Page 46 of Seasoned
“Are you suggesting we financially support them?”
“They’re going to need help,” Adelaide said, sounding frustrated and in disbelief that he didn’t understand that point.
“I’m not parting with a dime, except a few gifts for the baby. Danny can get a job.” Hector cursed under his breath.
“So we should turn our backs on them?”
“That’s not what I said, but when you make adult decisions, you deal with the adult consequences, and come up with adult solutions.”
Adelaide stared down into her glass of lemonade on the counter.
“I’m not wrong, Addie.”
Her gaze met his. “Do you remember what it was like for us? How hard it was that first year without any help? We both had to leave school.”
When Adelaide became pregnant, she’d been frantic, but Hector had been excited and insisted they get married. She’d been hesitant and put him off, unsure if marriage was the right decision for them because they’d been together less than a year by then. Plus, she’d had her family to contend with. Her father was a workaholic and her mother found solace from her miserable marriage inside of a gin bottle. Because her father’s ambition meant getting transfers to accommodate his promotions, Adelaide lived in four states and seven cities from the age of ten until she graduated high school.
As the oldest of four, she became the default babysitter and surrogate mother who whipped up delicious meals for her younger siblings. When her parents learned she was pregnant at twenty, they had both expressed their disappointment and said they’d ‘expected more from her.’
After the kids were born, Adelaide took them to see her parents, but Junior and Karen were almost eighteen months old before they saw them again in person.
“That was a decision we made together. I promised you if you stayed home and took care of our kids, I’d make sure you didn’t have to work. Even if it meant working ten jobs, I’d do whatever I had to do to make sure we—our family—was okay.” A man took care of his family. That lesson had been drilled into his head by his father.
Adelaide placed a hand on her hip and her lips tightened. “I know you don’t want any of our kids to go through what we did. Yes, Danny has been screwing up and hasn’t exactly lived up to the ideal we set for all our kids. I get it, Hector. But I’m his mother, and this is where we are. I’m not going to throw him in the middle of the ocean and tell him figure out how to swim, and I know you won’t, either. That’s not the type of man you are.”
Dammit. Hector gritted his teeth.
Adelaide could always break him down with one of her calm, no-nonsense speeches. She was a natural caretaker, always looking out for others. Maybe because she didn’t have that type of support and love growing up.
After a resigned sigh, Hector muttered, “I do remember what it was like to be in this very situation.”
He had to admit that when he learned they were having twins, he’d experienced a moment of panic. One child would be tough, but two? His family in Mexico hadn’t been able to offer any help, and her family had offered no help.
The moment of panic was fleeting. He’d already known he would marry Adelaide, and the thought of starting a family with her only made him more determined to get started on the life he’d been planning. She’d been the one since he saw her in a crowded movie theater sitting alone.
Hector took a seat and sipped the lemonade, wishing it was a double shot of whiskey.
“What’s our next step?”
3
“How do you think that went?” Adelaide thought the conversation went well but was curious to hear Hector’s opinion.
Surprisingly, he had held his temper in check and talked calmly to their son. She believed his self-control eased Daniel’s fears, because after a hesitant start, the three of them sat around the coffee table in the living room and their son opened up. They discussed options and came to the tentative resolution that Daniel would leave school, get a job, and stay with Adelaide to save money.
They also called Jamie and talked to her grandmother, whom she had lived with since she was eleven. Hector and Adelaide let them both know they were ready and able to help Jamie, emotionally and financially.
After a few words, Daniel went to his room to continue talking to Jamie, and Adelaide walked Hector out to his car.
“Good. Definitely could have been worse,” Hector replied.
His voice sounded grim and she glanced at him. He’d draped his jacket and tie over his arm. Over the years, he’d changed a lot and yet only changed a little.
The dress shirt hugged his tight body and the waistband of the black trousers emphasized his narrow waist. His hair was still the same midnight color it had been when they met, and his face still carried the perfect symmetry of a square jaw, an aquiline nose, and the piercing dark brown eyes of the man she’d married. But there were lines around his eyes now and a somberness in their depths that never used to be there.
He had the same physique, his body a tight mass of muscle that hadn’t softened much since their twenties. She could barely look at him without thinking about running her fingers over his hard body or climbing on top of him as his long-fingered hands gripped her hips.
Or—she swallowed as heat swept her skin—her favorite position, where she lay on her back and those same hands gripped her wrists above her head as he used masterful strokes to bring her closer to an earth-shattering climax.
