anaya was happy to be with her family and friends, glad to see how well cody fit in with them. throughout breakfast they all laughed and made jokes as her mom inquired about america. she was so deeply invested because she had never been out of the country. cody mentioned that he was from canada, and that sprang a whole other conversation about the differences between americans and canadians. the whole time anaya watched cody with a side glance, noting all the times he laughed at one of valentina's jokes that weren't funny or how he kept his gaze on her for a second too long.
she knew she was dumb for being irritated at her friend and her blatant flirting, she kept putting her hand on his shoulder and smiling, batting her long eye lashes. cody was cast under her spell faster than anaya could have imagined, soon he would be eating out of her hand. out of anger, and a hint of jealousy, anaya brought up a touchy topic.
"valentina, how is julian doing?"
valentina's eyes instantly flicked to anaya's at the mention of her ex boyfriend's name, "he's fine," she said shortly, "i would assume, we don't speak anymore."
"oh," anaya said, even though she knew that already, "and how's the baby?"
the table got quiet and valentina looked slightly upset, "she's great, misses her tia yaya, though."
"you have a baby?" cody asked, surprised.
"uh," valentina sighed, "yes, a daughter. she's 6."
"you're a bit young to...." cody trailed off, "oh."
valentina cleared her throat and sat up a little straighter, "i had her when i was young, her name is sophia. she's with her grandmother right now."
"cool," cody said, but he seemed to be thrown off his game, which is what anaya wanted.
she knew he would be scared off by the idea of a child being thrown in the picture, she was glad she was right. the table resumed the chatter and it went on like that for the rest of the morning. anaya's mom pulled out photo albums and began to show cody anaya as a young girl, playing in the front lawn with water hoses and with the family dog. she was an only child so the pages were just her, it looked like flipping through a picture book of her whole life. a picture of her at one year old, a picture of her first lost tooth. cody had to admit she was an adorable kid.
he kept glancing up at her, her hair had fallen into her face as she looked over the book with her mom, laughing at the memories. she was beautiful, he thought, but something kept side tracking him. valentina continued to give simple touches to him, here and there. he didn't think anything of it until her hand was placed on his knee, he looked up at her in surprise.
"sorry," she excused herself, taking her hand off, "i'm just a touchy person."
cody shook his head with a wink, "no worries, i like it."
the girls were all in the living room, on the couch. valentina and cody sat together, chatting quietly. anaya was wedged between yamilet and luciana as they caught up on some of the key things they had missed in her five year absence.
"cody!" mama linda called from the kitchen, "will you please come help me with dinner?"
all the girls looked at cody as he walked to the kitchen, "what do you need help with, ma'am?"
"cut those zucchini," she said rapidly dicing some onion, "i'm making calabasitas, do you know what that is?"
"no," cody answered.
"you'll see, mijo," she replied as she tossed them into a pan to sauté them, "so, a friend of yaya's?"
she turned her attention to him, knife still in hand.
