As soon as everyone said 'amén', Abuela picked up the big dish of cilantro lime rice and dished a little into Abuelo's plate, pushing the plate of chicken fajitas and some vegetable salad to him while she dished some rice into her own plate.

   This was always the routine at my grandparents house, the dish is passed around the table from oldest to youngest except for the little ones who couldn't dish their own food.

   The aroma of the food was making my stomach grumble, I took a little of the rice and added little chicken fajitas, if I was going to walk for mom, I didn't need to gain extra fat, I'm already big enough.

    Sometime between when Pierre and I were outside, Abuela's housekeeper came back from town and we all pitched in any way we could while they cooked. The colorful food tasted as delicious as it looked and the table was quiet while everyone ate, one of Abuela's rules at the table was that we should all involve ourselves in some discussion or the other.

  "Why's the table so quiet, it's a party not a funeral," Abuela said looking around the table with narrowed eyes.

  Her expression made me smile and a few chuckles were heard from around the table and my smile got bigger. It didn't take me long after Viki came for me to realize that the 'party' Abuela threw was just a family gathering and no one else outside family was going to be attending. I knew it was just an excuse for Abuela to get everyone together since it has been a while we all saw each other but I'm not complaining.

  "Viki!" Abuela called to her housekeeper who was in the kitchen cleaning up, "Bring the wine, let the celebration begin," she said.

     I sat beside Pierre much to everyone's surprise, I always sat beside Abuela or Abuelo since Leo's death, I was avoiding any long conversation with anyone else. I saw the raised eyebrows and delight in everyone's gaze when Pierre and I ran into the house but no one said anything to us.

   Abuela instructed Viki to pour wine into everyone's glass, except Uncle Carlos's kids who Abuela considered too young to have alcohol. I was only seventeen, and according to the law too young to have alcohol but according to Abuela's laws, once you were sixteen, you could have a glass of wine, that was another one of her weird rules we still didn't get till today.

   She once asked, why her grandchildren would have to hide to taste alcohol when they had a winery in the family, according to her it was better she let's us know how alcohol taste like through fine wine and tell us about the dangers of drinking than letting us learn through our peers. In a way her theory worked because I wasn't a fan of Alcohol and Leo waited patiently till he could taste the wine at our grandparents house before he ever started drinking.

   "Abuela, we are going out tonight," Nicole said putting down her glass which she just sipped from.

   Everyone at the table were talking about something with people beside them but they stopped to listen to Nicole, I was still quiet, it wasn't easy to go back to the simple relationship I had with Pierre.

  "We? Who's we and where are the we going?" Abuela asked.

  "Shawn, Pierre, Lola and I, we are going into town."

  "Not fair, you guys get to do everything together and leave us out, you get to taste the wine and now go into town," Xavier said.

   He looked upset but that didn't stop Aunt Rose from giving him a glare, I heard dad chuckle along with Uncle Alejandro.

  "Calm down, chiquito," Uncle Alejandro said still chuckling.

"Don't interrupt when your elders are talking, Xavi," Abuela said narrowing her eyes at him.

  Uncle Carlos just shook his head staring at the drama with a smile on his face, I looked up and saw mom staring at me.

  "Lola, you're going out?" She asked like she was surprised.

  I knew she would be surprised to hear I was doing something with my cousins and not just lying in bed scrolling through my phone or sulking.

  "Yes, Niki asked if I'd like to go out and I said yes."

  "I thought you kids wanted to spend time with me today?" Abuelo asked with a raise of his brows as he stuffed his mouth with chicken fajitas.

"You all are supposed to be spending time with all of us not in town," Abuela said with a scowl on her face.

  "Abuela, it's been a while since we spent time together, just the four of us," Niki said her words sounding like she was whining.

  "It's true Mama," Aunt Eva said and sipped her wine, hiding her face from Abuela's glare.

"Where are you kids even going?" Uncle Alejandro asked.

  "The Blue note," Shawn answered almost immediately and looked with pleading eyes at Abuela.

