CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Santana

It felt weird walking into the house after being banned for a week. I’d already begun to feel like an outsider. I still went to the restaurant with Pop during the day and at night but we avoided talking as much as possible unless it was about the business.

Sammie locked her slender pinkie with mine and squeezed. With that one tiny gesture, she managed to leach the reluctance from my body. She was magic.

“Sam, is that you?” Pop called out. It sounded like he was in the kitchen so we headed that way. It was one of the rare times he was home in the middle of the day and not at the restaurant.

When we swung around the corner, side-by-side, I saw him stiffen a bit. My hackles rose immediately. Tension pulled my muscles tight until Sammie squeezed me with that perfect fucking pinkie of hers. I exhaled and sat at the kitchen table.

“You said help you understand, right, Papa?” Sammie said, her chin jutting out in a silent act of defiance. I watched her big olive green eyes sear into Pop. His shoulders drooped a bit then he patted his pockets until he retrieved a pack of cigarettes.

Haze filled the air once the flame from the lighter died. “Yeah,” he said somberly. “Help me understand this shit.” His eyes darted to mine.

“We’re in love. What is there to understand?” My words leaped from my mouth without permission but I wasn’t mad at it.

“I need to understand how the fuck you can grow up with Samira and call her your sister, treat her like blood and then sleep with her!” Pop’s voice was a single note of anger and frustration.

“Because shit changes. People change and so do relationships, Pop.” My voice joined in the chorus, deep and gravelly. “We’re not little kids now. We’re also not blood siblings.” I pointed out for maybe the hundredth fucking time.

He rolled his eyes at my declaration and threw in a scoff for good measure. The tension in my muscles was back, sinking in like liquid cement. I stood to my feet and stalked back and forth while Pop took pull after pull from his cigarette until it was nothing.

Sammie slid her hands down her thighs and shook the nerves from her hands before speaking. “Can we all just calm down?”

“I’m calm,” Pop lied, popping the joints in his neck. I watched him through narrowed eyes. I was on high alert.

“No you’re not, and neither are you, Santana,” Sammie chimed in. I knew that sharp tone in her voice, she wasn’t about to let either one of us leave that damn kitchen until shit was patched up. It didn’t have to be pretty and seamless but it had to at least stop the hemorrhaging.

The kitchen felt like it was littered with landmines. All three of us were doing an intricate dance so we didn’t blow ourselves to pieces. Sammie’s eyes flitted over my body when I folded my arms and I saw a lingering spark there. Honestly, I was lingering on her too.

Her smooth tawny skin and shiny golden hair made her sparkle and even in the midst of the heated conversation we were wrapped up in, I wanted to be near her sunshine. My feet subconsciously moved a few inches closer.

She smelled like sunbeams and fresh water.

“Papa, I know this isn’t how you want things.” She took a single step toward him and her very presence thawed the old man’s icy exterior. “We all need to figure out how to respect one another. You don’t have to like our relationship but at least respect it.” I watched her slender throat dip when she swallowed back her nerves. I was proud of her though because even when she was scared and nervous, she spoke her mind. She stood up for what she wanted and didn’t cower under Pop’s heavy expectations.

My girl was coming into her own and it made her even more stunning than she already was.

“You have to understand that this isn’t what I wanted for you. For either of you.” His nostrils flared out as his eyes turned to steely points.

“Papa, this is not about what you want for me or Santana!” Her voice squeaked on the way out but she still held her ground. I latched on to her pinkie and she steadied her breathing. “For once, this is about what we want. What I want. I want Santana. I love him so fucking much my chest feels like it wants to split open because I’m incapable of housing so much love.

I don’t want you to condone or give permission or any of that. I want your respect. You can hate the thought of us together all day but that’s the thing, Papa…you don’t have to love us being together. We do.”

“Mija…” Pop’s voice was pained. He reached out to her and scooped her hand into his, pressing his lips gingerly to her knuckles.

“I’m serious,” she said. “I don’t want us to be at odds but if you won’t respect what I have with Santana then we’ll have to be at odds.”

