“Hey.”

Ella looked up as Felix took the seat across from her, wearing that beautiful smile that would be the end of her. She smiled back, breathing in deeply.

“Are you saving this seat for anyone?” he asked.

“No.” She smiled, leaning over her juice and bringing the straw to her lips as a calming mechanism.

His eyes were instantly on her lips, and that completely warmed her insides. “You on a break?”

She shook her head then rolled her eyes, feeling dumb all over again. “I got here way too early. I mixed up my schedule. The class I’m here for isn’t for almost another hour.”

She lifted the paperwork she was reading and explained what she’d been doing since she’d gotten there to kill time.

“So you’ve been sitting here for over an hour?” he asked, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he almost sounded irritated by this.

“Yeah,” she said, confused by his annoyance.

Felix frowned, looking around. He was definitely annoyed. “I wish I’d known,” he said. “I could’ve kept you company longer.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d made such an in-your-face statement like this. He’d referred to her as a friend a couple of times, too, in the past recent days. Ella reminded herself that this is what he thought she was now—a friend. And that was all he meant by this. As a friend, he could’ve kept her company. It still didn’t stop the storm of butterflies already running amuck in her belly.

She waved the papers at him, trying to avert her panicking insides from giving way to the utter excitement that simple comment from him made her feel. “This has kept me busy. Nellie”—she laughed softly—“she reminds me a little of my mom.”

“How so?” he asked, his eyes full of curiosity now.

The girl behind the counter brought over a juice and placed it in front of Felix. “Here you go, Mr. Sanchez. One large Body Charger.”

“Thank you.” He smiled but brought his attention back to Ella immediately.

Ella glanced at the girl, who didn’t leave right away. If Ella were rude, she’d ask her when they started doing table service. In the two years she’d been there, they called out your order and you picked it up at the counter. As a matter of fact, the girl hadn’t even reached the counter when the other guy behind it was already calling out someone else’s juice. But then not only was Felix one of the owners of this place, he was the Felix Sanchez.

When Ella noticed that Felix was staring at her, she almost forgot what she’d been saying before juice girl came along. Then she remembered.

“My mom,” she said with a smile that filled her heart. “She was an amazing woman. Our family’s been through a lot.” She paused for a moment to reflect on what a loaded statement that was. “Through it all she remained so strong and pulled us all through it so flawlessly it was truly inspiring.”

Felix took a sip of his juice but kept his eyes on her the whole time. “You mentioned you lost your older sister early on. How old were you?”

“I was six. She was ten,” she explained, feeling herself go from heart warmed by the memory of her mother’s strength to somber about the memory of her sister’s death. “We’d been at the park having a good time and were about to get ice cream when there was a gang shootout. When it was all over, my mom held my sister Yesenia’s bloody and lifeless body in her arms. She died even before the paramedics arrived.”

Ella stared straight ahead now, remembering that time in her life. She remembered it not feeling like the huge deal she knew it was now. But she knew it was only because she’d been so young. At the time she was too young to understand how final the events of that day were. That she’d truly never get to see her sister ever again.

“Sadly,” she went on, this time looking into Felix’s dark eyes so full of compassion, “in our neighborhood, it wasn’t that uncommon. It’s gotten better over the years, but back then drive-by shootings and innocent bystanders getting caught up in the mix were actually fairly common.” She smiled and she could tell that surprised Felix. “My mom was probably one of the reasons why the crime in our neighborhood went down significantly. Since moving wasn’t an option for us, instead of falling apart and drowning in despair and depression like so many of the other parents who’d gone through something similar in our neighborhood, she started up the neighborhood watch in our area and the local chapter of M.A.G.I.C.”

Felix’s brow’s raised. “I’ve heard of that. What is it?”

“Mothers Against Gangs In The Community,” she explained proudly. “She always said she’d already lost one child to gangs and she was not losing another. We were surrounded by gangs and kids getting in trouble blaming it on the area they lived in, but Memo and I are living proof of what my mom always said to us. You are who you choose to be. You’re only a victim of your environment if you allow yourself to be. We could’ve easily chosen the same path so many of our friends and neighbors chose, but my mom made sure we didn’t. My dad . . .” She stopped, wondering how much she should share about him and decided to keep it as simple as possible. “He didn’t jump back from the loss of my sister with the same passion my mother did. But my mom kept it together for all of us.”

That warmth in her heart was back, making Ella smile big again, and she was glad. She hadn’t realized when she made the comment about Nellie reminding her of her mother that the conversation would go around full circle to all this. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get all heavy on you.”