  "Tio Alejandro, this wine is fabulous, please convince Abuela for us," I said and everyone laughed.

  "Anything for you, Chino," he said, teasing me knowing I wouldn't want to protest about him calling me Chino now. "Mama, they are not wrong, you know, we've promised them they can all go when everyone is old enough to go into town at night."

  It has been years since we tried to convince our parents and grandparents to let us go to the Blue note together but the concert was always at night and they refused because of the distance town was from the house.

    When Nicole turned seventeen she was old enough to go but she decided she'd wait for Leo so she can enjoy the concert with someone else, but he died before they could go. Shawn, Pierre and I agreed we'd wait till the three of us could go together and now's the perfect time.

  "Abuela, we've been waiting since forever and I'll be eighteen next year and off to college when would we have the time to go together if not now?" I asked.

  "tener mās comida," Abuela said to me, I can't believe she was asking me to have more food when I was being serious. I turned to Pierre annoyed at the way he was stuffing his face with food.

  "Pierre, tonto ayúdanos."

"Hey, why are you calling me a fool? I'm just trying to finish my food," he said.

"That's why I'm saying you should help us out, idiota."

  I heard Samuel snicker and Jahmila started laughing, Aunt Maria said something about not missing this part of Pierre and my relationship, I knew she was talking about the little arguments.

  "Abuela, We've been begging for years to go to the Blue note, Nicole and Leo couldn't go that summer, please let us go," Pierre said.

  Everyone paused to look at me and Abuela called Pierre's name in warning while Aunt Eva gave him a glare. Mom was quietly staring at her food while dad was sipping his wine. I knew they were expecting me to overreact, what Pierre said was a bit unnecessary, but I think we should be able to talk about the fact that Leo died without letting an uncomfortable silence descend.

  "Abuela, Pierre is right, Leo and Niki couldn't go and now you aren't letting us all go again this time," I said and everyone was staring at me with surprise.

  It didn't feel so bad to talk about Leo, I was just scared to talk about him using past tense, so I avoided the topic everytime.

  "Ok, you all can go, save me from all this long speech," Abuela said and I felt like she agreed because of Leo's name came up in the discussion maybe she was scared I'll break down if we kept talking about Leonel. A win was a win.

   For the rest of the meal, we all chatted about anything from the animals in the stables and barns to school and which college who was applying for, to work and TV shows, after eating dessert and after Aunt Maria put Diego down to sleep, Uncle Alejandro turned up the speakers and let the song play a little loudly asking everyone to stand up and join him in dancing, he stretched his hand out to Aunt Maria saying, 'let's dance, mi reina.' Making her blush.

  Everyone joined them on the dance floor, Snow and Azúcar were barking loudly to the excitement in the house. It was already five o'clock, Abuela was dancing with Abuelo and Aunt Eva managed to guilt trip a shy Shawn into dancing with her. Mom and dad were also laughing and dancing.

  Pierre excused himself before his Mom could make him her dance partner, Nikki pulled my arm as she rushed out of the living room.

  "It's about to get crazy in there, let's go and pick out our clothes and get dressed," Niki said as she pulled me towards our bedroom.

  I laughed at that, she could also be too dramatic like everyone else, I remembered she said she wanted to be an actress but I haven't really been paying attention to any family gist so I didn't know if she was acting or if she changed her mind.

  "So... Do you still want to act?"

"Yeah, I'm making my acting debut next summer, mom successfully made sure I finished college to change my mind but I still want to act."

  "That's cool."

  "Yeah it is."

  I was happy she would soon fulfill her dream, she always talked about how she would be a famous actress someday and although her mom wrote scripts for big movies, Aunt Eva didn't really like the idea of Nicole acting.

   It felt like I was the only one who didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, I once wanted to be an actress, then I changed my mind and decided I was into photography, I tried modeling and now I don't know what I wanted to do with my life, I'm just living.

Maybe Leo would have helped me decide, or maybe I was just saying that to make myself feel sad again. It's terrible how the pain of loosing someone doesn't go away, it just becomes a part of us. I don't want to think about sad thing only happy memories so I thought about how exciting watching a live performance at the Blue note would be and looked forward to it.

