Amalia flew home alone on Sunday afternoon. She organised to have Delgado's in New York closed for one week so I could spend some time with Mom and Dad.

I'd asked if she wanted to stay with us as well but she needed to get back to the parlour. She was responsible for half of the bills in her house. She needed to work.

Plus she said I needed to be here for Mom and Dad without her. She promised to call as often as I wanted and told me she was going to go home and fix things with her Dad.

I'd miss falling asleep beside her.

It was Wednesday afternoon and I hadn't seen a lot of Dad. He was appearing from his room a little more each day but he wasn't in a good way.

Mom and I were out running some errands together. A meeting for mom. A hair appointment. Groceries. I decided to tag along to keep her company.

I pushed a cart down the aisle while she plucked things from the shelves. Spreads. Cereals. Crackers. Protein bars.

She was standing on her tip toes, reaching for a jar of herbs but even her heeled booties couldn't give her the height she needed. I reached above her and handed over the jar.

"Thanks, honey," she smiled, dropping it into the cart. "You want anything particular while you're here with us? You like that Italian coffee, right?"

"Yeah but I'm happy with whatever, Mom."

She absentmindedly wrapped a strand of her freshly coloured blonde hair around her finger.

It was longer again. She used to have it cut to her shoulders but it was reaching the middle of her back now.

"It's been a while since you've stayed," she laughed to herself and started pulling about seven different jars of coffee off the shelf and dropping them into the cart.

A woman and her two small children passed and Mom smiled with such a genuine radiance that you would never expect she was going through something that no parent wants to go through.

"Mom," I said as we started moving towards the cold produce. "How's Dad? Is he talking to you?"

She put her hand over mine where it clutched the cart handle bar and gave me a sad smile.

"He's talking to me but he's struggling. Your father is really shouldering the blame for this. He's always done his best to make sure you three felt beautiful and important and loved. It's hard for him to understand that things can go wrong no matter how much you love your kids."

"It's not his fault though."

"Of course not," she said. "I honestly think it has something to do with her agency. But when I suggested talking to them, she flipped."

"Since when does that stop you?"

She patted my hand. "It doesn't. But I still have to behave professionally. Even though I'd like to storm the building and beat everyone the hell up who ever told my baby girl she needed to drop weight."

"You really think that's what happened?"

"Yep. That or someone on a job. But I've met one of the agents that takes care of her profile. Avery Hale. He's a rat. Wouldn't surprise me at all."

"Does Dad know you think that's what happened?"

"I'd like to ease his conscious by telling him," she sighed and swiped a bottle of detergent off the shelf as we passed. "But your Dad doesn't have the same restraint as me. Don't tell Lucas either. If those two put their thirst for revenge together, we'll end up at the head of a court case scandal. I'm going to handle it."

I believed her. Mom was capable of gracefully putting people in their place. She and Dad had endured their fair share of drama over the years and she always hit back without tarnishing her name.

Dad wasn't bad at handling public image, but she was right. If he thought one person in particular had said something to cause Abby to go down this path, there would be bloodshed.

We paid for our groceries and left the store with three bags each in hand.

On the other side of the electronic doors, were dozens of paparazzi with flashing cameras and raised voices.

I immediately felt suffocated as we got shoved and pushed. But my instinct was to protect Mom, so I stood in front of her and pushed back.

"Dallas, can you comment on the facility your daughter was seen entering on Sunday?!"

Mom stood close behind me. "Don't answer anything, Max."

The questions were shouted and screamed as we headed towards the car. Flashing lights threatened my vision and I could feel my pulse accelerating with frustration.

"How long will Abby be in rehab for?!"

"Is it true that your daughter has an addiction to heroin?!"

"Was this Drayton's idea?"

"Yeah," another one of them chimed in. "Is this his idea of parenting? Shipping your kid off to rehab when they rebel?"

"Is Max next?!"

"Do you all do heroin?!"

One of them got too close to me, closer than he was before. I had elbows being shoved into my arms and cameras hitting me in the face.

"Max did you encourage your sister's drug use?"

Suddenly, mom was in front of me. She gripped the man's camera lens, pulled it back and then rammed it straight back into his face before she shoved it at the ground with so much force, it shattered.

"All of you back the fuck off and stop talking to my son like that or I'll have you all in a motherfucking cell for harassment."

