Rafe blinks hard.
His dad nods once, quiet but solid. “Always.”
Something in my chest cracks open. The part of me that expected shouting, rejection, disgust—it stumbles, disoriented.
Because this is… support, the unconditional variety I’ve only ever received from my sister… and Rafe. Always Rafe.
He swallows, voice rougher now. “There’s more.”
His mom’s brows lift. “More?”
Rafe’s gaze flicks to me again, and I can see him weighing it—how much. How fast. How hard the next truth will land.
He squeezes my hand before saying, “We’ve been married a long time.”
His father’s eyes narrow slightly, calculation creeping in.
His mother’s hand freezes on Rafe’s. “How long?” she asks slowly.
Rafe swallows. “Almost twelve years.”
The number drops into the room like a stone.
Almost twelve years.
I feel it hit them—stunning, impossible, rearranging everything they thought they knew. And I feel it hit me, too, like it always does. Because that number holds everything.
The love.
The hiding.
The years lost.
The years we kept anyway.
His mother stares. His father goes very still. And I hold Rafe’s hand so tight my fingers ache, bracing for the reaction that’s about to come.
The wordtwelvestill hangs in the air. Rafe’s father goes very quiet. His mother, on the other hand, inhales sharply and then unleashes a rapid stream of Spanish so fast I can’t catch a single word. It spills out of her in waves—hands flying, eyes flashing, voice rising and falling with sharp emotion.
I freeze.Shit.This is it. This is where the floor opens up.
I don’t understand the words, but I understand tone. I understand rhythm. I understand when someone is furious.
And she is.
Rafe winces slightly, which does nothing for my confidence.
His dad leans back, crossing his arms, watching his wife with a long-suffering look that says this is not the first time she’s delivered a speech at this volume.
“Mamá,” Rafe tries gently.
She doesn’t stop.
My face burns. My chest constricts. I sit there like I deserve whatever is coming—which, if I’m honest, I probably do.
I married her son in secret. I disappeared. I came back eight years later with cameras trailing us.
Yeah. I deserve this.
