Jesus POV
Flashback
Augusts 30th
Brandon and I were sitting in the living room, playing some racing game on our Xbox. Tomorrow he is flying out to NY to start college, so we are just hanging out before he leaves.
"It's going to be so weird without you. I never thought I would say this, but - I'm going to miss you!" I admit while we were playing the game
"You will have more hot water" Brandon joked staying on a positive note
"Why did you have to chose Julliard? Couldn't you go to college somewhere closer, so you could come home more often?" I ask when I drive pass him in the game
"Because it's one of the best schools. It's the best school for me. Opportunity like this comes around once in a life time. Besides, it's not like I'm not going to come home. I will come home as often as I can. If you are going to miss my face, we can always Skype" He chuckles at the end
"I know..." I reply slowly, knowing and understanding why he is going to college on the other side of the USA "I'm just saying it will be weird without you. I will be the only man in the house"
"That's not true" Brandon said concentrating on the game "Jude will be here as well"
"He's only here temporary" I reply quietly and briefly glance to him
"You were here temporary as well" B comments quietly
"You think moms will adopt him?" I ask curiously briefly glancing to him on the other side of the couch
"Anything is possible. Maybe it's just me, but..."He trails off and stops in half sentence
"But what?"
"They are both looking at him the way they looked at you two when you first got here" He said and then called out in a whiny tone "Ahh, man! Again!?" B leaned back in the couch after he lost the race, he runs his left hand over his face in frustration
"Another race?" I suggest after few seconds of silence. But Brandon ignores my questions and holds out the controller.
"Jude, wanna play?" He asks looking at the doorway. My head instantly snaps to the doorways and I see him shyly standing there. I hadn't noticed him walking in. I had no idea how long he has been standing there and how much of our conversation he heard.
"Can I?" He asks warily
"Sure, maybe you can beat Jesus! He is always winning, we wouldn't want him to become arrogant" Brandon said smirking at me. He then extended his arm even more so Jude would come and get the controller.
When he comes closer to the couch, Brandon and I both scooted to the sides to let him sit in the middle. Jude takes the remote and sits down between us "I have never played anything like this"
"It's easy" I say placing my remote on my lap and I show him which buttons on the remote he has to use "This is gas and break...with this you steer...this is speed boost, this is handbrake!"
"Go easy on him Jesus till he learns how to control it" Brandon says sounding like a real big brothers
"Which track you want?" I ask starting a new game
Jude looks to me with big eyes. I know that look. Mariana and I used to have the same look. It's the typical foster kid look, which tell us exactly how surprised the foster kid is that someone asks him what he wants to do. Usually foster kids don't have much choice, we just do what we are told and keep our mouths shut, so we don't get into more trouble.
"Go on!" Brandon nudges him softly. After some minute or two, Jude finally picks a track.
"And now comes the hard part" I said with a big grin as I enter the next menu screen "You need to chose your car"
Jude's mouth drops in surprise when he sees the car choices "I can take whichever I want?" His eyes were fixated on the screen as he went over the options
"Yeah, whichever you want" I said picking my car
In the end, we played the game for more than 4 hours. Brandon and I switched after every race, but Jude always stayed as the second player. You could tell that this simple gesture, that we allowed him to play with us, made him truly happy. The little smile on Jude's lips was everything Lena needed to allow us to play the game till late night.
End of flashback
I toss the controller to the couch as frustration took over. Playing with computer was stupid, I needed Jude to be the second player. But Jude was not here, he was spending the whole week with his sister. I haven't seen him in for 4 days and I already miss him. The house felt empty without him. And this was our fault, we drove him away.
After I turn off the X-box and TV screen, I head upstairs to Mariana's room. Her bedroom doors were open, I knock on the doorframe and enter the room. Mariana was on her bed, her laptop was placed over her legs. By the brief look to the screen I could tell she was once again coding some program.
"Hey!" I say casually as I walk in
"I'm busy, Jesus! I need to fix this error I keep getting. What do you want?" She replied quickly not taking her eyes off the screen
"We need to go apologize to Callie...and Jude" I said placing my hands in my jeans pockets. That got Mariana's attention. She looked up to me and took off her glasses.