“Mijo, how can I still call you my son if you’re with Samira?” He asked me like he was genuinely trying to wrap his head around it all. I didn’t have a concrete answer for him because all of it was new for me too. I shrugged my shoulders and raked my fingers through my hair.

“I can’t give you the answer to that Pop. If you want to put our family back together then we have to take things one step at a time.” It was the only thing I could think to tell him. Pop massaged a spot on his chest as if he was trying to rub away the heartache.

“I want to make my own decisions, Papa. Not just about Santana but everything. School too. I want to choose what I do…good, bad, or indifferent. If I make mistakes, so what? They’re mine to make. I just want you to respect that. To respect this…” She gestured between herself and me then moved to my side, nestling perfectly beneath my arm.

After a long, tense silence that seemed as if it would never fucking end, Pop bowed his head and nodded. “Okay. I hear you two. I don’t understand it but I hear you. Being stubborn might feel justifiable but it hurts like hell when the consequence is being shut off from your family. All I really want is us back.”

“Me too,” Sammie sniffled.

“Yeah…me too,” I admitted with a slight nod. We seemed to take a collective sigh as we sat around the kitchen table.

“I still don’t want Santana staying in the house but he’s free to come over whenever. I don’t care what you have to say about it Samira. If you’re in a relationship with anyone, they cannot stay in this house. When you get your own place you can live with whoever you want.

I also don’t think I can handle seeing any PDA. Keep that shit behind my back, please.” A groan left his mouth before he looked at me. “I can take strides to respect you two if you can respect that this will never be easy for me to digest.”

“Fair enough,” I responded. Things were nowhere near healed between us all but they weren’t leaking blood and resentment either. It was a few steps in the right direction.

Once the tension melted away because we were too tired to uphold it, Sammie started on a big dinner. It smelled like Mom’s cooking and my stomach rumbled both from hunger and nostalgia.

“Mijo, let me speak to you outside,” Pop stood and fished out a cigarette before heading to the back door. I followed him after stealing one last glance at Sammie. My breath snagged every time I looked at her. I shook the stardust from my eyes and went outside.

Tall oak trees and lush grass painted our backyard. Sammie still kept up with the marigolds Mom loved so much and the sight of them warmed my insides. It had been a long time since I sat out there.

Memories of Sammie and I running through the grass while I chased her flooded my mind. She always screamed and giggled so loudly. The sound always made my chest tingle and prickle with something. Maybe what I could never put my finger on back then was a love I knew would never be acceptable.

“What’s up, Pop?” I asked with a heavy sigh.

“My mind is still reeling from seeing you and Samira hugging and kissing. I’m still struggling with the thought of figuring out where to place you in my life now and…I haven’t come up with much. You’re still my little boy, Santana. You’re bigger than me probably stronger too.” A dry chuckle escaped him and I smiled a little.

“I’m guessing I could take you, old man.”

“I wouldn’t even fight you. I’d shoot you. I’m too old to throw fists around.” We both laughed and a little of the ache in my chest dissipated. I didn’t even know I had an ache until it left. “Santana, promise me you’re not dicking your sister—I mean, Samira around. Christ, can I even call her your sister anymore?” He rubbed his forehead then tapped gray ashes into the grass.

“Nah. Probably not,” I said. I pictured the way Sammie’s long legs hung over my shoulders while I fucked her wet pussy. Nah, calling her my sister was dead now. She was something else.

We were something else to each other. Something so huge we were only closing in on the tip of it. I wanted us to explore the depths for the rest of our lives.

“Please tell me you really love her,” Pop said, pulling my thoughts back to him.

“I do,” I nodded. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anything or anyone. I’m not out to play games with her. I would have never allowed things to go this far if I wasn’t serious.” I wasn’t a man of many words, action was more suitable for me but when it came to talking about how much I loved Sammie, I was all words and action.

I would bring down the stars and wrap her in them so the stars in her eyes would be in familiar company. I would do anything to make her smile and to keep us together. I didn’t care anymore about what anyone else thought. Fuck them.

