1. Carmen Villalobos

CHAPTER 1

CARMEN VILLALOBOS

“Si, mami. I told you yes already.” I sighed and rolled my eyes while I stared at my red goldendoodle, Stitch. He was looking at me with pity in his eyes.

Almost like he knew what I just signed up for. And he hated it for me.

“Okay, good. Esto es algo bueno, vas a ver! You’ll see it’s a good thing, mija. I have a good feeling!” My mom and her good feelings. Every setup was a worse disaster than the last, but she was a hopeless romantic. I was her only daughter, who got guilted into saying yes to mostly every single one of her attempts. Thank god she lived in Arizona. I could only imagine the trouble she’d cause if we lived in the same state.

“Mom.” I groaned. “It’s a date. I agreed to go on a date. ONE date .” I made sure to specify because as much as I loved my mom, she could be a little nutty. And pushy. “I didn’t promise to marry the guy.” Been there, done that, and had scars to prove it. Both physically and mentally.

“Uno nunca sabe,” she quickly added. My mom and her eternal optimism.

“Trust me, mami, I know exactly where this is going and not going.” Stitch barked as if confirming and jumped off my couch. It was obvious he was as over this conversation as I was.

“You’re as stubborn as your dad,” she complained. My lips twitched.

“I heard that.” My dad’s deep voice perked up in the background, making me laugh. “Carmen.” He sounded clearer now, which meant he had walked into whatever room my mom was hiding in. “Don’t let your mom bully you.”

“I’m not bullying our daughter!” She gasped overdramatically. But then again, that was my mom.

“Eso es exactamente lo que estas haciendo,” he pointed out. I pressed my lips together to stop myself from laughing.

“That is not exactly what I am doing,” she argued half-heartedly because I was sure she didn’t believe it herself.

It was exactly what she’d done, but I wasn’t going to say a word.

She’d called like she usually did. Every Sunday without fail, we talked on the phone. Caught up on the things we’d done throughout the week while both walked around our places while drinking our coffee and watering our house plants.

It was our routine.

One we had fallen into after I got a divorce and moved out of state two years ago. One that had been conveniently interrupted by her telling me one of her friends from church had a son who was a little older than me. Martin was going to be interviewed at the school I worked at. I gave all the appropriate responses . Oh, how nice. Well, that’s good for him. All while ignoring the growing pit in my gut because I knew exactly where she was going with it.

I should have ended the call early. But if I was honest, I enjoyed our calls. I loved my mom. It had been three months since she tried to set me up, and I thought we were done with that idea. But I’d been wrong. So very wrong! Somehow, I’d let her talk me into meeting the guy for dinner.

Again.

“Mom,” I cut her off, “I gotta go.” It was too late to save me from the blind date with her friend’s son, but it wasn’t too late to get off the line before she started to go on and on about how many grandkids her friends had and how her kids hadn’t even given her one. Being the youngest, you would think the pressure would have been on my two older brothers, but double standards and all that.

“Wait, Carmie, you promise you’ll have dinner with him? Martin is a very nice boy.” A boy. Only my mom would describe the ex-Marine as a boy. “I would hate for him to be out there all alone and not know one person and be stood up.”

“Mom.” I sighed. “I wouldn’t do that,” I muttered. I’d find a friend to go with me. Maybe my coworker Stella? She’s always up for a really good happy hour.

“Good!”

“Chula,” my dad’s voice perked up. “If you don’t want to go out with this guy, that’s okay, too!” My lips twitched.

“Carlos!” my mom scolded. I could imagine them clear as day. Mom would be glaring at him, and Dad would look like he was ready to bust up laughing, his eyes filled with good-natured mischief.

“What? It’s true. Don’t feel pressured, mija!” He made sure to remind me, and I smiled. My parents were pretty damn great. Even if my mom was a little crazy at times, I knew how blessed I was to call them Mom and Dad.

“It’s fine, Dad.” I grinned. “One drink,” I started to say, but my mom was too quick for her own good and caught on.

“Dinner! You agreed to dinner,” she reminded me. I rolled my eyes.

“Fine. One dinner won’t kill me.” She never said it had to just be the two of us.

“Okay, baby, you go and have a good week. I will give Patty your number to give to Martin so he can call you. Or text! That’s what you kids do now, right?” Kids? I am thirty-four!

“You haven’t already?” I asked, semi-surprised she hadn’t already set this whole thing up without me agreeing to it. But the silence on the other end of the line told another story. “Mom!” I groaned.

“What? Pshh, pshh, pshhh…” My beautiful crazy mom started to make sounds. “Chula, I think I have a bad connection. Pshh, pshhh… we’ll talk later, bye!” And with the sound of my dad chuckling in the background, she hung up.

I shook my head and set my cell phone down on the coffee table and looked out toward my front yard. There was nothing there, really. I lived in the desert, so grass wasn’t really an investment I wanted to make. I had white rock all over and tall desert prickly pears aligned the white fence line my dad had helped me put in because it would make anyone think twice about breaking into my place.

While my front and backyard had all sorts of different cacti and succulents, the inside of my house was filled with green luscious house plants that stood out against the soft white walls and dark wood accents.

But I didn’t see all that at that moment. Not at all. Instead, a ruggedly handsome man with a square jaw that could cut glass ran through my mind’s eye, and instead of sighing dreamily, I winced.

I am the queen of terrible first impressions.

The new guy on campus, some kind of assistant in the athletics department, had been popping by the library. I’d noticed the man right away. It was hard not to. He looked like he had just walked off the cover of GQ magazine. I’d seen him around, especially where I liked to sit during my breaks when I needed to reenergize and get away from the college library for a breather.

When he kept popping by the library, just sitting there and what felt like watching me, I’d been a little creeped out. I still couldn’t believe I had called security on him.

He hadn’t done anything. But for a short, scary moment, I thought maybe he had been hired by my ex -husband to keep tabs on me. Sam liked to do things like that when he didn’t have some innocent woman tangled in his web. I hadn’t heard a thing from him in over a year, but trauma was a bitch and made your imagination run wild.

Thankfully, the hot new guy hadn’t been anything but an innocent bystander. But I had a feeling I scared him away. He hadn’t come around the last two days. Not that I was counting.

Too bad the one guy who had actually piqued my interest in what felt like forever wasn’t interested. And why would he be? I was a librarian who wore clothes that were probably too loud and too colorful for her age and job. But I wasn’t the kind to change for anyone.

Once again, I’d been there, done that.

I’d obviously fumbled my chances with the tall, dark, and handsome new guy. Not that I actually had a chance. A guy like that? That good-looking, aging like fine wine, and most definitely knowing it? I would bet my yearly salary he’d date Instagram models. Hot young things that made great eye candy and looked like they were born to wear micro bikinis.

Now I was stuck going on a blind date with the son of my mom’s friend.

Yippee me.