"Och!" shouted Damian, followed by a stream of profanity usually reserved for a Manchester United loss. Emily came running into his room to see what had led to the outburst and saw him sitting on the bed with his computer.
"What's wrong, baby?" she asked, moving behind him and rubbing his shoulders and neck.
He pointed to the screen. "Look what they said about you," he said just a little more softly. "It's…it's…"
Emily looked at the screen. "What are you doing on a fan site?" she asked, knowing how carefully he usually avoided them.
"Cameron told me about something that he'd read. He said I wouldn't like it but thought I'd want to see it," Damian explained, mellowing under her touch.
She read over his shoulder. "There was Emily, the typical fiery Latin," then a couple paragraphs down "…Emily described the fight she'd been in the night before. 'So I told her bitch, you don't know what you're messin' with. Then I grabbed her hair and…."
"And….?" She asked Damian.
He was surprised that she wasn't upset. "That's not you," he said.
"No, but compared to some of the things that have been written about you, that's pretty mild," she said. "Why are you so upset?"
He pointed at the screen again. "Because it says typical."
She smiled resignedly. "Stereotypes are easy. A lot of people think you'd drink like a fish because you're Irish and you got a legal headstart. Some even think you'd be especially charming. Can't imagine where they'd get that idea," she said with a little laugh, trying to lighten his mood.
It didn't work though. "And then look at all of the reviews that say it's a great story," he said, still incensed.
"Is it a great story?" she asked.
"Who cares?" he asked, with his voice rising again. "The point is why would so many people who say they're my fans have a negative stereotype about Latin girls?"
She shrugged. "It's two lines in a pretty long story. I guess they just didn't notice it."
Still not mollified, Damian said "But people need to notice things like that and not let it stand. Even if they don't know about you, I've said a lot of times that my celebrity crush is Selena Gomez."
Emily's smile was saccharine. "Yes, we all know about your Selena fixation," she said. "Maybe the people on the fan site don't think she's a typical fiery Latin."
"Neither are you," Damian said.
She looked at him thoughtfully. "Actually I'm pretty close to it, though it isn't typical for us to get into hair-pulling bitch matches. But I'm curious now what you think is typical about us."
Damian returned the thoughtful look then took her in his arms. "What's typical is how lucky you and those like you make us who get to be with you feel…happy, satisfied….well, almost. I'll never stop wanting more of you. Mas Emily para Damian."
She smiled warmly at his awkward Spanglish. "You're too young to always know what to say. And you make me happy too. So who cares what someone wrote?"
"I care…" he said, his voice intensifying yet again, as he was about to resume his tirade.
"Well sure," she said quickly, "because you love me."
When she realized what she'd said she looked away. Acceptance and admission of the depth of his feelings, not to mention her own, was still an issue for her.
Damian stared at her. "Do you realize that's the first time you've said that when you were awake?" he asked wistfully.
She gave a small nod.
"Does that mean you finally believe it?"
Again Emily nodded.
"And isn't that more important than a careless comment by someone who probably is crazy about you, though not as much as I am," she added.
She pushed the laptop out of the way and lay back on the bed. "Let it go, Junior, and come here."
Damian had no intention of letting it go but he had no intention of letting it distract him right now either. He began to slowly remove Emily's clothes, caressing and tasting the newly exposed skin.
As the first soft sighs escaped her, he looked lovingly at her impassioned face.
An ironic, almost malicious thought occurred to him—"Wonder what that writer would think about what I'm… enthusiastically…doing to the 'typical fiery latin'… ahora."