Neron’s eyes, among other things, bulged at her command. But he held himself still, not wanting to lose the upper hand of the situation. She was so hot, so sensual, so sure of herself. It’s what had attracted him to her so many years before. Her vulnerable weakness, both coming into play at just the right time. What had he been thinking to walk out on her just because she was a careless bitch who made a mistake big enough for the both of them? “You first, Mamí.”

“No, no…you’re in my house now. I want to watch…” She swiveled further onto the chair back, hiking her nightshirt up to give him a fuller view of her cappuccino cream thighs and the slightest peek of powder blue lace of her panties. “Go on…take off your clothes.”

The thought of feeling those thighs wrapped around him again, touching her roundness, tasting her…her…his shirt was off before he knew what had happened and he quickly kicked off his shoes so his pants could follow. As his pants fell to the floor and he reached back up to remove his boxers, she stood and told him to stop.

“Let me, Papí…” Her hands cupped his neck as her lips crashed into his for a brief, yet fiery kiss, ending with her lips trailing down his neck and onto his chest. She mumbled words of admiration and craving as she continued down his stomach and finally licked the trail of hair that led to his waistband. Her fingers tickled under the elastic and she slowly pushed them down, fully exposing his nakedness and his full intentions of the evening.

He stepped out of his boxers and pants and while at his feet, Lani scooped up his clothes and shoes, constantly looking up to him with a sultry gaze of desire and lust. She stood full with his clothes in her arms and kissed him again, swirling a free finger around a tattoo of a crucifix that decorated the left side of his chest. She took his hand and led him closer to the door, opening it as she breathed in the cool night air.

With one swift motion, she tossed his clothes out into the front yard, pushed him onto the porch in all of his naked glory, slamming and locking the door before one ounce of sense re-entered his head.

“LANI!!!!!! Chingate, puta!”

With a smile of satisfaction she stood full and flipped him off through the door, feeling victorious, betrayed, stupid, and…dirty.

Lani backed her truck into the street, blowing a kiss in thanks to Katy for coming over so she could escape. Run. Get the fuck out. She stilled before moving forward, trying to figure out exactly where she was going to go. A bar would be dangerous, and nothing else was open at this late weeknight hour. What she wanted to do was point the car northwest and drive to LA, but getting home by morning to relieve Katy wasn’t an option if she did that.

So, she did the next best thing. Cranking up her music, Lani tried to drown herself in the songs that played, embracing the Latin rhythms, reminding herself who she was, what she valued, what priorities weighed heavily in the balance of her life. How had she got everything so damned jumbled up? What happened? When did it happen?

Before her thoughts had completely birthed themselves into insanity, she was getting out of the car and punching in a garage door code she barely used, barely needed, hardly remembered. As soon as she opened the door to the house, the smell of him, of her love, her peace, her comfort wafted over her. She closed the door behind her and slid down its side, finally collapsing from what had happened that night, and all that had led up to it.

“Why can’t you be here, huh?” Her soft cries echoed in the empty house, even though she still found strength just in being in his home. How could she be so stupid?

“Miss Romero?”

Lani jerked at the voice and focused her eyes on the silhouette in the living room. “Ben?”

“Yeah, what are you doing here?”

“Um…” She stood and suddenly wished she’d thought to put on a bra before fleeing from home. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Yard work, hate home, took a shower and yeah…here I am.” He came closer, the back patio light brightening up the darkened rooms and illuminating her tear stained face. “You’ve been crying.”

Lani wiped her eyes and went into the kitchen, fumbling through drawers for a washrag. “Yes, yes I have. I thought I’d be alone here.”

“I’m sorry…”

“No, hon. Don’t be, it’s just…” She found a cloth and quickly ran it under cold water wondering what to say to the boy. Their relationship was so different from any other of her kids. They had a friendship that went beyond the center, beyond former client and social worker. Beyond anything she’d experienced with the youth of her job. But the truth remained. He was a 14 yr. old teenager. He didn’t need or probably want her problems right now. She dabbed her eyes with the wet rag and turned to him, trying to put on a bright face. “It’s been a rough night. I miss Nick.”

“Yeah, that’s why I hang around here too sometimes.” They stood in silence until the honking of a horn interrupted. “Uh, that’s Kitty…you gonna be okay?”

“Yeah…” Lani turned her back to Ben looking out over Nick’s patio into the gulf. It was a calm, peaceful night, the rare, small peak of a wave breaking through the dark. It would have been helpful had a hurricane been coming in. It would have mirrored her emotions so much more accurately.

