Page 47 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

“I had a feeling you’d like them,” Evan says, grinning as he watches her.

“They look like books neatly nestled on a shelf! Ilovethem.” She leads the way, taking probably a hundred photos as they walk together down the street.

“So, speaking of books”—he sidles up next to her—“you gave Maggie that candle I got you, the one that smelled like old books. You threw out every single thing from stage two.”

“Yeah,” she says, cringing.

“I thought you hated me.”

“I know,” she admits. “I was a little standoffish at first.”

“A little?” His baritone laugh makes her smile. “That candle crushed me. I thought I had it in the bag.”

“You almost did. I gave it away only because I didn’t want it to be … I don’t know, personal? If I kept the gifts, it felt too real. I wanted to remain impartial, for the sake of the rules.”

“What changed?”

Dalisay thinks a second before answering. “It wasn’t one thing in particular. I think I needed time.”

Evan hums, tucking his hands into his front pockets, and turning his head to gaze across the Painted Ladies’ white eaves. Dalisay can’t help but admire his profile, the sharp lines of his face, the arch of his brow. His face belongs on a coin.

“No one’s ever done what you did,” she says.

“Not once?”

She shakes her head. Not even Luke. “I guess I misjudged you.”

Evan’s lips curl, amused, and an instinct to press her own lips to the shape of them overwhelms her. It’s so easy picturing herself kissing him. He’s magnetic.

“I didn’t think I had a chance with you either,” he says. “Not after our first meeting.”

Dalisay grins. “And yet here we are.”

“Here we are,” he repeats. Evan shakes his head, grinning, and his eyes shine in the sunlight.

Two blocks down, he brings her to his favorite ice-cream shop. It’s a small boutique, with a dozen homemade ice creamsin aluminum bins in a glass display. While everything looks amazing, she gets her favorite, chocolate with sprinkles, and he gets cookie dough and pays for them both. Ice cream in hand, they sit at a small table on the sidewalk under the shady canopy of a nearby laurel fig tree.

They’re halfway through their cones when Evan asks, “So what are your plans this weekend?”

“Mama, Lola, Nicole, and I were going to have a Ramos Family Bake-Off.”

“What’s that?”

“We watch a season ofThe Great British Bake Offand then try to re-create what the contestants make at home, just to see how hard it is. It’s usually a disaster. A delicious disaster.”

Evan laughs and it’s easy to join him, but Dalisay’s heart hitches a little. Things are still a little awkward with Nicole. There’s a wall between them that Dalisay isn’t sure how to navigate around. It’s hard to accept that maybe it’s not her place to do so.

She’s been told she’s a fixer, and it’s true. When presented with a problem, her mind automatically starts working on a solution. Nicole has called her out on it more than once. Sometimes her sister just wants to rant about work, or school, or life in general, and Dalisay defaults to trying to find a way she can make it better, even though all Nicole needs in that moment is to be heard. Dalisay hates seeing the people she cares about suffer, and the only way she can think to help is to try to make everything better. It’s gotten worse ever since the moment she sat down in the chair next to her father’s hospital bed and realized she couldn’t do a damn thing to help him. She’d never felt so useless.

One thing’s for sure, it’s not Dalisay’s place to out Nicole. She can’t tell Evan despite wanting to. And she’s not sure how to help Nicole, especially concerning their mother.

Dalisay knows the world is changing, that family means a lot of things to different people, but their mother is a product of time and place. Her culture has always been a fundamental part of her identity and she doesn’t exactly distinguish between the good and the bad aspects. She sees it as a foundation to lay the groundwork of their lives, a compass to guide them through the difficulties of life. All that matters is family. It’s the one thing that can be relied on, and that means finding a husband, and settling down, with bunches of kids. And when Papa died, those traditional views felt like something that needed to be preserved, to ensure that he lived on in a way, because it was his culture too. But how would her mom react if Nicole came out now, being in America? Would she still uphold those narrow-minded opinions? The possibility is haunting enough without Dalisay’s fear that she wouldn’t have the courage to stand up to her mother and tell her that she’s wrong.

“Hey.” Evan’s voice cuts through her thoughts. When he looks at her with that small smile on his face that crinkles the corners of his brown eyes, Dalisay’s mind settles. His presence is like a warm mug of tea on a rainy night. “What are you thinking about?”

“Just … family stuff.” Some ice cream dripped down the side of her cone, so she licks it before it can get on her hand.

“Everything okay? You know you can tell me anything.”

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