The photos were still being snapped. This would end up online but Mom didn't seem concerned as the victim of her assault wiped a small dribble of blood from his upper lip and swore at her.

She started to pick up the bags of food she'd dropped.

"You owe me a fucking camera," the old asshole shouted, stepping on her bag so it tore when she tried to pick it up.

I gave him a shove back by the shoulder.

"Don't touch me kid."

"Then leave my mom the hell alone."

Mom straightened up with her lips pursed and her chest rising with deep breaths. "Send me the bill for your camera then," she clenched her fists at her side. "And I'll use it to wipe my fucking ass."

The cameraman scoffed and threw his arms up. He stunk of body odour. "Real classy lady."

The large group of paparazzi had stepped back. It didn't feel as swarmed but it was just as vicious.

"Come on, Max," mom picked up the bag's that hadn't been torn. "These people wanted a reaction and that's what they got. We've done our part now they can go and get paid."

"I want a new fucking camera, lady," the asshole stepped in front of her again and the entire crowd of 'photographers' moved like a wave as we tried to keep walking.

Mom lowered her voice. "I will make your life a living hell if you don't get out of my face right now."

If they hadn't come for me, we would have been half way home by now. Mom's weakness was her children.

She was reacting exactly how she'd always taught us not to. I swallowed and once again stepped in between the two of them.

"We're leaving. Don't let this get uglier than it is."

He scoffed and pushed me to the side so he could stick a nicotine stained finger at mom. "I'll take cash right now for that camera."

She was going to smack him again. I could have sworn.

That was until we heard the unmistakeable sound of a motorcycle engine approaching from behind us. I looked at mom and saw her entire face drop. She became pale and peered over her shoulder.

There wasn't much to see through the swarm of paps but they quickly parted when Dad tore through the middle of them and brought his bike to a screeching halt.

His helmet visor was too dark to see through but I could tell he was furious from the raise in his shoulders. He was wearing his leathers which meant he'd been out for a proper ride.

He kicked his stand down, swung his leg over the seat and pulled his helmet off and yes, he was pissed.

He carelessly dropped the helmet and stormed straight towards mom and the Pap who had dropped his confidence a little.

Mom held her free hand to dad's chest and walked backwards as he stormed forwards.

"Dray, Drayton, Drayton stop!" She might as well have been trying to stop a truck from rolling forward. "This is the last thing we need on top of everything else. Just calm down."

He stopped and pointed over at our discarded torn bag of food. "Is that yours?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It probably wouldn't if I hadn't seen him put his hands on my son when I was driving past."

"Dad, I'm fine," I said, hoping to diffuse the ticking time bomb that I called my Father.

"I just want a new fucking camera," the Pap threw his arms open although he had a lot less demand in his tone than he'd had earlier. "Your lady here broke mine after she smacked me in the face with it."

Dad looked down at Mom and for the first time in days, he smiled. I quietly exhaled with relief.

"Good. Leave my family the hell alone," Dad took Mom's hand and started pulling her towards the car, giving me a slap on the back as he passed. "Come on."

We made it to Mom's truck and she opened the back seat so we could put the groceries in.

People were still snapping photos but the crowd had even further dispersed when Dad arrived and almost ran them all over.

The aggressive pap was obviously not in the mood to give up. He stood at the tail end of the truck and shouted.

"I could sue!" He said. "She assaulted me and it'll be on camera. Give me some cash and I'll be on my way."

Dad slowly turned around with his shoulders broad and narrowed his glare. "As if you won't make a buck from the photos you took exploiting my family's struggles," he snapped as mom touched a hand to his bicep. She looked worried as hell. "Go get your fucking SD card out of that camera. Sell your fucking photos and buy a new camera with dirty soulless money you piece of shit."

"Come on Drayton," Mom murmured. "Go get your bike. We'll meet you at home."

The pap scoffed. "Your family is the fucking mess here. Blame yourselves. Lot of addicts and violent morons."

Well, that did that.

Dad moved forward in two long strides, put his hand behind the paps head and shoved it into the side of the car so hard that it dented Mom's back guard and the pap sagged to the ground.

"Drayton!" Mom ran forward and pushed Dad backwards. "People are watching."

"Let them. I don't give a fuck."