"They aren't talking to us, remember! We already tried calling them both billion times, they are not picking up!" Mariana said closing her laptop
"Then we make them talk to us! If Jude sees that Callie forgave us, he will forgive us as well. We need to start with Callie!"
"What are you thinking?"
"We go to her work. If she would be our waitress, she would have to talk to us, right?" I suggest and wait for Mariana to comment on my idea
"That's...actually not a bad idea" Mariana said after a little while. She placed her laptop on the bed and stood up "But moms took away our licensees and I'm not sure that we can manage to walk there, eat and get back till our curfew at 7" I looked to the clock on her nightstand that read 4:52 PM.
"If we tell them that we are going to see Callie, they have to allow us to go, right? If we can't drive ourselves, one of them will drive us. I'm sure of it!"
"You are probably right. Let me do the talking!" Mariana said walking pass me. I spin around and follow her as we head to talk to moms.
When we enter the restaurant, we are almost immediately greeted by a waitress.
"Welcome to Dorado's Voce Del Mare. Table for 2?" She asks and takes two menu's from the small table
"Yes, please" I reply. Then we are taken to table by the window that overlooked the street. By the looks, it was the only empty table in here.
When she extended her arm towards me, holding the menu, I stop her as politely and kindly as I can "I'm sorry, but...could we be served by another waitress - Callie Jacob? Nothing against you!" I smile at the waitress "We just know her and would like to talk to her, if that's possible"
"Um.." She takes her hand back and speaks slowly with a perplexed facial expression "...Okay, I will go get her!"
Callie POV
I was leaning at the counter by the kitchen, while I was waiting for the cook to finish the two dishes for two of my customers.
"Hey, Callie!" Tina, another waitress in the restaurant walks up to me
I turn to her, while still leaning to the counter with my left side "Hmm?" I hum back
"Table 9 was asking for you" She said pointing her thumb over her shoulder to the table
"Asking for me? Why?" I ask leaning off the counter to peak a look by her shoulder
"They said they want you to serve them. Wouldn't even take the menu's from me" Tina said shrugging back and handed me two menus
"You know them?" Tina asks me when I mutter to my self – crap
"Yeah...kind of"
"Friends of yours?"
"No! Not even close" I grab the menu's from Tina and head over to the table
"Welcome to Dorado's Voce Del Mare" I say to the twins in a very flat voice. They both say thanks when I place the menus on the table. Mariana even smiles up to me. I don't return the smile.
"Can I get you any drink while you chose?" I ask taking my notepad and pen out to write down their order
"Can we talk?" Mariana asks me instead
"No!" I state firmly "Tea maybe or some juice?" I re-ask to clarify
"No, thank you" This time Jesus replies "Please, just for a minute" He begged
"I will come back in a short time to take your order" I place the things back in my apron and walk away from their table
While I was attending Jesus and Mariana's table, the dishes for table 3 were ready. I carry the food to the table and before I return to the twins table I take orders from table 1.
I once again take out the notepad and pen, when I am by the twins table "Have you decided?"
"Callie" Mariana blurred out "We are terribly sorry for how we treated you the other day!"
"About everything!" Jesus added quickly "The stuff we said...it was very mean and uncalled for. I think we just got really protective" Mariana cleared her throat and Jesus rephrased what he just said "Over-protective. We spoke about things we didn't have a single clue about."
"We made assumptions and judged you before even getting to know you, we didn't even give you a chance. And we regret that deeply!" Mariana said not taking her eyes off me "Not only we hurt you, but we hurt Jude as well. And we feel terrible about it. Can you please forgive us?"
"Are you going to order or not?" I ask ignoring their apology completely
"Please, can you just...talk to us?" Mariana begged, blinking her brown eyes at me
"I am at work! I have a job to do! I can't stand around and chat with people whenever I like! I don't even know why am I talking about jobs with you. It's not like you have any idea what it is like to have one!" It came out more harsher than I intended, but I don't apologize. I don't simply don't have time to just stand around and chat right now.
I shift in my stand and ask them again "Are you going to order or not!? I have other customers waiting for me!"
"I will have pasta" Jesus says pointing to the menu "And orange juice..."
