A Dish Best Served Hot, page 1
Praise for A Proposal They Can’t Refuse
the first of Natalie Caña’s Vega Family Love Stories
Oprah Daily—“The 28 Most Anticipated Romance Novels of 2022”
Latinx in Publishing—“2022 Latinx Romance & Women’s Fiction to Add to Your TBR”
Entertainment Weekly—“Romance Authors Share Red-Hot Book Recommendations”
HipLatina—“10 Latinx Romance Authors to Keep on Your Radar”
Parade—“Parade Picks—Summertime Hits”
“Caña has cooked up a romance that succeeds from Page 1.... A sizzling, emotional romance with a generous helping of family and culture.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)
“The well-written storyline, fast-paced plot, deft characterizations, and delectable descriptions will keep readers turning the pages long into the night.”
—Library Journal (starred, Debut of the Month)
“Flawless... [Caña delivers] diverse true-to-life characters that leap off the page with originality and heart.”
—Booklist (starred)
“This delightful mix of food, familia, and culture will leave readers hungry for more.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred)
“An utterly charming romance that pays homage to the importance of culture, family, and friendship, A Proposal They Can’t Refuse is a surefire winner!”
—Mia Sosa, USA TODAY bestselling author of The Worst Best Man
“Natalie Caña’s debut will leave you smiling, hungry, and eager to read her next book!”
—Denise Williams, bestselling author of How to Fail at Flirting
“¡Wepa! Familia meddling, swoony friends-to-lovers angst, and quick-witted banter combine for a deliciously delightful debut!”
—Priscilla Oliveras, USA TODAY bestselling author of Island Affair
“A sizzling, emotional romance with a generous helping of family and culture.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) on A Proposal They Can’t Refuse
Also by Natalie Caña
A Proposal They Can’t Refuse
Look for Natalie Caña’s next novel
Sleeping With the Frenemy
available soon from MIRA.
Natalie Caña
A Dish Best Served Hot
“There can be no love without justice.”
—bell hooks
This book is for those who fight to add both justice and love to our world.
Natalie Caña loves to incorporate her you’ll-never-believe-what-just-happened-to-me personal experiences, enthusiasm for telenovela tomfoolery and passion for her Latinx culture into creating funny, heartfelt and just a little bit over-the-top contemporary romances for characters who look and sound like her.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE
Santiago Vega II—known to family and friends as Junior, much to his annoyance—took his time getting back to the front office after dropping off paperwork for Miss Wallis, the school secretary. He loved it when the halls of his high school were empty and mostly silent. It gave him a sense of calm he never got otherwise. Not when he was the oldest of a five-child family who lived in a tiny apartment directly above the restaurant his family ran. The restaurant where his grandpa’s band loved to play music at all hours of the day, because it was always filled to the gills with people from the neighborhood. Junior was surrounded by people all the time—loud, demanding people—so he enjoyed moments of quiet stillness whenever he could.
That made it all the more annoying when he heard raised voices down the hallway.
“You better stay away from her!”
“You two aren’t even together anymore.”
“She’s mine!”
Oh great. Two idiots were about to fight over a girl and Junior had to go that way to get back to his work-study.
Junior turned the corner to one of the side hallways and stopped dead in his tracks. It was worse than two idiot guys. It was Jose Mendez, one of the largest offensive linemen on their high school football team, and Lola León, the biggest troublemaker in the school.
Lola was constantly in the office when he was there, but when Junior was there helping out during his free period, she was always there to talk to the principal after getting kicked out of one class or another. Sure, he didn’t know her well, she was a junior to his senior, but it wasn’t hard for Junior to tell why she was constantly pissing everyone off. She had a terrible attitude and a mouth to accompany it. She said what she wanted and did what she wanted without a care for anyone around her.
As if to prove his point she opened her mouth and said, “Aww, is your fragile male ego hurt because she liked my kiss more than yours?”
Junior’s eyebrows rose. He’d heard that Lola liked girls, but he’d assumed those were ignorant rumors based on how she dressed—in baggy clothes that looked like she’d taken them from a large man’s closet. At least, he’d hoped that was the case after seeing her for the first time in the office a few weeks ago. It didn’t matter that he had no intention of actually talking to the pretty girl. A part of him was selfish enough to be hopeful.
Her taunt seemed to be the last straw for Jose. “Bitch. I’ll give you something to do with that smart mouth of yours.” He rushed her and crowded her into a corner before she could dodge. His hand tangled into her long dark hair and pulled it hard.
Junior jumped into action without thinking. There was no way he was going to sit back and let someone be hurt. Especially not a young woman who didn’t even reach Jose’s shoulder. He charged forward, trying to remember everything his abuelo had taught him about taking down someone bigger than you.
