Chapter 34 | Thanksgiving dinner

Lucas:

"Oh my God it smells amazing," I groan as I walk into the Quintero abode the next day, thrusting forward a bouquet of lilies.

Abuela takes the flowers from me, an eyebrow raised. "No hello?"

"Sorry," I smile sheepishly. "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving to you too cariño," she laughs, ushering me inside and I shove off my shoes before following her through the hallway.

As I stroll into the kitchen, I'm met with the glorious aroma of turkey, pie and roast potatoes and my stomach rumbles promptly.

I had purposely skipped breakfast and lunch so that there would be room for all of Abuela's cooking so you bet I was hungry.

Sofia runs out to greet me, squealing loudly with her arms outstretched as she collides with my leg. Her sister on the other hand displays a much less affectionate greeting as her gaze falls onto me: she nods her head at me in acknowledgement before glancing back down at the phone clutched in her hand.

"Hiya Lucas!" Valeria smiles, pulling off her oven mitts and I wave at her in response.

As I try to walk over to the stools by the kitchen island, I find it to be quite the struggle with a 2 year old attached to my calf so I promptly bend down and scoot Sofia into my arms. She giggles happily in my embrace, wrapping her little hand around my thumb as I take a seat by Isabella who, by the way, still has her eyes trained on her mobile phone as she types away on it aggressively.

"Dinner smells amazing," I compliment, my stomach rumbling again as my eyes zero in on the orange glow of the oven where I can see the blurry outline of the turkey.

Sofia begins to play with tufts of my hair as abuela sends me a knowing grin. "It'll be ready soon don't you worry," she replies, adjusting the petals of the lilies before placing the vase in the middle of the dining table. "Why don't you go to the sitting room and watch some of the football game or something?"

"You sure you don't need help with anything? No taste testing or-"

"Go watch the football Luke," she interrupts, pointing a finger to the door menacingly, however her smile only widens. "Bella you go with him."

Isabella makes a grunting noise in reply, taking no actual notice of what abuela had told her to do, her focus still solely on her phone.

"Bella?" Her grandmother repeats, waving a dish towel in front of her face. Isabella doesn't budge until abuela snatches the phone out of her hand.

"Hey," she jumps up in protest, trying to grab the phone back from her grandmother but it's no use - Abuela merely moves the device out of reach.

"What has you so distracted," abuela scoffs, glancing down at the phone screen. She begins to read whatever Isabella had been texting out loud.

"Argh the swearword is here. Who is the swearword that is here? Lucas swearword Miller, who else? Are we still swearword mad at him? Kind of. Okay. I still want to cut off his nonobits. I hope he doesn't swearword ask me for more swearword explanations because I will swearword, more swearwords and more swear-"

"Okay I think that's enough!" A light blush taints Isabella's cheeks as she grabs the phone from her grandmother who sends Isabella a warning look.

"Mija that was so rude!"

"Yeah that was so rude!" I repeat, narrowing my eyebrows at Bella. Sofia murmurs in my lap also.

"Very rude," Valeria hums from where is she stirring the cranberry sauce by the stove. "I'm disappointed mija. Apologise to Lucas right now, that is no way to talk about a guest!"

"Also what is it that you are supposedly mad at him about?" Abuela asks, cocking her head to the side.

Isabella blinks slowly as I nod my head.

"Yes, why don't you enlighten us," I prompt, failing to hide the sly smile playing on my lips.

She flits her eyes across all of us as we wait for an answer and even Valeria pauses on her stirring and turns around to look at her daughter expectantly.

Bella merely shoves her phone into the back pocket of her jeans and grabs me by the elbow, hauling me up from the stool and dragging Sofia and I out of the kitchen door.

"C'mon let's watch football," she mutters under her breath.

***

We've been watching the Thanksgiving football game in silence for the last hour.

Complete and utter silence and frankly, it is making me antsy.

So far the game is off to a very slow start with the Dallas Cowboys versing the Detroit Lions. No one is in the lead and the teams are seemingly tied and the excruciatingly slow advancement of the game isn't helping with my situation either.