"What size? 350ml or 500ml?" I ask writing down his order
"350" Jesus says closing the menu and pushing it toward me at the table side
"I will have the tomato soup, please" Mariana says pointing to it on the menu
"No drink?"
"No, thank you" She says handing me the menu
When I reach for the menu's, I suddenly got really mad and upset with them, as the events from Friday came back to me. So before I leave, I mutter to them in a harsh tone "Aren't you surprised that the waitress can actually write? I did after all finish a public high school...it's not like they teach stuff like that in the public schools"
Mariana's face drops once I say that. She instantly looks guilty and no longer can look to me in the eye. Her eyes drops to the table while Jesus just looks to me like a puppy who was left out of the house in the rain.
After some 25 minutes I deliver their meals. I bite my lip to not say anything mean and out of place "Sorry for the wait, it is very busy here today"
"Don't worry about it" Mariana answers as she pulls her dish a bit closer to her. Jesus smiles up to me as I place his dish in front of him.
Some 20 minutes later I walk up to them to get their empty dishes.
"Can we have the check please?" Jesus asks politely. I was surprised he didn't snap his finger in the air to get my attention.
"Will you want to recalculate the prices yourself? Should I bring the menu's back for that?" I ask holding the two dishes in my hand
"What...why?" He asks back confused
"You know...I'm a criminal after all. Maybe I will just rip you off if you allow me to sum the prices. You can never know. Once a criminal - always a criminal, right?" I say very casually and look to Jesus when I deliver the last line. Jesus shifts in his seat uncomfortable as he was the one who said that line to me on Friday.
"No, thank you...we know you will do your job right" He tries to say that with certainty and I can tell he was being very careful so he doesn't insult me again
"Are you sure? You can never fully trust a criminal...especially if you don't know what their field of specialty is"
"Yes, we are sure" Mariana said and once again smiled warily up to me. I fake a smile back before I head away.
I bring them their check and walk away for 5 minutes till they pay it. When I see them get up, I head back to the table to get the money. I have no doubt in my mind, there will be no tip for me. But I am surprised to see that they leave a tip worth almost the same amount of their check sum.
I grab the money and call after them. The twins stop at the doors and turns back to me. I stomp towards them and hand them the 20 dollar bill that was left as a tip.
"I don't need your fucking money! If you think you can buy an apology for me you are dead wrong!" I say as I press the 20 dollar bill to Jesus chest
"It's a tip! We can leave whatever we want to leave!" He argues back, Mariana nods her head back
"Oh really?" I ask amused and let out a frustrated scoff "Please entertain me and tell me how ofter do you leave a 20 dollars tip?"
Both of them just blink back at me and remain silent.
"That's right, you don't! You probably have never left a bigger tip than 1 dollar. So take your stupid money, that you are using to try and buy an apology and get lost! Oh, and just so you know – I actually do earn enough to provide for myself and Jude!" I press the dollar bill more to his chest and let go of it. Jesus grabs the bill so it doesn't fall down.
"DESPITE WHAT YOU THINK, I AM JUDE'S FAMILY! I AM HIS SISTER!" I said loudly and sternly, but not so loud that it would the other customer attention. I shot them a look before I turn around and storm back to the counter, leaving both of them behind me.
As I place the money away, I peak a look over my shoulder to see if they are gone. I see them both standing on the street as they zip up their jackets.
Please just leave – I think to myself as I continue to look at them on the street. They walk over to the bus stop and sit down on the bench. The bus should be here any minute now. With that thought I continue to do my job and head to the other customers.
Little after 8, when my shift ended, I head out of the restaurant. I didn't get far, because I saw the twins still sitting on the bench, by the bus stop.
They waited for me, till my shift ended. That was some dedication, I have to give them credit for that. That gesture told me that they truly felt guilty. They probably won't leave me alone till I forgive them or at least actually talk to them, not just snap at them time by time.
I couldn't believe I was actually doing this. I sight to myself, place my hands in my jacket pockets and head over to the bench. They both look up to me, when I stand in front of them. It was a cold night, Mariana looked like she was really cold. her lips were turning blue. She was pressed close to Jesus side, who had his hand around his sister. He was shivering as well.
"...Follow me" I tell both of them. They both get up and follow me down the street, without saying anything.