He wrapped his forearm around Jose’s neck and locked it into place with the crook of his other arm. He moved his head to one side just in case Jose decided to try to headbutt him. He looked down at Lola, whose head was pulled back exposing her neck and a pair of wide brown eyes.
Junior didn’t think he’d ever seen her look scared. Pissed off and scowling yes, but not afraid. For some reason her fear released a new level of anger in him. Junior was quiet and serious, but not usually angry. Except at that moment he was livid.
“Let. Her. Go.” He growled in a voice he’d only ever let out when someone was messing with one of his younger siblings. When Jose didn’t immediately do as he said, Junior tightened his grip.
Jose let go of Lola’s hair to grab Junior’s arm with both hands and attempt to pull him off. Somehow he couldn’t. Instead he wheezed.
“Get behind me,” Junior barked to Lola, who was rubbing her no-doubt tender head.
It took her a second, but eventually she did.
As soon as she was behind him, Junior started to loosen his grip around Jose’s neck. However, he knew the impulsive hothead would do something in retaliation, so, at the same time he released his neck, he kicked Jose in the back of the knee.
He jumped out of the way as Jose went down coughing and rubbing his throat. Then he spun on his heel, grabbed Lola’s hand, and began running in the opposite direction. He wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and Jose.
His head swiveled back and forth, trying to find a place for them to lie low, before he grabbed the handle to a door and swung it open. He herded Lola through the empty classroom door, pulling it closed behind them, and backed them both away from the narrow glass window. A second later Junior heard uneven pounding footprints rush past the door. He stayed silent and still until the footsteps faded.
Finally, he turned his attention to the girl next to him. He took a deep breath and told himself to ignore how pretty she was, but wasn’t prepared for the way her eyes would snare him as soon as they met his. Her eyes were a reddish brown that made him think of lava the moment it hit air and began to cool—dark around the edges and still burning bright in the middle. Junior lost his ability to breathe. He couldn’t do anything but stare.
She was the one to break the silence. “I think he’s gone,” she whispered.
“He’ll double back,” Junior murmured.
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s not one to let things go.”
That caused her to make a face and a sound almost like a snort.
Junior noticed a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her screwed-up nose and pale cheeks. He blinked in confusion. It was just so incongruous for Lola León, whose entire family was known for being dangerous hard-asses, to have something as sweet and innocent as freckles.
Whe
Lola looked like she contemplated lying, but must’ve decided against it because she replied, “I kissed his ex-girlfriend.” She looked away from him and the air around her seemed to still. It was like she was waiting for him to say something messed up.
“Why?” he asked. He knew Jose’s ex, Yesenia. Part of the dance squad and daughter of everyone’s favorite gym teacher, she was one of the most popular girls in the school. Sure, she was beautiful, but she was also dumb as a bag of rocks and selfish to boot.
“‘Why’ what?” Lola asked.
“Why’d you kiss her? I’ve known Yesenia since we were kids and she’s awful.”
Lola just stared at him.
Junior rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m just saying. I don’t think there’s a whole lot going on in that girl’s head. You could do better. Not to mention, she’s a very traditional girl from a very traditional family. So just, you know, be careful...”
Lola’s voice was full of incredulity when she asked, “Are you trying to protect my feelings?”
He blushed. “It’s just that...” He paused. “I mean. It can’t be easy for you to be, you know.” He paused, unsure if it would be okay for him to say the word. He didn’t want to offend her.
“Bisexual?”
So she did like guys. The warmth on his cheeks deepened for some reason. “I just wouldn’t want you to fall for someone who would just make things harder. That’s all. You can love whoever you want, but I just think it should be someone who loves you back.” He shrugged awkwardly.
She tilted her head and looked at him like he was a brand-new species of animal. “You know, I think you might be one of the first people in this school to tell me that.”
“Tell you what?”
“That I can love anyone I want. Most people I know tell me it’s just a phase or that I like being difficult.”
Junior didn’t know how to respond, so he stayed quiet.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Junior,” he replied. Then he shook his head as if to clear the cobwebs. “I mean, no. That’s not right.”
Her smile was wry. “Do you not know your own name?”
He gave her a look. “My name is Santiago Vega. Like my dad, so everyone calls me Junior which really makes no sense because no one even calls my dad Santiago.”
“Santiago, huh? Like the city in Chile?”
“Right, but the city is actually named for Saint James.”
“I’m sure whatever he did to get that title was something super cool and not at all colonialist.”
Junior was so nervous that he totally missed her ironic tone. He just started talking.
