THEN CAME YOU

Chapter Three: A Day in the Life of Jesse De Silva

Adam

"So, let me see if I get this straight." I said to my very young padawan, a. k. a. my brother. "If you want to go out with Hailey you gotta get a date for her sister?"

"Yeah, can you help me? I mean, you know Suze, right?"

"Yeah I know her. That's why I'm telling you there is not a chance in hell you'll get a date for her. Not with someone from the Mission. I mean, she's nice and all but you most people don't stick around to figure that out first. Plus, the only reason why she's nice to me is because I'm not trying to get into her pants."

"But… but, couldn't you, like, just ask her?"

"No can do. You know I'm in love." I said and was just my luck that my lady love chose to walk by just at that moment.

"Hi, Adam." CeeCee said smiling at me.

"Hi, Cee." I said and before I could say something witty or funny she walked away.

I must have been staring at the empty space for quite a while after she was gone because Alan taped on my shoulder and went "Do us all a favor and ask her out already."

I grunted something in response.

"Anyway, back to my problem, what can I do?"

"Well, why don' you try with the new guy? He isn't aware of Suze's reputation as a ball buster; he might bite and ask her out."

"New guy?"

"Yeah, he transferred from CVHS."

"Good, good, what should I tell him?"

"I don't know, think for yourself."

"Since when has that worked?"

I shook my head and left my baby brother, I was late for Home Economics and I get to sit near CeeCee at that class.

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Suze (days later)

There he was, the source of my daily-Spanish-torture, talking on the pay phone outside the Mission's parking lot.

"But you said it would be ready today! I was counting on it." A pause. "Yeah, well that's not good enough. Fine, that's just peachy! Tomorrow is fine." He hanged up the phone a little viciously and cursed in Spanish a little.

"Hey, Sailor, need a ride?" I asked, truly I was just trying to mock him. I didn't' expect him to really consider the offer.

Jesse-smart-pants-de-Silva looked at his watch with a troubled expression. "It might take a LONG while. Do you have time?"

"Um..." I said, the guy really looked like he needed to be somewhere else and not in the Mission's parking lot. "Sure, I got time."

I'm so good sometimes...

"Thanks!" Jesse said like he meant it and smiled to me, a real smile not his usual sardonic "You're so dumb because the only word you know in Spanish is Taco" smile that he was always giving me.

My heart did the weirdest thing then. When he smiled, I mean. It did this weird flip inside my chest... so so weird. And then he got in my car and I blushed like a school girl.

"All set?" I asked since I had nothing else to say. "Where are we going?"

He directed me as we drove. To my surprise he wasn't sarcastic or anything about my driving skills and, lets face it, I'm not the world's best driver. We drove to the valley and I was very surprised when we stopped at the Carmel Valley Elementary School.

There he got out of the car and motioned for me to do the same.

"Jesse!" A little voice cried and this cute and adorable dark haired little girl flung herself at Jesse who caught her and pulled her up in his arms. "You're late!"

"I'm sorry, Mapi. Mom's car is still in the shop and I had to catch a ride." Jesse explained very patiently.

"You're late!" Another two little voices cried.

"I know." Jesse grunted and put Mapi down, and took her backpack and then the ones that the other two girls were carrying. "Susannah," he said and the three girls turned to see me at once, they all had dark hair and eyes. "These are some of my sisters, Josie, Tess and Mapi. Girls, this is Susannah, a classmate of mine, she was kind enough to give me a ride here."

The three girls started to talk at once. By the time we got back in the car –Jesse took the keys for me and said it was easier if he did the driving since he knew the way around the Valley and I didn't – I had learned that Jesse had five sisters, ages between 16 and 6. The oldest one was Martha and then Mercedes; they were both in high school and rode the bus back to their house. Josie was in the sixth grade, Tess in the fourth and little Mapi, the baby of the family, was in the first grade and Jesse picked them up at school three times a week when their mom was busy at her work – Mrs. De Silva was a nurse.

