I stand on the doorstep to my parents’ home with Matthias’ warm, soft hand held tightly in mine. I’ve never been so nervous to go into this house before, not even the first time I ever visited when I was pregnant and alone. Jax stands on the other side of me and he gives my hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.
“It will all be okay,” he whispers just as my mom opens the door to us.
“Why didn’t you use your key, sweetheart?” she says as she pulls me into a hug before bending down to Matthias, who flings his arms around her neck.
“Nana,” he squeals.
“I forgot it,” I say with a shake of my head. “I didn’t come in my car.”
“Oh.” My mom stands tall again and smiles at Jax. “Did you drive together?”
“Yeah,” I reply.
“Then come on in, the two of you. Your father is in the garden.”
We all follow my mom into the house and Matthias scampers off ahead to find his grandpa and the twins. By the time we get to the garden, Matthias is playing with my little brothers and Hugo on the lawn.
“I didn’t realize you were coming over tonight, amigo?” My father smiles at Jax and I feel a wave of fresh guilt almost overwhelm me. He is so happy to see his best buddy here and has no idea we’re about to break his heart.
“I came with Lucia,” he says and the tone of his voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Dear God! He’s going to do this right now. “We have something we need to talk to you both about.”
“Okay?” My father frowns while my mom closes her eyes and sits beside him, as though she knows what we’re about to say.
Jax looks to me and I draw in a deep breath. “Let me?” I plead as I place my hand on his arm.
He stares at me for a few seconds before he nods his agreement.
“Jax and I are dating,” I say the words super quick as though they’ll somehow hurt less.
“What?” my father growls as he looks to Jax to tell him that I’m completely delusional and have lost my mind.
My mom stays silent but she places her hand over his, which is now balled into a fist on the table.
“It’s more than dating,” Jax says as he shoots me a look that says I could have worded that better, but what else was I supposed to say? We’re screwing each other’s brains out every chance we get?
“No.” Alejandro shakes his head and starts to laugh, but it’s not a pleasant sound. “You’re both fucking with me.”
“We’re not, amigo.” Jax replies.
My mom holds onto my father’s hand as though she’s trying to channel some of her calming energy through him somehow, but it’s not working. He glares at Jax, his face full of fury—his eyes are burning so fiercely that my stomach starts to flutter, and not in that nice excited way, but in that I’m gonna throw up way.
“You had better be fucking with me,” he snarls as he edges forward in his seat, every ounce of his anger directed at Jax. “Because that is my little girl you’re talking about and you are old enough to be her fucking father!”
“Papi,” I snap.
“Stay out of this, Lucia,” he growls.
Stay out of it? Like it doesn’t concern me? What the hell?
“I wouldn’t fuck with you about this.” Jax glares back at him. “We’re not just dating, Alejandro. This is serious—”
“Serious?” he shouts, his face contorting with rage. That word seems to have been the final straw, the match that lit his incredibly short fuse because he jumps out of his seat, launching himself at Jax and landing a right hook on his chin with such force that the two of them stagger backwards and end up on the floor.
“Papi!”
“Alejandro!”
My mom and I shout in unison, but the pair of them completely ignore us as they roll around on the lawn like a pair of MMA fighters, punching and grappling to maintain the upper hand.
“Mom,” I say as she stands beside me and we watch them in horror.
“Hugo,” she shouts and he comes running. When he reaches us he frowns at us both and stands staring at my father and Jax fighting.
“What the hell?” He shakes his head in disbelief.
“Please stop them,” my mom pleads with him.
“Fuck,” he hisses but then he wades into the fight, signaling one of the armed guards to help him. They manage to pull them apart only for my father to launch himself at Jax again, grabbing him in a headlock and dragging him back to the ground.
Hugo and the guard stand with their hands on their hips, shaking their heads in defeat and confusion.
“Oh for goodness’ sake,” my mom hisses before she marches over to them herself. I wonder if she’s going to take a nearby chair and crack it over my papi’s back, WWE style, because I don’t see any other way to split them up. But instead, she leans close to him and places one hand on the back of his neck, turning his face to hers with her other hand. “Alex,” she says calmly. “You’re scaring the boys.”
He stops, fist in mid air as it was about to come crashing down on Jax’s face, then he stands up, brushes the grass from his suit pants and spits blood onto the floor.
Jax stands too and wipes the blood from his nose with the back of his hand.
My father glares at him. “Get the fuck out of my house right now,” he snarls.
“Alejandro?” Jax glares back at him.
“I said get the fuck out.” My father’s hands are balled into fists by his sides. “And stay the fuck away from my daughter.”
Jax looks to me just as Matthias runs to me. “Why are papa and Jax fighting, Momma?” he cries.
“It’s okay.” I pick him up and hug him tightly. “They were just playing.”
When I look up again, Jax is turning away and heading for the door.
“Jax,” I shout, preparing to walk after him but my father stands in front of me.
“You are not going anywhere with him,” he growls.
“The hell I’m not,” I hiss as I cover Matthias’ ears.
“Lucia. Stay and speak to your parents,” Jax says.
