Page 115 of The Jack*ss in Class

Abuela took my hand and kept me in my seat as the others joined the boys to set up the game night.

“Do you think I wouldn’t recognize my granddaughter’s heart in those pages?” Abuela asked, giving me no quarter. At my startled look, she laughed. “Oh, Tempestina. I’ve known since your first book. The way you nailed Catalina and her bossiness. The way you described the food that Ophelia, I mean Pheobe, makes for her hockey player in the second book? Pure Navarro. And your wise, fabulous grandmother giving love advice while making tamales? I believe I recognize that advice.”

Heat rushed to my face. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“For the same reason you didn’t tell me,” she said simply. “You needed that part of yourself to be yours alone, until you were ready to share it.”

I stared at her, processing this. “I thought everyone would be ashamed. Mamá is going to be so disappointed. Romance novels are?—”

“Joy,” Abuela interrupted firmly. “They are joy and hope and the promise that everyone deserves love. Even girls who look like us, who take up space, who have curves and opinions and don’t fit into little boxes.”

“That’s why I wrote them,” I admitted, the truth I’d never fully acknowledged to myself finally finding voice. “Because growing up, I never saw heroines who looked like me. Who felt like me.”

“And now, thousands of girls all around the world do. Just like Latino men and Latina women saw themselves in the Agent Jaguar books your Abuelo wrote.” Abuela’s eyes gleamed with unshed tears and fierce pride. “Representation matters and you have made so many people feel seen, even as you have hidden.”

Something shifted inside me, a weight I’d been carrying for so long I’d forgotten it was there. My writing wasn’t something shameful. It was something powerful. Something necessary.

“I don’t want to hide myself anymore. I need to face them,” I said, the decision crystallizing with unexpected clarity. “Mamá and Papá, and the girls.”

“Yes, you do.” Abuela nodded approvingly.

I glanced across the room to where Flynn was laughing with his brothers, his entire face lit with joy. Something tightened in my chest, not anxiety this time, but a different, sweeter ache.

“I think I want Flynn there when I talk to them,” I said. “Not to fight for me, but just... with me.”

“Of course you do,” Abuela said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “Love is not about someone rescuing you, mi amor. It’s about having someone who stands beside you when you rescue yourself.”

Love. The word hung in the air between us. Was that what this was? This feeling that had been growing steadilysince a baby donkey in dragon wings had brought Flynn Kingman barreling into my life?

Flynn looked up then, catching my gaze across the room. His smile softened into something more intimate, just for me. I made my decision.

Rising from my seat, I crossed to where he stood with his brothers.

For the first time since my secret had been exposed, I felt something other than fear. I wasn’t exactly fearless, but I would fake it, and be brave.

“Ready to have a little more fun, babe?” Flynn led me to a table set up with something that looked like a complicated version of Candyland and Scrabble mixed together.

Flynn wasn’t kidding when he said his family got competitive at their game night.

“They’re cheating,” Jules accused, pointing dramatically at Isak and Gryff. “There’s no way they had two double word scores in a row.”

“Maybe if you spent more time studying vocabulary instead of romance novels,” Gryff shot back, “you’d have a chance against us.”

“Do not start with me, Gryffin Kingman,” Jules threatened, lunging for the family’s lucky pillow. “I know where you sleep.”

I couldn’t hold back my laughter as Jules tackled her much larger brother, attempting to wrest the pillow from his grasp. The Kingman family game night was nothing like the reserved, intellectual games my parents liked to play. No, this reminded me of the summers at Abuela’s villa in Mexico, getting into all kinds of trouble with the neighborhood children. This was full-contact, no-holds-barred competition, complete with trash talk, dramatic accusations, and the occasional physical scuffle.

And I was loving every minute of it.

“Your turn, Tempest,” Willa said, passing me the dice for our current game, something involving dragons and complicated story quests that I was still figuring out.

I rolled, surprised by my own competitive surge of satisfaction when I landed on a prime trading space. “I’m making friends with the wolves and they become my allies, warding off all attacks on my village,” I announced, placing my game piece with perhaps more force than necessary.

“Oh ho,” Isak exclaimed, looking delighted at my aggressive move. “Girls, man. They run the world.”

Flynn caught my eye from across the table, his expression a mix of surprise and delight. I realized I’d been holding back, not just in the game, but in so much of my life. Always trying to be smaller, quieter, more proper. The Tempest my mother wanted me to be.

But here, surrounded by this boisterous, loving family and my equally dramatic grandmother, I didn’t need to be less. I could bemore.

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