I swallow the lump of emotion that wells in my throat as I consider the answer to that question and wonder what the best way to explain it is, because to simply answer yes doesn’t feel like enough. “You know the way that you look at Papi when he comes home from work?” I say instead. “I used to think the two of you were soppy and romantic. I could never have imagined being so excited to see someone who I had only seen a few hours earlier.”
“Hey,” she narrows her eyes at me and laughs.
“Now I get it though. Jax makes me feel like that, Mom. Like my heart will burst if I don’t see him. He makes me feel like I can conquer the world.”
“Oh dear,” she says softly, shaking her head.
“What?”
“I think your father is going to have to learn to accept you and Jax pretty soon. But be careful, sweetheart—you are wise beyond your years, but Jackson is a lot older and more experienced than you.”
“You were a virgin when you married Papi,” I remind her.
She arches an eyebrow at me. “I’m not talking about that kind of experience.”
“Oh.” I blush to the roots of my hair. I have just admitted to my mom that I’m having sex with Jackson Decker. I mean, she obviously knew that, but still.
She smiles. “You can talk to me about anything, sweetheart. You know that, right?”
“Yes.” Before Jax, I did talk to her about this kind of stuff. She was the person I called that time I couldn’t get my diaphragm out, and also when some idiot frat boy told me my ass was too fat right after we’d had sex, which had been the most disappointing sex of my life even before he said that.
“Good.” She wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Everything will be okay. I promise.”