Page 53 of For The Record

“Sure, I’ll drive you,” he says, picking up his keys from a small bowl on the table. “Just let me tell my sister.”

I check my messages while I wait. No answers from Poppy. She left me on read. Meanwhile, I hear fluent Spanish from upstairs as the two siblings converse.

I shrug off the blanket and fold it neatly, going to place it on the couch. A mini leather backpack sits on the cushions, its flap open and some contents spilling onto the floor. It’s probably Raina’s since it also sports a fluffy blue pompom charm. As I set the folded blanket down next to it, I notice what looks like a wedding invitation sticking out of the bag.None of your business, Skye Holland. Walk away.But my eyes are glued to the gold lettering. YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE WITNESS THE MATRIMONIAL UNION OF ANTONIO PEREZ AND LINDA GONZALEZ. DATE: JULY 6 2021. I avert my eyes.

Linda Gonzalez. Antonio Perez’s thirty-two-year-old fiance, who’s twenty-three years his junior. As I exit the living room, I wonder why a sixteen-year-old girl would be getting wedding invitations from Antonio Perez. Is he trying to get to Leo through his sister? The thought sickens me. I remember what Leo told me last night, all the questions still burning in my mind. The more I learn about him and his family, the more confused I become; the more curiosity that unfurls in me.

“Ready to go?” he asks.

Afraid that speaking will betray my breach of his sister’s privacy, I just smile and nod.

#

@Linda_Gonzalez: Wedding dress fittings today! Check out my vlog about it below

@Ttang: @Linda_Gonzalez trophy wife much?

@OllieJames: @Ttang come on, we can’t all be born rich, Reese

Chapter 25: Skye Holland

Two weeks later, my curiosity about Antonio Perez remains buried in the back of my mind. It stays there, burning a hole in my pocket even as I stand next to Leo in my living room.

“Do you really want to hear this story?” I say as Leo picks up the framed photo of me, my sister, and our classmates. We’re all dressed in store-bought or homemade costumes for the school talent show slash Halloween party. Two seconds later, I threw up out of nerves on the stage. The nicknames I had for the rest of my elementary school career were not pleasant.

After our date, I invited him in for a nightcap. Of course, he had to find my childhood embarrassments - I mean, memories - and now is raptly dissecting all of them.

“You looked so cute,” he says diplomatically. “No, I’m serious. I want to hear the story of how you ended up in a Princess Leia costume in the third grade.”

I scoff. I’m dressed as Princess Leia, but my nanny didn’t know how to give me space buns. I think I ended up with sparse tendrils sticking up around two of those sock bun thingies that look like a beige donut made of sponge. My gown was nothing more than a bedsheet precariously safety-pinned to hang onto my eight-year-old shoulders.

“Couldn’t eight-year-old girls like Star Wars?” This is a lie. Isabelle is the one who liked Star Wars. She cried when Carrie Fisher died. We used to sword-fight with “light sabres” that were actually just broomsticks and mops. “Or is that illegal?”

Leo’s hand brushes mine as he puts the framed picture back on the bookshelf of Poppy and my living room. “It’s not illegal, just… unusual.”

I huff. “Star Wars isn’t a boy thing.”

“It’s not a girl thing, either,” he says neutrally. “And are you going to tell me the humiliating tale associated with this photograph or am I going to have to pry it out of you with torture?”

“You’d be a terrible torturer,” I say. “Unless you mean torturing people with your clown act.”

Leo adjusts the crooked frame. “You’ve never seen my clown act.”

“Because I bet it’s as humiliating as my talent show story,” I say, brushing some dust off the shelf before coughing. Ugh. One of these days, Poppy and I need to do some spring cleaning. But it’s still winter, so we will be putting that off for a long, long time.

“No, I went full clown,” he says, sounding very serious. “I plunged headfirst into my role. You, on the other hand, half-assed it.”

My mouth falls open. “How do you know that?”

“The nerves,” he says. “And, you would hate acting.”

“You can’t know that,” I say, but he’s right. I hate acting in the same way that I hate music and skiing and juggling because they’re all things I’ve tried to do and failed miserably at.

“I do,” he says, the same serious tone coating those two syllables as his green eyes meet mine. “Because I know you, Skye Holland, and you are a perfectionist.”

This is really too much. I turn away, looking for the feather duster. Picking it up, I trail it over the back of the flat screen. A mound of dust falls onto the hardwood, making me cough more.

“I think you’re scared of acting and you’re scared of telling me this story because you’re not good at it the first time, and you don’t want to do things that you’re bad at because you hate making a fool of yourself,” he says, confidently. Too confidently.

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