As the game slowly rolls into halftime however, Isabella finally speaks up.

"I thought you said you would give it a rest."

I snap my head from where my gaze was latched onto to the TV to where Isabella is staring at me from the other side of the couch.

"Give what a rest?"

She shoots me a look and I quickly realise what she's insinuating.

"Oh you mean what happened in the kitchen?" I pause waiting for confirmation before continuing and she nods her head. I shrug my shoulders defiantly. "I saw the chance and I took it."

She rolls her eyes. "Well stop, I already told you I'll tell you when I'm ready."

"You're taking ages though," I whine, slumping back down against the couch.

"The more impatient you are the more longer I'll take to tell you."

I turn my body around to face her. "Okay how about this," I begin, tilting my head to the side as an idea pops into my head. "What if I find out whatever it is without asking you or Mia or Grace."

She cocks an eyebrow and scoffs. "If it means you'll stop bothering me, sure, go ahead, but I doubt you'll figure it out on your own, I mean you still haven't yet."

I narrow my eyes at her. "That's just making me more determined to find out by myself."

Ignoring me, she focuses her attention back onto the TV.

"You're so annoying you know that." Her fingers fiddle with the hem of her beige coloured cardigan as she speaks, irritation lacing her features. "I feel like we're stuck in this bloody loop of you begging me to tell you what's wrong and me telling you no and you continuing to pester me even despite saying you'll stay away."

She then shakes her head and snorts. "I mean how many times have we had this exact fucking conversation."

"4 times," I reply bluntly causing her to roll her eyes.

"You're unbelievable."

"Yes," I agree, turning back to face the TV. "Unbelievably good looking, unbelievably talented, unbelievably se-you get the memo."

"Okay." She stands up abruptly from the couch before making a gesture to her head. "I'm going to check on dinner, your presence is killing brain cells."

I can't help the small smile that breaks out onto my face. "You didn't deny it!" I call out after her, just as she begins to leave the room. However, Isabella doesn't make it past the doorway as she is promptly shoved back in by Valeria, abuela following suit.

"So I just got off the phone," Valeria begins in a rushed manner, a bright smile playing on her lips, her face glowing. "And it turned out to be one of the managers of that marketing company that in the town centre, you know, the one that's kinda in between that run down thrift shop and that panini shop that sells really nice chicken tikka panini's and also has really nice wra-anyways I'm getting off topic," she pauses to take a deep breath. "Okay so basically, long story short, around two weeks ago I had an interview at that company and well...I GOT THE FREAKING JOB!"

I jump up from my seat just as Isabella throws her arms around her mother, Sofia collides with the door and abuela begins screaming for dear life.

"Congratulations Val!" I cheer, pulling her into a hug after Isabella pulls away. "That's great news!"

"Thank you mijo!" She responds, holding me at arms length and smiling brightly at me.

"Anyways, my first day is in two days after Thanksgiving break finishes," she then turns to point at Isabella. "You, my daughter, are picking me out an outfit."

"Mija I'm so proud of you," abuela wails, rushing forward and pulling her daughter into a strong embrace. Tears stream down her face as she pulls out a hanky from my sleeve and begins dabbing at her eyes.

"Thanks Ma," Valeria laughs, patting her mom on the back.

We continue congratulating Valeria for a bit and talking about her new job and what it entails and I grow increasingly hungrier and hungrier.

It is when my stomach lets out this ferocious, almost animalistic growl when everyone stops their conversation and turns to eye me concerningly.

"Right, I think we should go eat dinner now," abuela announces, her features drawn with worry and I'm already in the kitchen before she even gets to finish that sentence.

I help Valeria bring some of the main dishes onto the dinner table, lining up each plate with cutlery and even help hunt down Sofia and put Sofia into her high chair before sliding into a seat with the rest of the Quintero's. I get my fork and knife at the ready as I eye all of the food in front of me.

