“Hi, Lola, it’s Teresa. I’m one of the secretaries at Casa del Sol. I’m calling because we have an issue with your grandfather. He’s perfectly fine,” she rushed to say, “but we need you to come in.”

“What did he do?” she asked, but she knew. One of them had finally gone too far in the prank war.

“He got into a fight with another resident.”

Papo Vega. “Shit. Okay. I’m on my way.” She hung up and looked to her mom, who just waved her off.

“Go,” she said. “We’ll talk later.”

They said their goodbyes and Lola rushed out, uncaring that she was wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants and a crop top with no bra.

She arrived at Casa del Sol and was shown immediately into a familiar conference room. It was empty so she sat to wait.

A moment later the door opened again and two people were shown in, but it was not the two troublemakers she’d expected. It was Saint and Rosie.

Upon seeing Lola sitting in the chair, Saint froze, but Rosie did not. She dropped her dad’s hand and raced around the table so she could jump into Lola’s waiting arms. She wrapped her arms around Lola’s neck and squeezed with all the strength in her little arms.

Lola pulled her close and hugged her back. She hadn’t realized until that moment just how much she’d missed the weight of Rosie’s tiny body in her arms or the smell of her hair in her nose. She felt her eyes well, so she closed them. She pressed a kiss onto the side of Rosie’s head and rocked them back and forth. “Hi, sweetheart. I’ve missed you too.”

“Are you okay?” Her little voice came out muffled.

Lola leaned her head back and Rosie raised hers. She met Rosie’s eyes and stared into them. The poor thing. She’d been worried about Lola. “I’m okay, amor. Those bad guys are both in jail.”

“What about the other one, the one who sent them?”

Lola shouldn’t have been surprised at the amount of information Rosie had gleaned from the conversations she overheard. Kids were a lot smarter than people gave them credit for. “He’s going to leave me alone now.”

“How can that be?” The voice wasn’t Rosie’s but Saint’s.

Steeling herself against the sight of him, Lola turned her head.

He’d sat across from her and was leaning forward with his arms resting on the table. He looked just as gorgeous as ever with those dark eyes and lush lips. But there were dark circles under his eyes, frown lines on his forehead, and an aura of stress pouring off him.

“He’s lost interest in me.” She looked down at the table. “My dad died, so there is no one to torture by hurting me.”

“I’m sorry about your dad,” his voice was low and soft, genuine.

“We didn’t have a relationship so...” She trailed off.

“Sometimes that doesn’t matter.”

He was right. It didn’t. Benny had been talking about her dad a lot lately. Telling stories Lola had never cared to hear before. It had given her a completely different side of her dad to consider. Like too many others he’d been a young man, full of promise, who’d been failed by society at every turn. At first he’d let the bitterness and anger cloud his judgment. Then he’d begun to get a taste of success and the power that had previously been denied to him and the means of obtaining it no longer mattered. Why would he adhere to or uphold a system that did nothing for him? It was a thought Lola had many times about her own life and the battles she chose to fight.

Once she was able to make that connection between his journey and that of so many other youths, including herself, she was able to look at it without the lens of her own trauma. She began to truly mourn his death because it meant that there was no hope for redemption for him or for their relationship. That loss of opportunity was what really hurt. She’d never get to talk to him and tell him that while she understood how he’d ended up where he did, his actions had hurt her. The possibility that he would reflect, own up to his failures, and apologize to her was now gone forever. It would be a wound that she continued to carry.

“How’s Leo?” she asked, wanting to be done with the topic of her father.

“He’s getting stronger. They’re hoping to be able to do more work on his nerves soon.”

The door opened and their grandfathers entered together which was weird enough. Even more odd was that neither one looked like he’d been fighting. Add to that the fact that Maria wasn’t with them and Lola was instantly suspicious.

Saint must’ve been too, because he asked, “What’s going on?”

Instead of answering, Papo looked at Rosie and said, “Teresa has anEncantocoloring book and some M&M’s at her desk and she said she’d share with you. Why don’t you go sit with her?”

Rosie was off Lola’s lap and gone in a flash, and Lola thought she saw a look of shock on Saint’s face.

Papo closed the door behind her. Both he and Benny sat.