Stef walked over from the dining room and into the hallway, yelling up the stairs, "Dinner's ready! Can everyone get your butts down here so that we can eat, please!"

Lena stared at her wife disapprovingly, which Stef didn't seem to mind. "What? I'm starving," she answered almost innocently, causing for her wife to smile and shake her head.

Seconds later a trail of kids started coming down, "Mama, what'd you make?"

"Mama didn't make anything. I did," Stef informed her.

"So, spaghetti?" Jesus said with an obviously unenthusiastic tone.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it is," she said casually. "…You know, you used to love my spaghetti, remember that?" Stef asked playfully.

"Yeah, the first thousand times you made it," Brandon chimed in.

"Hey!" Stef argued. "Now what are you kids trying to say?"

Jesus made a straight face.

"Do you not love my cooking?" Stef asked. "Because you can go upstairs and I can gladly eat what's on your plates," she told them, knowing fully well what that meant.

"No," Brandon answered quickly. "We do."

Stef smiled, "Wise answer, my son."

"We just wish you'd make something else," Jesus mumbled before him and his siblings disappeared into the kitchen.

Stef turned back to face Lena, "I cook other things. I don't–" she squinted her eyes to show that she really didn't understand what her children were referring to.

"Yes, you do," Lena agreed. "Rarely, but you do."

"This is why I prefer not to cook for you people," Stef answered seriously but still jokingly, causing for Lena to smile.

"What are we having?" Lux asked when she appeared in the kitchen later than everyone else.

"Mom cooked, so guess?" Jesus asked.

Stef grabbed a bread roll and tossed it at his face, causing for the others to smile.

"Spaghetti," Lux said with a nod.

"I have an idea, why don't Jesus and Lux cook us dinner from now on?" the cop suggested to the rest of her family.

"Oh God, please no," Mariana begged. "I think I'd rather die."

Jude and Callie smiled.

Lux made her way over to take a seat next to Mariana. "Hey, what happened to you today?" Mariana decided to ask the girl, causing for Lena and Stef's heads to rise.

"I came home early," Lux responded casually.

"Well, duh," Mariana concluded. "But why?" The teen proceeded to question as she twirled the spaghetti around in her plate.

"Um, I wasn't feeling well."

"You looked fine to me," Mariana made an observation. "Did something happen?"

Stef was beginning to wonder why Mariana felt that she could ask Lux these questions when she couldn't.

"Oh, well you missed a lot," Mariana felt the need to point out. "A fight broke out in gym between Heather and Kelsey that was hysterical. It seemed that Kelsey was dating Heather's boyfriend behind her back, well Kelsey claimed she didn't know about them dating, which we all know isn't true, but Heather found out from Caitlyn and kicked Kesley's a–"

"Mariana," Lena interjected to keep the girl from using foul language.

"I was going to say butt," Mariana pointed out.

"Sure you were," Callie answered sarcastically.

"But anyway, most of the teachers seemed really chill. The new one, Mr. Daniels, major hottie by the way. I can see why you hired him Mama."

"I didn't hire him," Lena defended honestly. That was Monte's doing.

Lux uncomfortably shoved some food in her mouth and kept her gaze down as Mariana spoke.

"Well, whatever, he's got to be the most adorable guy on the planet. Every girl in class was practically drooling over him. Even Callie thought he was cute and she doesn't like anyone."

"He seems like a nice guy," Lena acknowledged. "And he has a girlfriend so I'm not too worried about him."

Lux chewed her food slowly as she watched Lena. The blonde wanted so badly to ask more about what else he said, but knew it would have been too suspicious to do so.

"How serious is it?" Mariana questioned, causing for Stef to shoot her a look.

"Seriously?" the cop asked her daughter.

"What?" Mariana continued innocently. "I'm just curious."

If only you knew, Lux thought to herself as she chewed quietly on her food.

Lena smiled. "It's his first teaching position, so I'm just hoping we don't run into any issues. A lot of teachers, when they start out early, tend to make the mistake of becoming pushovers. They let the students get away with everything."

"Speaking from experience?" Callie asked her mom.

Lena nodded her head, "A matter of fact, I am. It took me quite a while to figure out that my laziest students were taking advantage of my willingness to help them. I didn't fully realize this until... About two yea-"

"Never," Stef chimed in, causing for all of them to laugh.

"That's not true," Lena attempted to inform them. "I used to be much nicer... The point is that when I finally realized what was going on; it was that much harder to get them to take me seriously, than if I had demanded their cooperation from the beginning."

