“Patience, young grasshopper. Soon you will understand.”

The girl behind the counter leans up to the open window between the cash registers and the kitchen area to grab our food. “That boy is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,” she says in low, sweet Spanish to the girl handing forward the containers.

The girl in the kitchen smiles, her dark eyes flashing. “Should I have messed up his food so he’ll have to come back to the counter?”

“Yes! I want to look at him more. Is it too late?” Her hands hover over the Styrofoam lids, like she doesn’t want to commit to handing us our completed order.

I snort into my drink, choking as the carbonation goes down wrong. If only Ry knew what they were saying. I get hit on, sure, but it’s nothing to what Ry has to deal with on a daily basis. The more I’m around him, the more I realize he wasn’t actually exaggerating.

The counter girl looks at me nervously. “Can I get you anything else?” she asks in English.

I answer in Spanish. “No, thanks, but if you want, we can sit where you can see him better.”

“Your, uh, boyfriend?”

“Oh, no. He’s a friend. But it’s okay to look at friends, right?”

She grins at me and nods. “Come back again soon,” she says, in English, with a lingering look at Ry.

He’s been staring studiously out the front window the whole time. “Hey, I forgot my notebook at the museum. Okay to eat there instead? We can have a picnic.”

“Sure.” I grab utensils and shoot an apologetic smile at the counter girl as we walk out into the warm, ocean-heavy late-afternoon air.

“You speak Spanish?” Ry holds my door open as I climb into his truck, and he hands me the food.

“Oh, yeah. Very well-rounded homeschooling.”

“Hmmm.” He closes my door and gets in on the other side.

I have a rather horrid thought. “Do you speak Spanish?”

“I speak Greek, English, Arabic, and a little bit of Girl.”

Relieved, I rest my head against the seat, the food’s heat almost uncomfortable against my thighs. Then I realize he didn’t actually answer my question. “Hablas español,” I say, glaring at him.

He grins but says nothing.

“You jerk!” How does he speak so many languages? Apparently the chatter about the American school systems is wrong. They are seriously doing their job.

“Hey, it’s not my fault you all chose to talk about me in a language you assumed I didn’t speak. Which, in this area, is a very unsafe assumption since most everyone speaks at least a little Spanish.”

“But you encouraged the assumption!”

“I didn’t want the cashier to feel awkward. Plus now I know you’re okay with the fact that I really enjoy looking at you.”

“I am—you’re not—that’s not what I said.”

“And I quote: ‘But it’s okay to look at friends.’”

I will not blush. I will not blush. I will not blush. “I can engage in a clinical assessment of physical features. It’s possible to recognize attractiveness without being attracted.”

“What is wrong with being attracted to someone? It’s a natural thing.”

“Yes, well, cancer is a natural thing, and we try our best to kill it.”

“You’re comparing love to cancer. I don’t believe it.”

“Actually, we were talking about attraction. And you proved my point about avoiding attraction because you jumped straight from there to love. But yes, love as cancer holds up quite well. Something that grows inside of you against your will and without your consent, slowly taking over more and more vital parts until it kills you. That fits nicely.” I smile, pleased.

“Stop,” Ry says, frowning. A deep crease forms between his eyebrows. “That’s not funny.”

I’m taken aback. I talk a lot of crap to Ry—especially the last few sleep-deprived days working so closely together. Usually he laughs. Oh, no. Oh no. “I’m sorry. Have you lost someone to cancer? That was really insensitive of me.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just—you can’t really think that about love. Not really.”

I shrug, an itch growing between my shoulder blades, soul deep. “It makes everything hurt more,” I finally say as we get out of the truck, because it’s the only true thing I can think of to say about love right now, here with Ry. If I hadn’t loved my parents—I mean, come on, I literally worshipped them—finding out they were just using me wouldn’t have been so awful.

We stop at my favorite tree beneath the footbridge and Ry climbs under the stairs and into the roots. I follow and we open up our food without a word.

Except . . . oh, idiot gods, why didn’t you choose this area of the world for your sad little reigns? Because carne asada french fries are, beyond a doubt, the most deliciously disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. I shovel them into my mouth, cool sour cream and guacamole, crisp salsa fresca, mushy fries, melted cheese, tender meat. Every bite is like a revelation of what the perfect harmony of ingredients can be.

“I think they modeled this stuff after ambrosia,” Ry says, watching me with a tentative smile.

“I can feel it clogging my arteries as I eat. And I don’t care. It’s going to be such a happy death.” I finish before him and lean back against the roots, groaning and holding my stomach. “Too much. Not enough.”