Fifteen minutes later we were pulling into a nice, big house. The lawn was perfectly mowed and the house had recently been given a coat of powdery-blue paint and the windowsills, door and fence with gleaming white paint. It was at least as big as my own house only that on a working class neighborhood, still there was something endearing about that house; like you could tell a family lived there.

Jesse and the girls got out of the car and I did the same because it seemed the only thing I could do, and I followed them into the house. It was nice and comfy inside. Jesse carried the three backpacks upstairs while the girls went around the house opening the windows to let the fresh air in.

"Jesse's going to make burgers in the grill outside." Tess informed me as she walked in with a tray with cool lemonade. "Do you want to stay?"

"I wouldn't want to intrude…" I began to say but Jesse's voice cut me off.

"Is the least we can do, you really helped me today…" I turned to see Jesse, to tell him that I should really get home because Andy, my stepfather, throws a fit if we are not there in time for dinner, but just as I was getting ready to say this I saw that Jesse had changed, he was wearing these comfortable looking jeans and a white t-shirt that in contrast with his olive skin made him look utterly HOT.

"Um… I guess that I if I call home…" Before I could finish my sentence Josie was thrusting the phone in my hand and Tess was tugging at my other hand to make me sit down in the couch.

Jesse just smiled and went into the back yard. Then Mapi came running carrying a big photo book. "Want to see Jesse's embarrassing baby pictures?" She asked eagerly as she sat down next to me and put the photo book in my lap – the cover read 'Jesse'. Then she added. "There is one really good one of him running around in the garden wearing nothing but a smile."

So I spent the whole afternoon at Casa de Silva. It was funny seeing Jesse there, he acted completely different than what he acted at school. At the Mission he was always so irritating, acting all confident and know-it-all and even smug. At his house Jesse was nothing like that, he was very laid back and let his younger sisters tease him and make fun of him – though at the same time you could tell all five of them loved and respected him.

I also got to meet Mrs. De Silva, she was – like her son and daughters – dark haired and brown eyed, but very pretty in the Hispanic/latin way, and had a wicked sense of humor and laughed easily. She was clearly proud of each and every one of her children. Mr. De Silva and Mrs. De Silva had come from Spain about twenty years ago but after their divorce, Mr. De Silva had chose to return to Spain while Mrs. De Silva and the kids chose to remain at Carmel.

Jesse was the man of the house, and took his part seriously. Like he would help his sisters with their homework and did the house repairs and helped his mom taking care of the girls. He was the kind of guy who would do anything for his mom, but he wasn't, like Kirk in the Gilmore Girls or anything of the sort. He had gotten in trouble once or twice before, right after the divorce of his parents he had fallen in with the wrong crown.

Martha told me that he had had a run in or two with the Carmel P. D. but he snapped out of it and had been a real trooper since, helping Mrs. De Silva and all that. Mercedes told me Jesse was really smart and that was why Father Dominic had been able to get him a scholarship to the Mission Academy. Tess and Josie informed me that Jesse wanted to be a doctor and was applying to Stanford University so he could still be within the State and close enough to home in case of emergency.

By the time I left the De Silva's house I knew more about Jesse than what I ever could have imagined. Like, seriously, it was as if his sister's where trying to cast him in the most positive light they could so I would think the best of him. And I was more than a little surprised when, as I said goodbye, Mapi came to me and said. "I think you're as pretty as Maria, and I like you better."

I was completely puzzled by this but then Jesse walked me to my car – my mom's old Honda Accord – and began to explain which was the quickest and safest way back to the hills so I was paying attention and I forgot to ask him who Maria was.

I shouldn't have worried about that… I would find out soon enough.

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Notes:

Meh, I'm lazy… but I didn't want to go so long without updating so here's a little chapter. I don't know how I feel about it but Maria is showing up in the next chapter, so are the other characters like Paul coughfeetluvacough, Alan and Hailey

Thanks for reading.

Cute but Psycho,

Clavie.