You Had Me at Hola(83)

“No, I’m taking the next steps for my life and my career.”

Ignacio actually laughed at that. “Really? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like running away.”

Ashton paused with a bundle of folded gym shorts in his hands. Co?o, his father was right. Ever since the Incident, Ashton had let fear control his actions. He’d been reactive instead of proactive.

Until he’d met Jasmine. She’d coaxed him out of his shell. With her, he’d made his own choices from a place of wanting something and going after it, instead of being afraid of something and avoiding it.

Someone else knocked on the door.

“Ah.” Ignacio braced his hands on his knees and stood. “They’re here.”

Ashton’s brow furrowed as his father made his way to the door. “Who’s here?”

In response, Ignacio opened the door and stepped back to admit Abuelito Gus, Abuelita Bibi, and Yadiel.

Ashton bit back a sigh and resisted the urge to scrub his hands over his face. Or hide in the bathroom. He knew an intervention when he saw one.

He met his father’s grin with a grimace. “This is an ambush,” he said in English.

Ignacio shrugged and shut the door. “You had it coming. Now, siéntate.”

Ashton hurried to clear space so his family could sit comfortably. Yadiel immediately tried to climb over the back of the couch, but stopped at his great-grandmother’s stern glance.

“?Quieres volver al hospital?” she asked, eyeing the sling he still wore on his left arm.

“No, Abuelita Bibi.” Yadiel pouted, but he sat his butt on the sofa.

Once Ashton sat too, his father got right to the point. “I’m going back to Puerto Rico.”

Ashton nodded. “Okay. We’ll all go back together.”

But Ignacio was shaking his head. “No. You’re staying here. And so is Yadiel.”

Ashton’s brow creased, but he opened his arms when Yadiel bolted to him and climbed in his lap. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re not done here,” Ignacio said. “And I want to put more time into the restaurant, get it back to what it used to be before Maria.”

“I am done. There won’t be a season two of Carmen.”

Ignacio shrugged. “So what? There will be something else. You’ll either be here or in Los Angeles. You’re not going back to Miami or telenovelas.”

Ashton resisted the urge to roll his eyes, tamping down the petulance his father still sometimes managed to bring out in him. “You can’t know that.”

Abuelita Bibi spoke up then, without looking up from her knitting. “I know that.”

Abuelito Gus nodded, a firm believer in his wife’s “feelings.” Ashton, who’d been down this road before, didn’t bother to argue.

“So why is Yadiel staying here?” Ashton asked, and a grimy little hand pressed to the side of his face.

“Because I want to,” Yadiel replied, like Duh, most obvious answer in the world.

“Yadi, you have school—” Ashton started, but his son interrupted him with a shrug that was so much like Ignacio’s, Ashton fought a grimace.

“School is overrated,” the boy said. “I want to be homeschooled. You know, you can do it all online now, and in fewer hours of the day. It sounds like a way better deal.”

Clearly this argument had been rehearsed. “Won’t you miss your friends?”

“Well, yeah, but I can still go visit them, right? And make new ones.”

Ashton swallowed hard. How had he ended up with such a well-adjusted kid? He looked to his father, who likely deserved all the credit.

“This isn’t a normal life for a child,” Ashton warned. “Are you sure?”

“Daaaaad,” Yadiel said, which was how Ashton knew he was being outmaneuvered. Yadi had picked up the drawn out “Dad” habit from some Nickelodeon show, and he used it whenever he wanted to imply Ashton was being an idiot. “I’m not a baby anymore.”

“Everyone already knows about him,” Ignacio pointed out. “Your career is about to take off, and you won’t have time to fly to Puerto Rico every weekend. You can get tutors and a nanny. And if I can spend more time at the restaurant, we won’t need help.”

He meant financial help. Ashton knew it pricked his father’s pride to accept money.

But his family was bigger than just his father and son. Ashton turned to his grandparents. “And you?” he asked them. “What do you two want?”

They exchanged a glance, then Abuelita Bibi announced, “We’ll be staying with you.”

“Part of the time,” Abuelito Gus amended. “We’ve spent our whole lives in Puerto Rico, and we like traveling. But we also want to be around Yadi while we can.”

Ashton’s heart constricted. They meant while they were alive.

“What do you say, Papi?” Yadiel pulled on Ashton’s neck with his good arm. “Can I live with you?”

And as Ashton looked down into his little boy’s dark, shining eyes, he was hit with the realization that Yadiel wasn’t a little boy anymore. He was almost nine. Ashton had missed a lot during those years, and he didn’t want to miss any more.

Jasmine had been right. He couldn’t have it both ways. If he wanted the fame, he had to come to terms with being more visible. If he wanted to keep his private life completely private, then he couldn’t be a celebrity. The two just didn’t mesh.