Page 113 of With a Little Luck

Ari tilts her head at me. “What surprise?” she and Pru ask in unison.

“Uh …” I look from Ari to my sister and back. Then, sheepishly, “It’s a surprise?”

“Jude,” Pru says warningly.

“Trust me. People will love it.”

Though Pru looks skeptical, this seems good enough for Ari. She smiles at the camera, and Quint counts her down before starting to record.

They shoot the video six times before Pru is satisfied that Ari hit all the necessary talking points with the right energy level. Pru takes back her phone and immediately starts editing the video … or drafting up a caption … or whatever she does … right as our food arrives.

“Here we go, my hungry friends,” says Carlos, setting a platter of nachos and a basket of tostones in front of us.

We all thank him while Ari passes out small plates for everyone.

Pru is reaching for a chip smothered in cheese and Encanto’s signature guacamole, when she pauses. “You forgot to order it without the jalapeños.”

“Uh—no,” I say. “I know Ari likes them. And … Quint, too, right?”283

Quint nods, a tostone already in his mouth.

“So I figured we could just pick around them. You know, like grown-ups.”

Ari giggles. Pru looks displeased but puts some nachos on her plate anyway.

We dig in, and Quint starts telling us about some new marketing initiative that he and Pru are spearheading for the rescue center. Pru wants to do another fundraising gala at the end of the summer and make it an annual thing. She brings up the possibility of Ari performing her viral song there, too.

“Speaking of viral songs,” says Quint, nodding toward Trish Roxby, the karaoke host, who has just entered the restaurant with a bunch of equipment on a dolly. Carlos springs around the bar to help her. Trish immediately starts talking a mile a minute, and as she and Carlos walk past, we catch bits of their conversation—some drama about a terrible first date with some guy she met on a dating app. Carlos is laughing at her extravagant portrayal … but there’s something strained about it.

At first I think I’m imagining things, until I realize that all four of us are staring after them.

Slowly, Pru turns to look at the rest of us, her eyes narrowed. “Carlos is still single, right?”

Ari gasps delightedly, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “He has a crush!” she whisper-squeals. “OnTrish!”

I look at her out of the corner of my eye. “Didn’tyouhave a crush onhim?” Honestly, it’s been so long since she brought up what even she used to refer to as her “schoolgirl crush,” I’d all but forgotten about it.

Ari rolls her eyes. “He is a very kind, very good-looking man who owns his own business and knows how to cook. Of course I had a crush on him. Half the people who come here probably have crushes on him.”

“Maybe so,” says Pru, a singsong lilt to her tone, “but he does not look at half the people who come in here like he’s looking ather.”

We all stare at Carlos and Trish in an unapologetically creepy manner. But neither of them seem to notice, too caught up in Trish’s narrative284and setting up the karaoke equipment and Carlos practically falling over himself to get her something to drink.

“Why doesn’t he just ask her out?” says Pru.

To which Quint, Ari, and I all respond, “It’s not that easy.”

We all tense and look at each other like people do when they suspect they may have been assimilated into the Borg.

Pru looks duly freaked.

“Resistance is futile,” I whisper.

She glares at me, the way she does whenever she doesn’t get one of my nerd references. “He is a grown man. And a catch, as Ari has pointed out. If he likes her—”

“Hey, y’all, long time, no see!”

We all jump and turn to greet Trish standing beside our booth. Since I’m terrible at pretending that we weren’t just talking about someone, I grab a nacho and pop it in my mouth to keep myself from saying something stupid.

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