“Are you sure?”

The tears built up and overflowed again and Lani sunk her face into her hands as she shook her head no.

He tentatively approached and softly put his hand on her shoulder, not sure what to do how to do it, how to help, if he even wanted to help. “Do you want me to stay?”

Lani simply nodded her head and sniffed, offering a weak apology. “I’ll get you home.”

“Lemme tell Kitty. Just…just, um…” He walked to the front door backwards, stumbling over his own shoes and never taking his eyes off of her. “…just hang on, okay?”

Ben took off outside and Lani gathered her wits enough about her to go into Nick’s room to find a different shirt to wear, realizing that what she had on was virtually see through. Besides, it would feel almost as good as having Nick hold her, his scent wrapped around her body in the only way possible now. It had to help.

Ben locked the door behind him and punched in the security code, letting his eyes adjust to the lights Lani had turned on.

“Is she angry?”

“Who? Kitty? Nah…she’s worried about you, though.” He had to move out of the foyer sometime but he truly didn’t know what to do. Miss Romero was always the one with the answers, not the questions. It turned his security, what little he felt he had anyway, upside down. “Do you want something to drink?”

“That’d be nice.” She finally turned from her spot on the couch and offered a weak smile. “I’m not going to keep you up too late, am I?”

“No school tomorrow…comp time or something for conferences.” Ben dug in Nick’s pantry for some pop, reminding himself to grab a few bottles of water before he came next time. Nick never had a stocked kitchen. Even when he was home.

“Oh yes, of course…the center will be a mad house.”

“Want me to come help?”

“You don’t have plans?”

“I’ll just bring Erin with me. She likes the little ones.”

“She’s good with them. They like her too.”

Ben couldn’t hide his smile of pride as he handed Solana her drink. “They’re smart kids.”

“Did she like your picture?”

He blushed and took a large gulp of his drink, averting Solana’s gaze as he took a seat on the floor across the room from her. “Yeah, she did…I made her cry.”

“Aw, well…girl’s do that when they’re in love.”

“Is that why you were crying tonight? You just miss Nick so much?”

“Um…no, not really.” Now Lani was the one gulping and averting wishing Ben hadn’t sat right in front of the patio door. She needed the view out back to be a place to retreat if she got uncomfortable, but there he was, not giving her an escape.

Ben noticed her hands trembling and realized that some of her tears were ones of fear. The light went on his head. “Neron showed back up, didn’t he?”

Her silence answered and she suddenly wished she had asked him to put a little Bicardi in her coke. Numb sounded good right now. “I don’t know what to do, Ben and…” she took another drink and stood to pace away her nerves. “…and I can’t dump this on you. I’m sorry. Maybe I should just take you home and go to bed myself.”

“You can dump anything on me, Miss Romero…I mean, I’m just a kid, but…I listen pretty good.”

She stopped pacing and looked down at him, at the hope in his eyes, the generosity in his heart…he reminded her so much of what Nick had to have been like at Ben’s age, she couldn’t erase the smile on her face. She sat back down and decided to start with questions…she surely had no answers anyway. “Do you ever just wish for a normal family? You know, storybook, Norman Rockwell stuff. Hard working dad, stay at home mom, smiling, happy brothers and sisters, a couple of pets, a white picket fence and a mini van?”

“Uh…I don’t think my storybook is the same as yours, but yeah. I wish for it all the time.”

“You don’t like a white picket fence?” She was grateful for the smile he’d already brought to her face. Maybe this was a good idea. Get some grasp of balance before she moved forward. Maybe with some balance she’d know what direction “forward” really was.

“Not so much…or a mini van, but yeah, I’d like a dad, sure.”

“It’s all I dreamt about as a little girl. I wouldn’t let Mamí buy me a new Barbie until she’d found another Ken to go with the old one. It made her so angry.”

“Why?”

“Have you been down the Barbie aisle lately? There’s probably 20 Barbie’s to every one Ken. I drove her nuts.”

“I can so see Rosalie doing that.” He chuckled at the thought and rested his head against the cool glass of the patio door. This was nice. Miss Romero, while angrier than a hornet at him at times, always treated him with respect. He loved her so much. He loved Nick so much. It only seemed logical that they would pair up and complete the jumbled mess that was his life.

“Don’t give her any ideas. She’s already ready to write the creators of Dora and complain that we never see or hear about her Papí enough.”

“Makes you think there are more families without a dad than there are with one.”

“We’re surely not alone…and I guess…” Solana sighed and put her glass on the coffee table, swirling it around against the grain of the wood. “…I guess I’ve wanted that storybook so much I just got stupid.”