“No. I’m coming with you.”
My mom stands beside me and puts a comforting arm around my shoulder.
“No. He’s right. I should leave. You need to stay here with your family.”
His words tear out my heart. Why is he leaving without me? We’re a team, aren’t we?
“I’ll have someone drop your car here and I’ll see you later,” he adds with a faint smile and I heave a sigh of relief. I’ll see him later.
“The fuck you will,” my father snarls.
“Alejandro,” my mom snaps shooting him a look that says this conversation is over for now. Jax walks away, leaving through the side gate to get to the driveway. My father shakes his head and marches over to my twin brothers, scoops them into his arms and storms into the house.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper as tears fill my eyes.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she wraps her other arm around me now and hugs me tightly. “It will all be okay.”
My father manages to avoid even looking at me during dinner. If it wasn’t for Matthias begging me to let him stay and play with the twins, and the look of concern on my mom’s face, I would have left straight after Jax did.
“Can I sleep over, Momma? Please?” Matthias sidles up to me, his face covered in chocolate ice cream as he smiles up at me.
“Not tonight, munchkin,” I say, brushing his hair. “I have to be up early for work tomorrow.”
“Papa can take me to kindergarten,” he says, his eyes shining. “Can I stay? Pleeease?”
I look at my father whose eyes finally meet mine. “Let him stay,” is all he says.
I look down at my son’s excited face and can’t say no to him. I know my father is pissed at me and Jax, but that would never affect his relationship with Matthias.
“Fine,” I say as I lean down and give him a kiss on the nose.
“If you’re staying here, then you need a bath and some pajamas. You monsters are not getting chocolate ice cream all over my bed,” my father says with a grin as he pushes his chair back.
Matthias and Tomás shriek with delight, but Dario has already fallen asleep on my mom’s lap.
“You need any help?” my mom asks him.
“No. I got it,” he says, feigning a scowl that she would question his ability to control two little kids, but then kisses her forehead and takes Dario from her arms. “I’ll put him down first and then see to the other two.”
“Thank you,” she smiles at him.
He doesn’t look at me though and I swallow down the ball of emotion in my throat. He is so disappointed in me and it is breaking my heart. He is such a great dad and even though he is in the same room as me, I miss him already.
“He’s not angry with you, sweetheart,” my mom says softly.
I wipe the stray tear from my cheek, annoyed with myself for getting so upset. He’s being unreasonable here, not me. So I fell in love with his best friend—there are much worse things I could do. “He can’t even bear to look at me, Mom.”
“He’s angry. He’s just processing it, that’s all. I mean, it was quite the bombshell you two dropped on us.”
“You were shocked, but you’re not acting like a jerk about it,” I sniff.
“Lucia,” she warns me. “I don’t care what he’s done, you do not speak about your father that way.”
“I know,” I wince. “I’m sorry. But you’re still speaking to me.”
“Well, it’s different for me.”
“Different how?”
“Well, Jax isn’t my best friend.” She takes a sip of water. “And I know how it feels to fall in love with someone you’re not supposed to,” she adds with a shrug.
“You mean, Papi?”
“Of course,” she says with a smile.
“But he wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you either,” I remind her. “He knows how that feels too.”
“Yes, but you are his daughter and it’s his job to protect you, Lucia. In his eyes, Jax has betrayed his trust. You must see why he feels like that?”
“I guess,” I admit. Of course I understand why he’s so upset, even if I hate that he is and I don’t agree with him. “What about you, Mom?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. This is between you, Jax and your father.”
“Of course it matters,” I blink at her. “Your opinion means everything to me.”
“All that matters to me is that you are happy, sweetheart. Does Jax make you happy?”
I swallow the lump of emotion that wells in my throat as I consider the answer to that question and wonder what the best way to explain it is, because to simply answer yes doesn’t feel like enough. “You know the way that you look at Papi when he comes home from work?” I say instead. “I used to think the two of you were soppy and romantic. I could never have imagined being so excited to see someone who I had only seen a few hours earlier.”
“Hey,” she narrows her eyes at me and laughs.
“Now I get it though. Jax makes me feel like that, Mom. Like my heart will burst if I don’t see him. He makes me feel like I can conquer the world.”
“Oh dear,” she says softly, shaking her head.
“What?”
“I think your father is going to have to learn to accept you and Jax pretty soon. But be careful, sweetheart—you are wise beyond your years, but Jackson is a lot older and more experienced than you.”
“You were a virgin when you married Papi,” I remind her.
She arches an eyebrow at me. “I’m not talking about that kind of experience.”
“Oh.” I blush to the roots of my hair. I have just admitted to my mom that I’m having sex with Jackson Decker. I mean, she obviously knew that, but still.
She smiles. “You can talk to me about anything, sweetheart. You know that, right?”
“Yes.” Before Jax, I did talk to her about this kind of stuff. She was the person I called that time I couldn’t get my diaphragm out, and also when some idiot frat boy told me my ass was too fat right after we’d had sex, which had been the most disappointing sex of my life even before he said that.
“Good.” She wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Everything will be okay. I promise.”
