Backstage Romance: An Austen-Inspired Romantic Comedy Box Set by Gigi Blume (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📕

Costa Rica. Lots of fish maybe? Thankfully for Bing and his innocent inquisitiveness, he asked for me.

“What would you say is a traditional dish from Costa Rica? I’d love to visit someday.”

“Black beans and fried plantains are the staple for almost any meal,” Jorge shared whimsically. He had that glassy look to his eyes, traced with a shade of sadness, as if he were remembering his mother’s cooking and heartsick for his loss. “A traditional Costa Rican meal is called casado. It literally means married. It’s usually a combination of meats or fish on a plate with beans and rice and salad, plantains, bread—everything on one plate. My mother made the best casado for me on my birthday and special occasions. Even on Christmas and Easter.”

“Sounds absolutely delicious,” exclaimed Bing. “We were stuck with very dry ham every year. No one had the heart to tell my grandmother how bad it was.” He laughed at the memory. “Oh! And the deviled eggs!”

Jane expressed she loved deviled eggs to the room, but my sister said, “I can’t eat deviled eggs. Too gassy.”

Jorge admitted, “I’ve never had them.”

“Well,” continued Bing, “You’re lucky you’ve never tried my mother’s deviled eggs. She’d use the eggs from our Easter egg hunt, but the food coloring had seeped through to the flesh. It was epically unappetizing. My sister—excuse me for saying this at the dinner table—but my sister once lost her cookies when she was served Mom’s deviled eggs. It ruined the whole dinner that year.”

His story made everyone laugh, and I watched him light up at the attention. I’d never seen him so talkative, but somehow, the memory brought out the natural performer in him.

“I can match your Easter story,” Jorge said in challenge. The attention was once again reverted to him. “We’d never decorated eggs at my mother’s house,” he began. “It’s not a custom in Costa Rica, so I didn’t grow up with that tradition. I’d only ever hunted for plastic eggs at school or the community center. So one year after I heard my friends talking about decorating real eggs, I made the request to Mom. She kind of put me off at first, clearly confused, but come Easter morning, she surprised me with a dozen eggs she’d dyed after I went to bed. I was so excited, I could hardly sit through church. Later that day, we went to a neighborhood party, and she brought the eggs to contribute to what the other families brought. Anyway, to make a long story—well, I can’t make it much shorter at this point—once we’d found all the eggs, one of the girls—una gordita—went to crack open the shell to eat it and got raw egg all over her fancy dress.”

Mom and Jane gasped at this, but the rest of us laughed.

“Like I said,” he continued as he laughed with us. “It’s not a tradition in Costa Rica. My mother didn’t know to hard boil the eggs first. No wonder she was so confused.”

“You have to be careful not to leave dairy products out,” said Mary. “When in doubt, throw it out.”

“Thank you for those wise words, Mary,” Dad said. “How I’ve survived all these years without them, I’ll never know.”

“It’s actually sound advice,” said Jane. “My family used to hide real eggs until one Fourth of July, there was a terrible smell in my uncle’s backyard. It was so incredibly bad, and nobody could figure out where the smell came from until one of my cousins found a three-month-old Easter egg in the bushes. I’m sure it was worse than your mom’s deviled eggs, Bing.” She smiled, leaning into him with a spark in her eyes.

“My sister would have fainted for sure.” He laughed.

“What’s your sister’s name?” asked Mary.

“Rose,” he answered with a smile. “My parents’ favorite movie is White Christmas. She was named after Rosemary Clooney, and I was named after Bing Crosby. My middle name is actually Crosby.”

“Well, I think that’s adorable,” said Mom. “And speaking of holidays, I’d like you to come for Thanksgiving dinner. You too, Jose.”

Jorge thanked her for the invitation but said he had other plans. Since he didn’t have a family, I couldn’t imagine who he’d spend it with, but I didn’t let the thought run too wild. Bing was also grateful to be included but lamented some business in New York he had to attend to with Will. This piqued my mother’s interest, and she asked all sorts of questions about his friendship with Will and what was it like on the national tour where they had met. I stole a glance at Jorge, but if the subject made him uncomfortable, he was good at hiding it. I felt inclined to be offended for him, but Bing didn’t linger on his relationship with Will for too long. He mostly spoke about his job as a swing in Something Rotten (or Rotten on the Road as he endearingly called it) and all the roles he had to learn and be ready to perform at any time.

“My favorite track was Bard Boy,” he said brightly.

Jane gave him a sly wink. “Because of the leather pants or guy-liner?” she quipped. She was truly a different person around him. I liked it.

I watched her as Bing spoke of his experiences. She was clearly enamored with him beyond anything I’d seen. It gave me all the feels, watching the two of them interact, and in that moment, everything was right in the world. Jane had Bing, and I had a new man-candy friend. I actually didn’t know what Jorge and I had going on. I told myself not everybody could be crazy in love like Jane and Bing. Jorge was nice enough. Maybe it could grow into something more. I wasn’t the type to get butterflies in my stomach anyway.

My mother certainly didn’t miss an opportunity to voice her admiration towards Jorge when he was out of earshot. She attacked me as soon as we went into the kitchen for the