“Why do you say that? You’re never stupid.”

“Ha. You’re too sweet…and stupid.” She caught his smile and her heart lurched down to her stomach, desire to call Nick stronger than any amount of common sense. She had to keep talking. “Well for starters, I repeated the same pattern as my mother.”

“Not on purpose.”

“No, but not with a head on my shoulders either.”

“Well, unless that A in health was a fluke, last I learned, you didn’t become a mother totally on your own.”

“No, but had I not been so focused on the story, I’d have seen that Neron wasn’t going to stay.”

“You think? I mean, really…how could you have known?”

She didn’t have an answer. Her only insight was hindsight, of which she didn’t have access to 5 years ago when she got pregnant. “Might have helped had we been married.”

“Husbands leave too, Miss Romero.”

She ignored his wisdom for now. “Okay, we’re not at the center. Call me Lani, huh?”

“Right. Lani. Okay.” He took a deep breath and shook his head, a bit surprised this whole conversation was even happening. “You’re just…you’re Miss Romero to me.” Ben finished his drink and stifled a belch, giggling when Lani decided to let one rip to relieve him the potential embarrassment.

“I’m Miss Get Your Head Out Of Your Ass, is what I am.”

“No you’re not…you’re just confused…although I’m not sure what about, to be honest with you.”

“I always thought he’d come back, Ben. Always wished for it. We’d be the family I always dreamt about, you know? In the mean time, I put up a big, strong front, decided to be the best mom in the world to my baby, do all the right things for other messed up families, all the while going to bed every night dreaming that I’d wake up the next morning and Neron would be laying there next to me with some sensible, forgivable explanation to why he left.”

“And that never happened.”

“No. Yes. See, that’s where I’m all screwed up.”

“Miss Rom-…L-…Lani…do you know why he left?”

“He left because…because…” she sighed and looked at the blonde boy in front of her, hating that she still had no answers. “…I have no idea.”

“So why’s he back?”

Lani tossed herself back onto the couch, pulling a pillow over her face, knowing the answer to this one now. Hating that she’d been so stupid as to have missed it, to have allowed it. Ben, however, did not need to know. “I have no idea.”

Ben had to chuckle at her. This wasn’t Miss Romero, was it? This was Lani. The true, real Lani. Confused, scared, human and still…the loving Miss Romero who helped put his life back together. “But you have Nick now. I don’t get…”

“Yes, I have Nick and I mean,” she tossed the pillow to her feet and turned on her side so she could see this sweet boy who was listening to her ramble and stumble through probably the most complicated thing she’s ever faced. “…he’s…he’s wonderful and my life would just suck if he wasn’t in it, but…he’s not Ro’s dad.”

“So what!?”

“Ben…I’m sorry, hon, but I don’t expect you to understand this.” Of course not. She surely didn’t. One minute she was going to kick Neron to the curb and the next he’d show up at her door again and the fog of the storybook would creep in and Nick would be a blur and common sense would hide in the mist and confusion became the only sure thing. Fairy tales were never this complicated as a child.

“I understand perfectly. You want the storybook family. Neron coming back gave you that promise again.”

“It sounds so stupid, but I guess so…”

Ben got up and walked over to Lani, holding out his hand for her. “Sit up…I want to show you something.”

She took his hand, curiosity written all over her face. She followed him into the hallway, past Nick’s studio and business office and squinted as Ben flicked the light on.

As her eyes adjusted, they settled on the portrait taken at Christmas over a year before.

Pointing to it, Ben asked, “What is this?”

“That’s our portrait, silly.”

“Uh-huh…and what’d you call it? Why is Nick in it?”

She smiled and looked to Ben, loving how much he’d grown up since the photo had been taken. Physically, emotionally…he was becoming a man. A good man. “I called it a family portrait.” She reached up and brushed Rosalie’s leg dangling off Nick’s leg as she sat on his lap. “It wasn’t a family portrait unless Nick was in it.”

“Bingo. We’re family now, Lani. Rosalie already has a family.”

She wrapped her arm around Ben and stared at the picture a bit longer, taking in everyone’s face, but mostly gazing in Nick’s eyes, seeing all of the love there. Love for her. Love for Rosalie. Love for the Casey’s. And love for the love they had yet to share when they had posed for the family portrait, a love that was only a hope, a dream away.

“See, Miss Rome-…” he leaned his head on hers, stunned he was already getting so much taller than her. “…Lani. All the characters are in place. Now we can write our own storybook.”