The Proposal(69)

Nik already knew what was going on. Could she call Angela?

No, he didn’t want that. He liked to keep his personal life and his family strictly separate. And plus, Angela would go crazy with the whole “girlfriend” thing then.

But this was an emergency, and he didn’t seem to have a better option.

Can I ask you a huge favor? Can you call my sister and let her know Jessie’s in surgery now for a c-section? Long story but she doesn’t know yet and my battery is almost out. I might have a charger somewhere, but I should let her know asap.

He stared at his phone until she texted him back. Luckily, there were a number of people ahead of him in line. Saturday early evenings were busy times in hospital cafeterias.

Of course, just text me her number.

He sent Angie’s number to Nik and walked back to the elevator balancing all of his beverages and food.



* * *



? ? ?

Nik checked the timer on her phone. Five more minutes before she needed to take the enchiladas out of the oven. She had a minute to call Angela before the timer went off.

The problem was that the thought of calling Angela freaked her out. Would his sister be mad about her having this news when actual family didn’t? Nik wouldn’t blame her if she did. Also, she had no idea what Carlos had told Angela about her, if anything. She knew that Carlos and his sister were really close, but she didn’t know if they talked about stuff like this. At the bar after the baseball game, Angela had seemed relaxed and funny, just like Carlos . . . but it could be a different story if she knew Nik was sleeping with her brother.

“Oh my God, just call her already,” she said out loud to Carlos’s sliding glass window. The window didn’t respond.

She cold-called people all the time—it was literally part of her job—and yet she was frozen with her finger over the phone.

She sighed and hit call. Maybe Angela wouldn’t pick up? Most people didn’t pick up calls from numbers they didn’t know. Maybe she could just leave Angela a message. She obviously wouldn’t call back, and then—

“Hello? Hello, this is Angela, who’s this? Is it the hospital?”

Nik cleared her throat.

“Hi, Angela. Um, no, not the hospital. This is Nik. We met at Dodger Stadium?”

Oh Lord, she was doing that uptalk thing that she always instructed younger women against doing. Come on, Nikole. Get it together.

“Oh. Hi, Nik. Uh . . .”

Right, she should get on with it.

“Carlos asked me to call you. He’s at the hospital and his battery is almost dead, but he knew you’d want an update.”

“Oh.” That was a weird “Oh,” right? Maybe. It sounded more like an “ooooh.” But she’d only met Angela once—that might just be how she talked. “Thanks for calling. What’s going on with Jessie?”

“Carlos said they just brought Jessie in to get an emergency C-section, and that your mom and your aunt are both there at the hospital with him.”

Angela let out a deep breath.

“Oh no. I know she was trying so hard to avoid a C-section. She must be so scared.”

Nik nodded as she stared through the window. One of Carlos’s neighbors, an older man with big glasses and a cane whom she’d seen a few times before, walked by and waved at her. She waved back.

“She talked to Carlos when they first told her it was a possibility, and I think she was pretty worried. I know Carlos got to the hospital in time to see her before the surgery, and I’m sure that helped.”

Nik’s timer went off, and she pushed buttons on her phone madly to make it stop making noise.

“What was that?” Angela asked.

“Oh, I’m at Carlos’s house. We were making enchiladas for Jessie when he got the call, so I stayed here to let them finish in the oven. That was just my timer.”

Why was she babbling? She could have just said that was her phone timer and let it alone.

“Oh.” That “Oh” had definitely been more . . . smug? Hmmm. “Okay. Is there anything else he said to tell me?”

Nik wedged the phone between her shoulder and ear and put oven mitts on. She didn’t need to burn her hands, too.

“That’s everything I know. I hope you get there soon, and I hope all goes well with your cousin.”

Nik opened the oven and carefully took out the trays of enchiladas.

“Thanks, Nik. And thanks for calling.”

“Bye, Angie.”

Oh shit. She’d slipped and called his sister Angie. That’s what Carlos always called her, and so that’s how Nik thought of her, but she’d very clearly introduced herself as Angela when they’d met.

Well, now his sister probably hated her.

Or maybe his sister barely gave her a second thought, since her mind was kind of occupied with her cousin undergoing emergency surgery at that exact moment? Yes, that was more likely. Way to make everything about yourself, Nikole.

She slid the remaining two trays of enchiladas into the oven. Cooking and agonizing over whether people were mad at her. This was definitely not how she usually spent Saturday nights.

She picked up her bag from where she’d dropped it by the door and brought it over to Carlos’s couch. Thank goodness she’d brought her laptop with her; at least she could get some work done while she waited to hear what was going on with Jessie and her baby.