"Mr. Daniels seems cool though," Mariana tilted her head. "Only thing was that he gave us homework already. So I don't think he's like you, Mama."

"Well I'm glad," Lena admitted.

Lux seemed so relived when she was finally allowed to be excused from the table. She felt extremely uncomfortable as they were talking about Eric and calling him Mr. Daniels...

The image of her mother's face when Mariana simply showed interest in him was now like a poster plastered in her mind.

And to make matters worse, Eric still hadn't texted her back.

Was he seriously about to throw away everything we had built over the last few months because of a couple of years of age difference? Lux kept asking herself.

She never thought that he'd be like that.

He was the one that told her that she had to fight for what she wanted.

Why wasn't he doing the same?

Why was he being such a hypocrite?

She grabbed her phone from the nightstand and plopped herself down on her bed.

Are you really going to ignore me now? she typed and sent the message.

She stared at the screen intently waiting for some sort of reply.

If he was mad, she at least wanted to know that.

Anything was better than what she was getting.

After about five minutes, she placed the phone, screen down, on the nightstand.

He wasn't going to answer.

Lux felt her bedroom door open slowly and Mariana coming in.

"You could've knocked," the blonde informed her.

Mariana ignored her and closed the door all the way before turning around to face her. "When were you going to tell me?"

Lux felt her heart skip a beat.

"...Tell you what?" She tried to say casually but the pause right before gave her nervousness away."

Mariana pursed her lips and gave her a serious face. "Um, Mr. Daniels," she answered as if she could read it all over her sister.

"Mr. Daniels?" Lux attempted to sound confused. "What about him?"

"…He's Minnesota."

Lux eyes widened and Mariana opened her mouth in surprise.

"Oh my God! He is!" she smiled and tried so badly not to laugh. "I knew you weren't still dating a guy name Bug!"

Lux didn't want to say anything that gave her away, but it was obviously too late for that. "–How did you–"

"Uh, well let's see," Mariana began casually, "Your reaction when I told you his name at the school…you bolted like your freakin' pants were on fire or something… He told us that he was from Minnesota at school, and how many other people do you meet in California that come from Minnesota?" she asked as she made a disgusted face after she said the state. "And you totally gave yourself away by the look on your face when Lena said he had a girlfriend and when I pretended to have an interest in him at school..."

Lux remained silent as she tried to think of what to say.

Oh my God! This is so funny," Mariana smiled as she put her hand up to her mouth.

"It's not," Lux tried to assure her. "And you can't tell anyone," she whispered. "No one can know about this."

"What do you think, I'm stupid?" Mariana asked her. "Moms would kill you."

"I know," Lux admitted when she thought about how Stef might react. Nothing she pictured seemed good.

"Mike would kill him," Mariana concluded.

Lux closed her eyes, not wanting to picture either of her parents ever finding out.

"You know you could've told me, right?" the brunette chose to inform her, causing for Lux to open her eyes again. "I'm not Callie..."

"I know," she rationalized. Lux did gravitate towards Mariana more since she was a lot more alike than her and Callie were. "But you can't tell her."

"I won't. I swear," Mariana gave in. She knew that it was going to be difficult, being that she told Callie practically everything now. "... But what does this mean? Are you two still going to date now that he's… your teacher?" she whispered the last two words. I mean, no offense but that's kind of weird," the teen admitted.

Lux took in a deep breath and went silent again.

He wasn't technically her teacher.

He couldn't be her teacher.

There had to have been some way to fix this.

"He didn't know he was going to be your teacher did he?" Mariana asked.

"He didn't know I was still in high school," the blonde confessed embarrassingly.

"What?" Mariana's face fell.

Lux sighed.

"Well, he knows now," Mariana pointed out nonchalantly.

Lux bit her lip.

"Have you tried talking to him? Seeing him?"

"He won't answer my texts and I can't leave," Lux rationalized. She couldn't stay home from school on account of being sick and suddenly say she was going to Tasha's place.

Stef would never let her.

"Well, you see him tomorrow right? Talk to him then," Mariana told her. She could tell that the blonde seemed a little more than upset. And even though she didn't like the idea of Lux and Eric, something about seeing someone who's basically forbidden seemed almost romantic to Mariana. And she didn't like seeing her sister appear so down.

"Why are you so cool about this?" Lux asked suspiciously.

"Cause I don't blame you," Mariana admitted. "That man is fine," she concluded resulting in Lux shaking her head at her and smiling.

To be continued…