AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Teddy reached for my hand under the table and squeezed it. The look in his eyes let me know he’s just as upset with the ideals my parents have set for their children as I was.
He saved me, changing the subject to a safe topic—the local weather and how the seasons were changing. I really didn’t follow the rest of the conversation. I fumed instead after Mama’s words.
Wasn’t I always pleasing my parents, being the strong one of their children, following through on their dreams of finishing college and earning my degree, doing everything they asked of me? How unhappy they had been with my brothers’ life choices, but not mine. However, now, the price to pay for their continued happiness with me was to just give up my career after I walked down the aisle and said vows to the man I loved? Unbelievable.
“I’m ready to go. Are you?” I leaned my head on Teddy’s shoulder after a while, and we hadn’t even begun the cleanup yet.
“More than ready,” he turned his head towards mine and kissed me on the forehead. “Mr. and Mrs. Reyes, thank you again for letting me join you for dinner. The food was out of this world.” We both stood to our feet as he was talking.
“Yes, thank you for having us,” I parroted. Out of respect for my parents, I walked over to each of them and gave them a hug goodbye as Teddy shook my dad’s hand and hugged my mom.
To my surprise, Mama let me go without saying a word about helping her clean up. Maybe because Teddy was there, ready to leave. Of course, Mama wouldn’t let us go without at least packing us enough leftovers in plastic ware to last a week.
Teddy balanced the bundle of food while keeping a hold of my hand firmly as we walked to the car. Once inside of it, he admonished me. “Why did you just let it go like that in there? You should have stood up for yourself. Told them it wasn’t how you planned to live your life?”
“I am so sorry you had to see that.” I didn’t think embarrassed was even the word for what I felt. My shoulders deflated.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“The thing is, I try so damn hard to please them. Something inside me can’t break free of wanting them to be happy for me and proud of me. I’d be such a disappointment if I didn’t follow their plan for my life.”
“I guess I know what you mean, after feeling like I’d disappointed my dad all these years. It’s hard to let it go. But your folks are really proud of you for all that you’ve accomplished. I see it in their eyes.” His attempted reassurance was endearing.
“Yeah, thus far. That’s exactly what I’m frustrated with. On the one hand, they want me to have a college degree to have a better life than they had. But on the other hand, apparently they want me to give it all up the minute I’m married off to become barefoot and pregnant, staying home to take care of the husband and family. Where in the book of life does it say I can’t have both?”
He threaded our hands together, bringing mine to his lips, planting kisses across it. “You can have it all, and you will, with whoever you marry,” he chuckled and winked.
I closed my eyes as my head hit the headrest. “At least they approved of you. You know, because you’ll have a degree and a job and be the man of the house and go to work all day to provide for your family,” I said in a deep rumbling voice mimicking my father’s.
“Honestly Mia, as long as you and the man in your life are on the same page with you having both a career and a family, then that’s all that matters. With your parents, set some boundaries. The pressures they put on you are way over the top. Do they realize you have brothers?”
He made me laugh. But he was right. I needed to set boundaries now, before it was too late, a conversation I’d save for another day with my parents.
He cleared his throat. “Now, about this man you’ll marry. I hope it’s not presumptuous that I might be in the running to win the coveted spot?”
There was only one person who could snap me out of this funk my parents put me in, and his sexy body was next to me in the car. He was speaking words of marriage without flinching. What did I do to deserve him?
“You’re at the top of an extremely short list,” I teased, bringing the hem of my skirt up my thighs. I moved his hand between them, letting his fingertips shift under my panties.
“What’s a guy gotta do to become the only man on the list?” His eyes darkened, sneaking glances away from the road.
I moaned as his fingers found their way to my clit, and showed off for him, arching my back and pinching my nipples. “Keep on pleasing me. Oh God, Teddy, don’t stop.” A good release was exactly what I needed right now. And this man, he sure knew how to please me and give me everything I needed.
13
TEDDY
The night of Emily and Luc’s engagement party was a good time for me to have Mia over and to introduce her to my family. Luc and Jace had met her once before, when we were younger. She, Cruz, and Diego had accompanied me one summer to the Delfino family reunion in Steele Valley somewhere in the mountains of upstate New York. We did everything outdoors that week on the lake, waterskiing, kayaking, and water tubing. We kids were in bathing suits and wet from sunup to sundown.
Looking back on it now, to immigrant kids like the Reyes’s who had little, they probably were in awe of the rich and lavish lifestyle of the Delfinos. The campsite had everything, all the best money could buy, not to mention a sleek new motor boat. Luc and Jace’s dad, Uncle Angelino, had a thing for shiny boats. I guess I took for granted the lifestyle my family had and could afford. We were never without food or nice things.
When I’d spent time with Cruz at his house, with his huge Latina family, the atmosphere was markedly different. The Reyes’s filled their home with love versus things. And food, always great food there, where the women spent so much time preparing a weekly Sunday family meal for everyone, and still sent each person home with a box at the end of the meal. Sure, Mia’s folks were tough on the three of them, but love and family loyalty were at the center. They all respected one another and would die for each other.
The thing always missing in my family, to me, was a basic kindness between my dad and mom. Jeez, they fought and bickered like crazy. After the summer trip to Steele Valley, Dad was off on another mission overseas for a year. Mom and I got too used to living without him. When he returned, their fights worsened. They were oil and water, growing distant from the way the military kept them apart.
Dad moved out that fall, and next thing we knew, he was dating a redhead from town. The single mother of a girl in my class—which irritated me further. And the situation burned my mother to her core. After their divorce, they tried to play nice in front of me for my sake. But I wasn’t a fool. Things between them were strained. Mom’s drinking worsened out of control, and eventually her liver wore out.
I ground my teeth and worked my jaw tight, thinking about them, at how two people could be so wrong for each other. Long ago, I’d decided I didn’t want their kind of relationship. And sure as hell, I would never be the type of insensitive husband and father my dad was.
