Page 3 of Sleeping with the Frenemy

She passed by him to open her door. “Yeah well, why don’t you go home and wait for that message?”

“Sofi,” he began.

“Bye, Leo. Have a nice life.”

Leo growled. He hated when she pulled that dismissive shit with him and she knew it. “You have to be the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”

“Didn’t I already tell you goodbye?”

“One of these days, you’re going to push me too far and I’m not going to come back.”

“Maybe I’ll be lucky and today will be the day.”

Annoyed that she was being so stubborn and unreasonable, Leo stormed out the door.

It closed with a snick behind him and Leo fought the urge to flip it off. Instead he stomped down the stairs to the front door of the building. He hated that Sofi did this to him. She’d push him away just to prove that she could. But she didn’t actually want him to go anywhere, which was why she always called him back. She’d do it again this time too. He knew she would, because—no matter how much they fought—they couldn’t live without each other.

This was not an ending. It was only an intermission.

1

One Year, Seven Months, One Week,

and Three Days Later

As a strong believer that sleep was a form of self-care, Sofia Maria Rosario Santana hated being woken up. She especially hated being woken up at the butt crack of dawn by the sounds of La India belting out how the perfect revenge on the woman who stole her man was to let her keep his trifling ass. It had been the soundtrack of her Saturday mornings from birth to age eighteen when she moved into her own place. Now here she was at age thirty, back to doing her best to ignore her mother, who was purposely and passive-aggressively making enough noise to get Sofi out of bed.

Sofi lifted her head from her pillow, sat up, and glared over the back of the couch in the direction of the kitchen. The two women in the kitchen didn’t notice at all. They were too busy screeching along, dancing, and cleaning various things. Her mom, Alicia, had her special cleaning gloves on as she shook her hips from side to side and scrubbed at the counter. Her grandmother, Josefina, was salsa dancing with the broom in her hand instead of sweeping.

It was clear that neither one of them had any idea how much jet lag kicked your ass. Sofi had only just arrived home from France the previous evening. She hadn’t been able to sleep, so she’d stayed up thinking about everything she had to do before falling into a stress-filled and unrestful snooze.

Abuela Fina did a complicated spin move with the broom which led her to catching sight of Sofi sitting up on the couch. “Buenos dias, negrita.” She took in Sofi’s irritated expression. “¿Qué te pasa?”

Did she really just ask what was wrong with her? As if the fact that she had to yell her question over the music wasn’t answer enough. “Do you have any idea how little sleep I got?” Sofi yelled back.

Her mom looked summarily unconcerned as she used a small remote to lower the volume of her monstrous stereo. “That’s on you. Who told you to stay up all night?”

“That’s not fair. There’s a seven-hour time difference between Chicago and Paris.”

“If life was fair, my new apartment would be on Star Island in Miami and Maluma would be my new neighbor,” Abuela Fina quipped.

Sofi knew her Abuela Fina was not exactly happy to be back on the mainland instead of on her beloved island of Puerto Rico. She was even less happy about being in a place that experienced cold weather, but they hadn’t exactly given her a choice. Sofi would never forget the days after Hurricane Maria when they couldn’t get a hold of Abuela; the gnawing fear that prevented her and her mom from eating or sleeping, that had them both planning an emergency trip to go find her themselves if they had to. By the grace of some higher power, Abuela had been safe at home and her home had received minor wind and flood damage compared to some of her neighbors. But then the earthquakes began, the power grid became even more unreliable thanks to fucking Luma, and rolling blackouts continued to affect the island. Not to mention all of the other shady-ass shenanigans the island and US government continued to subject the Puerto Rican people to. As sad as it had been for them all, they’d had to make the tough decision to bring her to Chicago, where they would be right there to help her with anything she needed.

“Maluma? He’s like thirty or something,” Sofi said.

“¿Y qué? Maybe I’m a cheetah.”

Sofi and her mom looked at each other in confusion. “A what?”

“A cheetah. You know, one of those fast women who hunt for younger men.”

Sofi laughed while her mom just shook her head. “Ay, Mai. It’s a cougar not a cheetah.”

“Nah,” Sofi shook her head. “Maluma is my age. That makes Abuela a straight-up saber-toothed tiger.”

“¿Qué es eso?” Abuela asked. Then gave Sofi a dirty look when her mom translated. “Ya veo que amaneciste bien lucia hoy.” She lifted the broom and acted like she was going to whack Sofi with it.

Mami grabbed the broom from Abuela Fina before she could make contact, but never took her eyes off her only child. “Go wash your ass instead of sitting there being lazy,” she told Sofi. “You were talking about all the things you need to do, so hop to it.”

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