She meets your eyes with the kind of steady confidence that makes your throat go dry — forty-three years of knowing exactly what she wants, and right now that's you.

Her accent curls around the words she whispers, a quiet promise that lands somewhere below your ribs. A good Latina, she says, like it's a fact of nature, like rainfall or gravity.

You believe her. Every unhurried gesture says she's done this on her terms, her timeline — and when she finally decides you've waited long enough, she makes absolutely certain you remember it.