She held a hand to her forehead as the pap rolled around on the ground and groaned.

Dad sighed and crouched down, grabbing a fistful of the guys shirt so he could drag him to his feet. The pap seemed a bit dazed but he was conscious. "Walk it off, asshole. You'll be fine."

He gave the pap a slap on the back and surprisingly, he stumbled off.

I guess he'd had enough being assaulted for one day. But this was not good. Not good at all. Dad was going to end up in the shit. I could already tell.

"We'll talk at home," Mom sighed and pointed at his bike, still sitting in the middle of the parking lot about ten feet away.

Dad looked at her with furrowed brows. "So you can hit him, but if I do, it's not okay?"

"I shouldn't have either!" She almost yelled but lowered her voice because there were people watching. "We'll talk at home."

"Fine," he sighed and gave her a kiss. "I love you."

"I love you."

She watched him until he was on his bike, helmet on and visor down. He kicked his stand up and revved the handle bars before he tore out of the lot.

Mom and I got in the car and she started backing out, shaking her head. "Well, so much for not responding," she said, pushing her gear stick into drive after she'd reversed.

"That was bad, Mom."

"I know," she clutched the steering wheel. "We might be lucky though. Legally. Paps rarely press charges with those sorts of incidents. They know what they do is harassment. The problem is going to be with the media when those videos are online in the next ten minutes."

"Well, like you said, they were harassing you. People will probably understand."

"Your father walked clean up to someone and pushed his head into the back of my car. It wasn't self defence and I'm going to guess from a camera viewpoint, it'll look like dad was just being unhinged."

I nodded and decided not to let on that I was nervous for them. "One day at a time Mom. It'll blow over."

"One damn thing at a time would be nice," she mumbled, running a hand through her hair.

When we got home, we carried the groceries in to the kitchen and found Dad sitting at the breakfast bar.

The television hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the room was on and he was. . . laughing.

Of course, the video from the grocery store parking lot was on YouTube already.

Mom was right. It looked bad.

Whoever's footage had been released had been filming too far from the scene and there was no audio.

Dad appeared from behind a car, grabbed the pap and shoved him head first into the truck.

"Drayton," Mom stared at him with disbelief. "This is not funny. Why are you laughing?!"

"It's hilarious," he pointed at the screen. "Look at him go down."

Mom pinched the bridge of her nose, leaning on the island. I started putting the food away. It was best not to intervene when Mom was attempting to 'parent her oldest child' as she liked to put it.

"This part is great too," he used the remote to restart the video and it picked up where I was getting screamed at about encouraging Abby's 'heroin addiction'.

Dad's amused countenance fell for a moment as he listened to their words.

But when mom smacked the pap in the face with his own camera and then smashed it, he burst out laughing. "I am keeping this video forever."

She watched it with more interest than Dad. She was listening to the reporter explaining that we were harassed and hounded in a disrespectful manner.

"That goes in our favour," she murmured. "Hopefully someone will have the audio for the video beside our car. That'll help too."

Dad stood up when I reached into a grocery bag. He pulled me into a hug. "How are you today?" He leaned back and held my shoulders. "Happy? Anything you need? How's Amalia? You're good right?"

"Yeah I'm good, Dad," I said, smiling with assurance. "Amalia is great. I'm really happy with her."

"Good," he slapped me on the shoulder and switched off the television, obviously having had enough. "You wanna do something later? We could go down to the stadium and see the team. Play some ball?"

Dad had taken some time off work. Officially. But he still went down to see his team during practice.

"Sure, that sounds good."

He was about to say something to Mom but his phone started ringing and when he retrieved it from his pocket, he sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Shannon?" Mom folded her arms with a raised brow. Shannon. Dad's publicist.

"Guess I better do some damage control. Be back in a bit."

He left the room and Mom watched him with concern. He wasn't exactly himself but he seemed a lot better than he had yesterday.

I decided to take the silver lining and hope he'd be back to normal soon. Abby was sick but she wasn't dead and the healthier she got, the less Mom and Dad had to worry.

I know it was hard not being able to talk to her though. She was on no contact for the first three months and that killed Mom and Dad.

But it might have been for the best that she couldn't see the drama that had unfolded today.

She needed to focus on herself and I was relieved she was getting a break from the media vultures.

Maybe that's what we all needed.