Directly in the middle of the long table is the huge, golden, perfectly roasted turkey, just waiting for me to devour it. There is a huge bowl of creamy mash potatoes, another of roast potatoes, a gravy dish full of gravy and another full of cranberry sauce, I can see the number of pies on the counter top by the oven on the other side of the kitchen, there are yams, a green bean casserole, a Columbian cheese bread, arepas, another sort of sweet potato dish and a number of other dishes, including torta de tres leches - I loved milk cake.

I wait for the ladies to come join me at the table. Isabella is currently piling mash potatoes onto a small bowl for Sofia and Abuela is piling more of arepas onto another plate. Valeria however, shortly joins me at the table, clearing her throat as she takes a seat, the Turkey knife clutched in her hand.

"Er Lucas you're going to hate me for this but can you pretty please get the napkins from Isabella's room?" She asks sheepishly. "They're stored in the blue bag at the bottom of the closet. It's near where all the Christmas decor is, I left them in there and it's annoying me how everything is decorated perfectly except the empty plates where the napkins should be."

At my reluctant expression she throws me a pleading look and I nod slowly before clambering out of my seat knowing better than to argue with Valeria when it comes to the matters of how things are organised.

Rushing up the stairs, I head into Isabella's room and pull open the door to her closet which is more of a store room rather than a closet at this point.

I push past some of her coats and finally spot the blue bag near to the back and reach forward to get it out. As I do so however, the box situated in front tumbles out, causing whatever it is stored inside to fall out.

With a groan, I place the blue bag beside me on the floor and bend down to stuff what ever fell back inside the box when something glittery and bright catches my attention.

I am a simple boy, I see something sparkly and it piques my interest.

I take a hold of what I have come to realise is a number of purple notebooks and flick through the pages. The first page falls open where sprawled across the white paper is 'Isabella's diary, don't read or else' and the first thought that comes into mind is damn that is some ugly handwriting.

The second, is my sudden need to read the diary now that it says I shouldn't. I mean, you guys should already realise by now that I do the complete opposite as I'm told. I flick to the next page where at the top is written in yet again, very messy handwriting, the date: 29th of October 2013.

This triggers another thought to flicker in my mind. Now this, I conclude, could be the answer to my all my problems. I already know that whatever Isabella was upset at me for was over something I did when I was younger and now in my hand is a book containing all the thoughts of young Isabella...surely she would have possibly mentioned whatever I had done in these diaries, right?

My stomach rumbles loudly once more, snapping me out of my daze and with my hunger practically consuming any rational thoughts I have, I stuff the purple diary in the front pocket of my hoodie in one rash decision, before chucking the others back in the box into the closet. I'll come back for the them later.

I also can worry about the consequences of stealing Isabella's diary afterwards too, right now: food is first.

I close the closet door and grab the bag from the floor before flying back down the stairs and back into the kitchen.

"Ah there you are," Valeria says and I thrust forward the blue bag. She rips open the napkin packet and begins adjusting them all on everyone's plates as I slide back into my chair.

The book in my pocket nudges against the table as I tuck my chair in and I see Isabella eyeing me suspiciously. From my peripheral vision I think I see her open her mouth to say something but at that moment my focus is drawn elsewhere.

My phone dings and I pluck my phone out of my pocket as Valeria almost finishes up with her intricate napkin origami. I see is that it's a text message from an unknown number and my eyebrows furrow in curiosity as I click the notification.

Unknown Number

Unknown number:
*image attachment*

Unknown number: Happy Thanksgiving Lucas! How was
dinner? I know mine was good ;)

I freeze as my eyes glaze over the text message, then over the picture attached and just like that...my appetite vanishes.

━

AUTHORS NOTE:

Hm what do you think was the picture attached to the text message? ;)

ALSO, apologies for this chapter, I know the last couple chaps haven't been exactly great but I hope the next chapter will make up for it 🤞 It should be out later today, it just needs editing a little :)

Thank you for reading! Don't forget to vote and comment if you enjoyed!! Lots of love - Mai x