“He was one of Jesus’s first disciples. He eventually traveled to Spain while spreading the word and ended up becoming Spain’s patron saint. You can actually follow his path from France through Spain if you want. It takes like a month to walk and leads to a huge church.” He shut his mouth abruptly, highly aware that he was babbling. The daughter of Humboldt Park’s most notorious gang leader didn’t give a shit about the religious origins of his name.
“You’re a bit of a nerd, huh?” Lola asked with a curl to her lips. “Makes sense you’d be named after a saint.”
He didn’t hear any derision in her tone, but he felt defensive anyway. “Why do you say that?”
“Because look at you.” She gestured to him. “You jump into the middle of fights to save the underdog. You dish out words of wisdom to protect people. Don’t you volunteer in the office for fun? Shit. I bet you have straight As and help little old ladies cross the street. You basically are a saint.”
His brow creased. “I don’t think that’s how it works.” Besides, it wasn’t like he was perfect. He had plenty of flaws. Junior was no doubt about to embarrass himself more by enumerating said flaws, but he was quite literally saved by the bell, which blared through the room and caused them both to startle.
Lola recovered first. “Well, to answer your earlier question, I kissed Yesenia because she asked me to. I’m not in love with her or anything.” She slipped around him and made her way to the door. At the last moment she turned back to him. “Thanks for saving me...Saint.” Then she closed the door behind her and rushed to her next class.
The next morning when they saw each other down the hallway she shouted, “What up, Saint?” in her loudest voice, making sure everyone heard her, and that was it. The nickname spread around the school and then the neighborhood like a forest fire. He was no longer Junior or even Santiago. He was Saint. And Lola was no longer the troublemaker from the office. She was everything he wanted and everything he eventually lost.
1
A chorus of hisses, grunts, and rough exhales drowned out the El Alfa song playing from the community center multipurpose room’s stereo system. Lola León smiled to herself as she watched the adults in the room, mostly women in their forties and above, go through the move she’d demonstrated moments earlier. She loved having a full class. Her hope was to one day have multiple classes at different times to allow anyone interested to join.
“Stop!” she called.
Immediately the sounds stopped, leaving only the bass-heavy dembow music from the famous Dominican artist that had gone viral thanks to a social media dance challenge.
Before she could congratulate her students on a job well done, a voice called out, “When do we get to ball squeezing?”
She knew that voice well. It belonged to her youngest and most gung-ho student. A student who should technically be at the high school right now.
Lola met Ruby’s eyes in the mirror in front of them and raised a brow. “Ball squeezing?”
Ruby nodded, causing the sweat beading on her dark brown skin to run down her face to her neck. “Yeah. You know, the shit that will really take a motherfucker out. Like ‘oh, you thought you could just keep grabbing my ass whenever I walked to my desk in chemistry? How do you like it when I grab these?’” She made a grab-and-squeeze motion with her hand. “And then you just crush them like an egg until yolk and whites are all over the place.”
Another voice chimed in. This one from the oldest member of the class, Gladys, who must have been in her early seventies. “That makes me wonder, which is more effective, Lola, squeezing the balls or kicking them?”
Lola bit a lip to keep from smiling at the question and gave it some serious thought before answering. She also made a mental note to check in with Ruby after class, the specifics of her scenario were a bit too detailed. “We know Krav Maga is about attacking the most sensitive parts of your assailant for self-defense, right?”
Nods all around.
“But what else do I always tell you?”
“Keep as much distance between yourself and your assailant as possible,” the group said in unison.
“Exactly.” Lola held up a finger. “If you have the space to kick, you kick. If you can’t kick, use your knee. If the angle is wrong or you won’t be able to put the right amount of force behind your strike, then by all means grab those nuts and crack them. I like to do a grab, twist, and push motion.” Lola demonstrated the motion slowly so everyone could see and then more quickly. “But remember that your goal isn’t to completely annihilate your opponent. This isn’t an MMA fight you’re trying to win. You want to incapacitate them in order to get away.”
Lola liked to give the reminder frequently because some of her students thought they were going to use their Krav Maga knowledge to become neighborhood vigilantes going around kicking everyone’s ass. She didn’t blame them. When her mother had first made her begin classes at age seventeen, she’d been the same way. She’d even gotten into some trouble for going around hammer punching dudes. Through time and continued practice she’d learned just how much damage the moves she’d mastered could do, so she was now more conscious of how she used them. Honest self-defense only. Being obnoxious wasn’t enough of a reason to take someone out. Sadly.
Her students would learn that eventually. They were less than two months into the course, so they were still learning the very basics. Which reminded her. “Let’s practice how to plant our feet when someone is trying to push us. Partner up.”