*****

   It wasn't hard to get dressed because of Nicole's help, if I she hadn't given me one of her dresses, I would have found it hard to get anything dressy because I only brought one gown and that was for church tomorrow morning before we leave.

   The dress Nicole gave me was a chiffon short gown and perfect for the November spring air that made the night breezy. I was taller and bigger in size compared to Niki so the  clothes was a little bit tight, the fact that the skirt was flowy helped so the dress wouldn't hug around my curves.

   I would have preferred to wear the gown I brought for Mass tomorrow, but Niki said she wouldn't let me go to the Blue note dressed in my below knee length A-line gown. She claimed that the black fabric looked like what I'd wear to confession instead of a Jazz show.

    She also helped with my make up and was now pulling my hand as we rushed down the stairs, I thank God for my boots, if I was wearing heels I might have fallen flat on my face.

  "Shawn! Pierre! We're ready," Nicole screamed out to the guys.

   Shawn had come upstairs to ask if we were ready a couple of times before giving up and deciding to wait. Everyone except for Uncle Carlos and his family were in the living room, Aunt Rose had come up to say goodbye with my cousins, they rushed home because it was almost bedtime for their kids. Abuela was giving Nicole a glare for the way she screamed. My mom and dad were staring at me with a smile on their faces.

  "You both look like princesses," dad said.

  "Gracias, Tio Jose," Nicole said and I smiled.

  Immediately Shawn and Pierre walked out of their room complaining about us taking time. We left almost immediately with everyone asking us to drive safely and Abuelo instructing us to be back by ten, Nicole snorted at that saying two hours wasn't enough time.

    The air was chilly and I was grateful for my cropped knit cardigan I wore on the gown and my knee length boots, the amount of skin I had on display was little so I could manage the chill. Shawn was the designated driver and Pierre sat in front with him, Nicole sat at the back with me because she didn't want her hair getting ruined.

  When we got to the Napa Valley Opera house, it was already twenty minutes past eight and the singer we all wanted to watch would start in ten minutes so we rushed in and although I've always seen videos and pictures of the club, it was more beautiful in real life.

  The blue lights and soft music was a perfect mix, the instruments on the stage was gleaming, with the musicians playing skilfully, although the singer we all came to see wasn't on stage, the performing singer's voice intertwined with the music and the sight of the stage which seemed so close made everything magical.

  "This is awesome!" Pierre said beside me.

  "Yeah it is. Were you waiting to leave the ranch to speak English?" I asked half teasing.

  "No. I said the first thing that came to my mind," he said in Spanish and rolled his eyes at me.

  Nicole stood with a serene expression on her face and Shawn boped his head with a grin enjoying the jazz. We were full from the big meal we had so we only ordered drinks, I ordered mocktail and Shawn ordered the same, mainly because he was driving, Pierre also ordered mocktail but only because he was underage for alcohol and forgot his fake ID at home. Nicole laughed at all of us calling us little ones and saying something under her breath about how she missed Leo. Instead of tears, it brought a wistful smile to my lips, she rested her head on my arm and I drowned my thought in the music enjoying every single moment only thinking about now.

   A/n Hi guys. Making the decision to be consistent is a hard one for my lazy ass. But I'll push on because I need to, for me, for you guys and for this story. I'm a little bit unsatisfied with this chapter I don't know why but *shrug*.

  So tell me what you think, so funny to think that from chapter 11 till now I have no reader on all eight chapters, yeah zero read and I still talk to myself like I'm talking to people.

I'll really love to read your comments, and if you've been to the Blue note before tell me about your experience there! I'll really love to hear that. I know I'm not writing things about Ed for now but don't worry we'll be back to hearing from him soon;)

  I hope the book is making sense and you all are enjoying the story because I don't really have laid down plans for this story, I'm just telling it as my characters tell me to.

So thank you for reading, remember to Comment, vote and share.

NmX.