little and focused on steadying the beating of her heart. She laced her fingers with his, gently squeezing his hand.

“Thank you,” she said.

“This is okay, right?” he asked. “I mean, it’s not like a fancy French restaurant or whatever, but—”

She chuckled. “I spend almost every day of my life in a restaurant. It’s nice to be someplace where I can see the sun instead.”

“I’m glad,” he responded. “I know how it is when you have a little one to think about.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do…you have any little ones?”

He snorted. “I was a kid when I went in.” She continued to look at him expectantly. “No,” he said. “No little ones. But Rafael and I were still teenagers when our grandmother passed, so…it was kind of on him to look out for me. Meant he couldn’t hang out like he wanted to, you know?”

She smiled and found herself naturally scooting a little closer to him. “Charlie likes you,” she said. “You kind of had me at hello in that way.”

“Oh? So you might’ve said no if he didn’t like me?”

“I mean, there’s a good chance, yeah,” she said. “If you’re really considering being with me, he’s a part of the whole package.”

He responded with a nod. “That’s fair.”

They fell silent for a moment as Camilla realized that she wanted to ask him about any other girlfriends or dates he’d been on and then remembered that there probably weren’t too many.

“You know,” he said with a chuckle, “the last date I went on, I had a curfew. This is really a different experience for me.”

“What do you think so far? Just sitting on a bench watching a small child play on the swings.”

He looked down at her with a crooked smile. “As experiences go, this isn’t too bad.” He squeezed her hand, and she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. The air was crisp and the sound of children laughing filled the air. It wasn’t Paris or a fancy restaurant, but it was nice, and Camilla didn’t want it to end.

After a while, Abel spotted an ice cream truck rolling past slowly on the street. It was far enough away to almost not be noticed, but she imagined that wouldn’t last long with a park full of children. “Oh, no,” said Camilla said with a sigh. “Not the ice cream man.”

Abel smirked. “It’s just one ice cream,” he said. “Are you really going to say no when it comes around?”

Normally, the answer would be yes. Charlie wasn’t allowed to have too much sugar, after all. She paused, thinking of what a nice day it had been so far, and finally said, “I guess not. This one time won’t hurt.”

She watched it thoughtfully as if she was waiting for a coming storm of a child army rushing toward the little white truck.

“So,” he said, breaking the moment of silence between them, “you went to Mulholland.”

“Yup,” she said, a little happy for the distraction. “For a semester.”

“For a semester. That means you lived in this neighborhood when you were a kid.”

“Yeah, I did. My dad owned the restaurant back then.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Really?” She nodded. “I didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t think you would. The restaurant was completely different back then. It was smaller, and it served more Italian food. Not just pizza.”

“Huh,” he said, his brow creasing. “I don’t know if I remember an Italian restaurant around here when I was a kid.”

Camilla shrugged. “You probably never went there,” she said. “The restaurant didn’t do that well. My father could do a lot of things, but running a restaurant…” She sighed, the memory of how the restaurant had looked then coming back to her. Dirty floors and walls, bad food and roaches, empty chairs in the dining room… It was a tragic place for her as a child.

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