Behind the Scenes

Chapter 5

Rosa

It's a standing rule that's parents have to meet any person I date. When my parents decided to send me to Performance this year, they figured that if I was moving two hours away, they would have to transfer this responsibility to Caleb's parents. My Tío Luke is still at work, so Tía Julia is the guardian who gets to screen Gavin before our date.

Most teens would probably hate this tradition, but it's always helped me. Papi is an excellent judge of character. He can tell if a guy actually cares about me, or if he has other motives. It's always been a grounding experience.

But Julia is not Papi, and her nonchalance has me wanting to FaceTime my dad just to get his take. It's a weird situation to feel such a deep stab of missing him. I shoot him an "I miss you" text as Julia is introducing herself to Gavin.

"This is really just a formality." She says with a smile. "Caleb said you're a nice guy. I don't think he'd say that in this situation if it wasn't true. He's always been pretty protective of our Rosa."

"Well, it's still nice to meet you" Gavin says. He puts a hand on my back. "Ready?" He asks.

"Yeah." I say with a smile. We walk out to his car, which is parked behind Ryan's. I didn't think he'd still be here. I catch myself staring in the direction of the studio, biting my lower lip nervously when Gavin touches my hand.

"You okay?" He asks.

"Yeah." I snap out of it and lace my fingers in his. I smile wide. "Where are we going?"

"My house." He says. "I mean... I live on a lake with a great view. And I made dinner."

"You cooked me dinner?" I look around to see where he's driving. I don't know this part of town well enough to figure it out, but the houses are getting further apart, and the trees are getting closer together. "You really didn't have to do that. We could have just met up at Mugshot or something."

"I thought about that." He says. "But you go to Mugshot all the time. It's like... your friend space. I don't want to be in your friend space." He glances toward me and throws me a smile, "I just got out of the friend zone."

"Fair enough." I say, grinning. "But for the record... you weren't really ever in the friend zone."

"Is that so?" He laughs, his head tilted back. "You were just hell bent on torturing me, then?"

"Not torture. More like... building anticipation?" I shrug a little and look over at him. He's keeping his eyes on the road, but he's got a little smile on his face, like he likes the idea of what I just said. I really like this. I really like him.

He pulls into a long, gravel driveway and finally parks in front of a big farmhouse. It's beautiful— big dormers, a porch spanning the entire front of the house, a lake view in the background.

"We'll be around back." He says. "My parents are inside, but they said they would leave me alone."

He gets out and comes around the car to open my door. He takes my hand and leads the way to the backyard.

"This makes me want to paint something." I say. He stops walking and turns to face me.

"That's kinda the point." He smiles and we walk further until we're at a picnic table. On one end, he has a picnic basket set up. On the other, there are two canvases, probably ten bottles of paint, and a cup of various brushes. "Welcome to art class. You get to be my teacher."

"You're good." I say.

"Yeah?" He smiles and looks down at his feet. "It's good?"

My gosh. If he was any cuter, he'd be a stuffed animal. I tug his hand until he's right in front of me. I'm about to kiss him on the cheek, but that's not what I want to do. I'm seventeen, I'm happy, and I'm with an adorable boy who adores me. I'm going to do what I want to do. I kiss him on the lips, and he pulls back quickly.