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I bend down and give him a kiss. “You and me,” I repeat.
He cups my neck, keeping our lips locked for another moment, then pats my butt and we get up from the couch.
When Cruz suggested we stay at his place I insisted we come back here to my family’s beach house. There were too many memories in these walls. It was where he and I both began, ended, then began again, and was as much a part of our story as the ocean. I hadn’t stopped loving the sea because of the secretsit kept and wouldn’t this place.
We’d spent the past few days laying low, giving our bodies and minds a chance to start healing from what happened, and it had been a good idea. I felt stronger and ready for the conversation we were about to have.
Thankfully, we’d already filled them in on what happened with Royce—well, the version Cal and Marcus knew, and anyone else who asked—and honestly, I was more nervous about that call, than I am about telling them about Cruz and me.
Momma appeared to take the news well. Probably because we glossed over the horrific details and stuck to a less incriminating narrative—Royce attacked me, Cruz fought him off, and we haven’t seen him since. But seeing the way she’s eyeing me now, as she and Antonio make their way from the car to the door, I can tell she’s angrier than a cat thrown in a hot bath.
As soon as she envelopes me in her warm, perfumed embrace, I start to cry. I thought I was all cried out. Those first days after the attack, it felt like that’s all I did. I even cried after Cruz and I had sex the first time—those tears however, ones of relief, knowing Royce and Cal hadn’t ruined something I’d always cherished, with their grubby, greedy hands. But nothing can move a child more than the ferocity of a mother’s love, and it’s that feeling of unconditional love and protection that sends the lingering remnant of emotion from all that happened, spilling over.
“It’s okay, Momma.” I offer her an encouraging smile when she pulls back and her eyes drift over my face. “I’m tougher than a hornet in the winter.”
She sniffs and places a hand on my cheek, smiling at me lovingly. “That you are, baby. That you are.”
“Come on.” I step back and wave for her and Antonio to come inside.
He walks through the door behind Momma, carrying a bag in each hand, and when Cruz reaches out to take one, he claps him on the back. “Thanks, Papito.”
Momma drops her hand from my cheek and shifts her attention to Cruz. His bruises are much better, but the beating he took is obvious. Her eyes fill with fresh tears as she wraps her arms around him and hugs him tightly. “Thank goodness you’re okay.”
Cruz sets the bag in his hand down and does something I’d never seen him do before. He wraps both arms around Momma and hugs her as if she is his own. “We’re fine, mom.”
She stiffens for a moment—Cruz calling her mom a first, and clearly a shock—and when she pulls back and looks up at him, she’s crying.
Last night when Cruz and I were in bed, we got to laughing when he asked what he should call Momma from here on out. It felt good to laugh because there hadn’t been a lot to laugh about lately. But when the laughter died, the question remained, what should he call her?
However, hearing him call her mom just now sounded right. Didn’t matter he was almost twenty-one and I was almost nineteen, both of us of legal age and no longer under our parents’ roof. What was a mom if not one who put your happiness and well-being before their own, and hadn’t that been what our parents had been doing all this time?
No matter how difficult Cruz and I made things, our parents made sure each of us felt loved and supported the last few years. Despite the separate vacations and holidays we insisted on, they’d done it without question or complaint because it’s what we wanted. And this summer, when neither Cruz nor I wanted to deal with the other, our parents in their own way put our well-being first, by telling us enough was enough. They forced Cruz and I to work through whatever was going on with us, and it hadchanged everything.
Plus, there was the fact shewouldbe his mother in law one day. That I had no doubt. Cruz was my future, and I was his. So it seemed like he’d answered his own question.
“Go on in with Ellery,” he says to Momma as she wipes under her eyes. “Dad and I will get these bags upstairs.”
Momma nods and wraps her arm around my waist, and we turn to head down the foyer. But as we make our way, I can’t help but look back over my shoulder, and find Cruz watching us with a smile.
“Tea?” I ask when Momma and I make it to the kitchen.
“I’ll get it sugar,” she says with forced cheer. “You go on and sit.”
“No, Momma.” I reach for her hand and give it a squeeze. “I got it.”
She grabs my hand back and gives me a nod, and we talk as the water heats.
When it’s ready and I’ve made a cup for the four of us, Cruz and his dad come down the back stairs. Grabbing a cup in each hand, Momma and I make our way to the kitchen table and set them down.
Cruz pulls out the chair for me, and Antonio does the same for Momma and we both look up, giving them near identical smiles.
“Well,” she says while scooting her seat closer to the table. “Clearly, what happened was more than just a scuffle.”
Cruz wraps both hands around his cup and nods. “You can say that.”
“I know you said it had to do with Royce’s little crush on Ellery. But…” she pauses, flicking her eyes from me to Cruz, “something tells me it was more than that.”
Cruz and I turn to look at one another, and when we both swallow and turn to look back at Momma and Antonio, I get thefunny feeling they know something we don’t.