“You think she’s serious about you too?” He asked, finishing his cigarette.

“I do,” I nodded in response.

“Then I’m only going to ask that you take care of her and don’t break her heart. I think heartbreak coming from you would rip her apart more than it would coming from anyone else.”

“You’re right, Pop. Lucky for both of us, I don’t plan to play with her heart. I’m in it for the long haul.”

“Long haul, huh?” Pop regarded me thoughtfully. His green eyes took on a serene peace that I hadn’t seen since before he saw Sammie and I kissing outside. “Okay, mijo. Be careful with her.” His eyes crinkled at the corners and he patted me on the shoulder.

“Hey, come on. Dinner is almost ready. You two should be setting the table.” Sammie poked her head out of the door and looked from me to Pop. The sun was retiring in the sky casting a masterpiece of colors across the clouds but none as beautiful as Sammie with her pouty lips and knitted brows. I couldn’t help but smile at her.

“We’re coming, Sam.” Pop shook his head at her just as she disappeared inside the house. “She’s just like Alina with all that sass.”

“Yeah, Mom would love how much she’s grown.” Inside of the house smelled even better than it did when I went outside. Sammie was cooking her ass off.

“I think about your mother every day,” Pop told me with heavy words. The dining room was silent as he set down plates around the table.

“Me too.” I swallowed back the knot forming in my throat. Soon it would be too thick to push down. Soon, I wouldn’t be able to speak.

“She loved you more than anything in life, Santana. You and Samira were her world.” His stare was far off. My gaze dropped to the wooden table beneath my hands and I tried to fight off the memories trying to violently overtake me.

It was no use.

I remembered sitting in class wishing for the day to be over when I heard my name called over the loudspeaker. I wasn’t a stranger to being in trouble so I thought nothing of it when I pushed open the principal’s door. Pop was already there and so was Sammie. She had tears in her beautiful green eyes and she couldn’t bear to look at me. A few seconds after me standing there, Sammie buried her head in Pop’s arm.

My chest felt too heavy for my frame. It was being pulled into the depths of the earth by gravity. Something was wrong and I knew it.

I don’t remember sitting down but I remember being in a chair when the horrible news left Pop’s mouth that my mother had been killed in a car crash. My beautiful, smart, funny mother. The same mother who made me tea and soup when I was sick and slapped me in the back of the head when I was misbehaving. The same mother that held me in her arms not because I asked her but because she knew me inside and out.

Memories drowned me until I couldn’t tell them from my tears. I was steeped in salty emotions. Even standing in the dining room with Pop, I felt the familiar stinging invading my eyes without warning.

I blinked rapidly hoping to chase them away but they knew their way around my defenses. Pop took one look at me and I saw every last bit of grit he had left toward me blow away like dust. The last plate clattered to the table and his arms locked around me in a tight hug.

I couldn’t deny that hug if I wanted to. I clapped him on the back and shut my eyes for a second to compose myself. “She would have been proud of you, mijo,” he spoke quietly. “Even with you and Samira being together, she would have been so proud that you stood up for what you believed in no matter what.”

I nodded my head then straightened my spine. I rubbed my eyes a bit then cleared my throat. “It’s hard to think about her sometimes but at the same time if I don’t, a part of me dies.” I stared at how the grain of the wood on the table swirled together to make patterns that looked like fingerprints. I stared until I got lost and didn’t have to think about the grief slicing me in two.

“It’ll never get easier, Santana. You just learn to live with the pain. You’re doing one hell of a job.”

“Thanks, Pop. I know it’s taking a lot for you to say all this to me right now so…I appreciate it.”

“You’re still my son no matter what the fuck crazy shit you and Sam have going on. Nothing changes that. Ever. Got it?” He tousled my hair and I found a smile somewhere deep inside to offer him. It was a smile that came straight from my inner child as I looked at the man I’d admired my entire life.

He wasn’t without his flaws but who the fuck was? He took care of me and he treated me like his own blood and that meant more to me than anything in the world. He never made me feel like I was alone, even when he was mad at me. I honestly don’t think Pop had it in him to shun me.

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