A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow - Laura Taylor Namey Page 0,59

day by day.”

“Is this what you meant by not asking too much of God or the universe or life itself?”

I feel his nod. “Exactly what I meant.”

“I’ve never done that. I’ve always demanded what I want from anyone who’ll listen. Even when they don’t listen I make it known, and that caught up with me. It brought me here.” I pull back so he sees me say, “But it also brought me here.”

He exhales and slants his arm around me, leading us forward again. “Miami is waiting—lucky-arse city. And so are your family and your business,” he muses.

“Yes.” The golden dove charm knocks against my chest.

“And when it’s right, you can find someone again.” He tightens his grip. “But I have a few requirements for any future bloke. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

My laugh spurts out. I sniffle. “What requirements?”

His look, like I’m dense. “Obviously, he has to have a motorbike. Now, I’m okay with him not naming it.”

“How generous.”

“I am that, if anything.” He shakes a warning finger. “And he must be able to make a decent cuppa. Because you need your afternoon tea now. And he’ll have to take you to just sit and look at this beautiful world, because you tend to work too hard.”

“Deal.” My voice is a ghost. “Anything more?”

“So much more, Lila.”

* * *

She’ll need to make him sandwiches. I jog through St. Cross, and not normal jogging—the kind where I run like a wildfire and hope the running leaves me hollow and sweated clean out like a tamal husk.

Cate made me promise never to run at night, but I had to. When Orion left me at the Crow, we were resigned and cool with not defining tomorrow and overthinking ourselves. My head knows it’s best, but un-planning feels new for me. Un-plans are new for a girl who’s had her nameplate written in indelible ink for years: Lila Reyes, Head Baker. New for a girl whose life has been lovingly mapped, Cuban Lila, daughter and sister and niece, Miami born and destined.

My heart didn’t have a clue how to work out Orion’s notion of day by day. I had to drag this onto the streets.

I strike the pavement hard. Mist skirts around me and the settling fog tempers all the heat that rises onto my skin when I am extra bold with questions.

She’ll have to bake him treats and pastries. My mind drifts here, onto this requirement. Muy importante. He loves lemon. They don’t have to be Cuban pastries, but they need to be decent. She’ll totally use too much sugar, this girl who will win Orion’s heart.

But my mind shifts again as I change course down another fork. How many plans did I recently make that ended up exploding? An apartment with Stef and a carefully orchestrated trip to Disney for my eighteenth birthday? Poof. The future I carved into our kitchen, cooking next to Abuela and watching her go all-the-way gray? Shatter. Her headstone date is a monster.

Orion and I are not going to plan or define. Maybe that will give it a real chance of working.

Or, the opposite is true and, in a few weeks, time will be another monster.

She’ll have to run with him. Around mile three, he will probably start slowing and definitely start whining. She’ll need to push his ass to get through mile four. He’ll make it, though. Then she’ll have to let him make her tea, this lucky, lucky girl.

This lucky girl that I maybe even hate? Just for being her, for being here when my goals mean I’m always going to end up… there? Emotion burns my throat. No puedo. Tonight, there’s not enough pavement for me to work this all out, so I decide to try my best at Orion’s un-planning method. It feels like trying a new recipe.

I work my body instead.

Now it’s so late the trees are specters in the fog. I run inside an eerie night cloud that makes my spine tingle. I’m safe, though. For miles, all I’ve heard is the wraith-like breathing of leaves, my sneakers slapping, the metallic clink, clink, clink of my jacket zipper pull. But when I reach another fork, the one that leads either to town or onto a highway frontage road, a foreign sound carries around the next bend. Shhh shhh shhh, hiss. Then again.

I slow to a walk and pull out my phone, just in case. I flank the retaining wall that curves around the corner. Turning, I see the outline of a