Chapter 2

Manolo was lying on his bed looking at his phone listening to message after message and reading text after text from Maria, even though they all said the same thing.

"Please let me explain. I love you. Please."

He shook his head and threw his phone onto the floor. As his father walked in.

"What are you doing here Mijo? I thought you, Maria, and Joaquin were going on your post win ice-cream trip."

Manolo sat up and looked at his father "I don't think we're going to be doing that anymore."

Carlos Sanchez looked at his son for a moment before he walk over and sat on the edge of his bed "What's going on?"

"I don't want to talk about it Papa." Manolo said getting out of bed as he walked into his closet to finally change out of his baseball uniform.

Carlos wasn't going to take no for an answer "Mijo...If you don't tell me what is bothering you I guess I'll just have to call your Great-Grandmother and tell her that you're keeping secrets again."

Manolo sighed and poked his head out from behind the closet door, while he loved his family his Great-Grandmother was the one woman that he feared more than his father, she wasn't harsh or mean she just had this air about her that he felt he couldn't every lie to her or else she would snap. "Maria is pregnant. She says that Joaquin might be the father."

Carlos shook his head at his son "Is that all?"

Manolo was taken aback by his father's comment "Papa, Maria slept with Joaquin, and now she's pregnant."

"Well there's a chance that the baby is yours isn't there?" his father asked.

Monolo could feel his cheeks heat up as he walked back out into the room wearing jeans and a black t-shirt with the words 'Matador Marching Band' written in white and red across the front.

"Well…yes but…she cheated on me."

Carlos stood up from and slapped a hand on his sons back "Come down stairs I have something I need to show you." Then he left the room

Manolo met his father in the kitchen a few minutes after, and found his father sitting at the kitchen table, flipping through an old yearbook.

"Sit down Mijo." His father nodded to the chair next to him and Manolo sat, as his father pointed out a picture in the yearbook. "Do you know who this is?"

"Mama." Manalo said, as Carlos shook his head.

"I meant the man next to your mother."

Manolo took a moment to carefully study the man that stood next to his mother in the photo, there was something slightly familiar about him but it took him awhile before it finally clicked "Isn't that Captain Mondragon? Joaquin's dad?"

Carlos nodded "Now read what it says under the photo."

Manolo focuses in on the winding script under the picture "'High School Sweethearts. Carmen Velazquez and Tomas Mondragon '"

"Tomas was my best friend. He dated your mother all throughout high school."

Manolo pushed the book back towards his father "What does this have to do with me?"

Carlos flipped a few pages and then turned it back towards his son "Our senior prom."

Manolo looked down and saw a picture of the San Angel High School Royal court from his father's senior year. "You and Mama were Prom King and Queen?"

His father nodded "And the dance that we shared that night. Proved to me that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, but I knew that it would never work out because she was so happy with Tomas." A look of confusion came over his sons face before he continued "it was then that Tomas joined the Army and was sent off to boot camp. After he left is when your mother and I found each other again."

"Mama cheated on Captain Mondragon with you?" Manolo said in shock.

"Yes, and when she finally got to explain it to him when he got back on leave he was only mad for a while. Situation sound familiar?"

"Papa, my situation is different. Maria slept with my best friend and could be pregnant with his child." Manolo said.

Carlos shook his head "You don't get it Mijo. Your mother and I were forgiven, even though what we did wasn't right. Tomas let us explain why and he understood why it happened, and we were still friends."

Manolo bit his lip, in defeat "I guess I should call her back and let her explain then?"

Carlos nodded "That sounds like a good idea Mijo."

…

Maria's phone rang, and she broke away from Joaquin long enough to see who it was.

"It's Manolo." She said in shock. "I can't talk to him."

Joaquin held out his hand "Let me talk to him." She handed him her phone and he answered as he walked out of the room.

From the living room she could barely hear what he was saying and only had the silence of Manolo's answer on the other end.

"She doesn't want to talk with you."

Silence

"Manolo, listen to me. She. Doesn't. Want. To. Talk. To. You."

Silence

"I know because, I'm with her right now."

Silence.

Joaquin walked back into the room and handed Maria her phone back.

"What did he say?" she asked wringing her hands together.

He shook his head "He wouldn't say unless, I had you talk to him. But let's forget about that and start figuring out what we need to do from this point on."

Maria nodded, as the two of them began to talk about the next steps they needed to talk.