Page 83 of The Five Stages of Courting Dalisay Ramos

“Had enough of climbing fences?” the security guard asks.

Evan smiles, guiltily, but lurches when more puke comes up. Little Luis just laughs and laughs.

Finally home, Evan lets Little Luis run up to the door.

“Momma!” Little Luis cries when it opens. Instead of Melinda, it’s Dalisay. She must have seen them from the living room window.

“Come on, little monster. Did you have fun?” she asks as Little Luis darts inside to show off his souvenir to his mom.

Evan is exhausted and sore and a little sunburned and mostly puke free but it’s all okay now that Dalisay is here. She smiles at him, an amused look in her eye. “You survived,” she says.

Evan holds up his fists in victory.

“He looks like he had a good time,” Dalisay says, tipping her head toward Little Luis.

“Then my work here is done, unless …”

“No, no more from you today.”

Good, he thinks, relieved. He’s not sure he has much gas left in him after what he went through. He almost fell asleep on the bus on the way back.

Dalisay gives him a shy smile and tucks her hair behind her ears, her hand fiddling with the doorknob. It’s as if she’s debating whether to go back inside.

Evan wants to talk to her. He realizes this is the longest they’ve spoken since they broke up. What comes after stage four: The Sequel? He knows the tradition requires him to keep his distance, to continue to be of service to her family until heproves how useful he can be. But how can he pretend to be a stranger? It’s excruciating.

It hurts turning away from her; he knows he has to, but every muscle in his body is screaming at him to turn back around and grab her tightly and hold on to her and tell her how much he’s missed her. But he can’t. He clenches his teeth, steeling himself against every desire, and walks down the driveway, but Dalisay’s voice makes him stop.

“I’m planning to take a walk on the waterfront tomorrow. At the pier,” she says. “It’s supposed to be a nice day.”

He turns to see the look on her face, the openness, the want.

Evan’s heart skips a beat. Is she doing what he thinks she’s doing? He licks his lips, shifting his weight from hip to hip, and takes a hesitant step forward. Either he can be reading into things or this is the breakthrough he’s been waiting for. He watches her for a moment, his whole body vibrating, and she looks back, expectantly, waiting for his answer. Color rises in her cheeks and he knows, if he doesn’t shoot his shot now, he might lose her forever.

“Well, since I’ve been permanently banned from the zoo, I think the pier would be a great place to take a walk tomorrow.”

Dalisay barks out a laugh. “Youwhat?”

Evan sighs, smiling. “It’s a long story … Maybe we can talk about it over some ice cream.”

Dalisay nips at her lower lip and looks at her feet. When she looks back up at him, her eyes sparkle like the night sky. “Ice cream sounds amazing.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Dalisay has to force herself not to look back before closing the door behind her. She knows Evan is watching, and her body is screaming at her to run into his arms and kiss him and apologize for everything that went wrong between them, but for the sake of tradition, she doesn’t.

She closes the door quietly, presses her back against it, and slides down to the floor.

Hunched like a little garden gnome statue, Dalisay presses her cheeks into her knees and smiles. Perhaps they—whoever the grand overseers of the Five Stages are—should include a stage four and a half: grin like a giddy idiot.

Her heart pounds so hard, she feels like she’s just run a marathon. Talking to Evan again is the one thing she’s wished she could do and seeing him again in person, with his black curly hair and his sloping smile and his warm, dark eyes …

They’ve made it this far. What will go wrong?

She practically asked him out, telling him she was going for a walk, hinting that he should join her, a total departure from protocol. Maybe she is becoming more of an American girl after all. She’s feeling brazen, the rush of the day going straight to her head like a glass of wine on an empty stomach.

She can hear Little Luis and Melinda deeper in the house. He’s enthusiastically telling her about his time at the zoo, something about Evan seeing a penguin lady, and a balloon, and a mean man. The way Little Luis says it, Evan is his hero. It’s mostly baby talk, but Dalisay can’t wait to hear the details in person.

“Are you feeling all right?” Lola stands at the top of the stairs, watching Dalisay with a curious eye.

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