"Mariana," he repeated as if struck by an outer force which reminded him that he had a teenage daughter capable of doing teenage things with a guilty-looking boy.

Before the shock could strip away and the simmering anger surface and spin into a devastating tornado, I asked quickly, "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he mumbled, shifting on the bench anxiously.

"I had a break so I came here," I said unwaveringly. I could see that he wasn't wearing the guard's synthetic jacket. "Why are you so far away from the building?"

"I-I . . . " His eyes were shifty, his fingers drumming on the seat, lost in his own thoughts and taking advantage of that, I craftily gestured Isaac to leave.

I quietly sat beside my father under the cool shade of the trees where Isaac and I had kissed, swinging my legs lazily. "How long?" He sighed in defeat, his shoulders sagging and I repeated as nonchalantly as I could, "Since how long, papá?"

"Few days. I left after our visit to your abuela's. You know how terribly they all looked at me when I told that I was an ordinary guard . . . Your uncles were so patronizing and your aunts . . . I could hear their little whispers . . . Todos son idiotas . . . Todos! The least they could have done was to wait for us to leave before gossiping." He scoffed and I didn't utter a single word, not wanting to aggravate him further. A little kid in front of us was struggling to ride a tricycle, shooing his mother away from helping him. This sight pacified my father as he inhaled deeply. "Never mind that . . . What were you doing here? With that-that boy."

"Isaac," I said boldly and he nodded vaguely. "He's my friend at Bailey's Nuts and we had our lunch break. So yeah . . . "

"It's because of his mother that I lost my job," he said in a sudden, low tone like he was confessing to the priest for absolution.

I laughed lightly. "Your guard's job? How is that connected to her?"

"No, at the advertisement firm," he began explaining and I could feel this sudden bafflement mingled with disbelief arousing a chillness on my skin and I had to stop myself from saying something spiteful that I would definitely regret later. "She became my client and we simply couldn't get along . . . She said some words, I said some words and I was fired. How ridiculous!"

Indeed, how ridiculous that I was in love with the boy whose families passionately hated each other . . . Sounded like a classic plot. Only that neither Isaac nor I were stupid enough to get killed towards the end.

I couldn't even be mad at him, the helpless way in which a mother couldn't be angry with her child for not understanding mathematics because the child was trying and curiously asking questions. The admirable way that my father had set aside his pride and took up the guard's job, only to let his pride overcome him again. He was testing his capacities, but those capacities hadn't expanded yet.

"I'm thinking of taking up college near St Louis' . . . " I said slowly, waiting for him to intervene.

"Why not here?" he asked, a tad offended by the very idea. "I'll find a better job, Mariana. You don't have to move places. J-Just give me some time. Let me think clearly."

His voice was pleading, desperate even which could have demolished the carefully constructed wall of stone around my heart, but I deliberately brushed away his desires.

"It's not about money . . . " I trailed off, not knowing where I was going with that obviously flawed sentence. It was about money, but more than that, it was about Isaac. "Ally and my other friends are going there too. So I thought, it would be for the best. Besides, the area is safer than ours and there are more opportunities for students and---"

"Okay, okay," he said with a low chuckle, surrendering to my onslaught of reasons. I was glad for that because I didn't know what else bullshit I could feed him to substantially increase the value of that place. "We can talk about this later." He slid his heavy arm around my shoulder. "Did you have lunch, mija?"

"Yeah, but I always have room for some noodles." I grinned cheekily and my dad laughingly got up, both of us heading to Sam's father's little restaurant.

*

"Isaac asked you to move in?" Allison reiterated for the thousandth time, her pasta salad colder than a block of ice on the table and her forest-green eyes blazing hotter than a flame of fire.

Even I couldn't resist sharing my excitement, but I maintained my coolness and casually shrugged.

"Oh my God, Mariana!" she squealed, squeezing my hands as if imparting her elation in me, not knowing that inside I had become a puddle of love. "These are the first steps! Dating, then moving in together, then marriage, then babies---"

"Woah, woah! Firstly, I haven't even got permission for papá. The last option which I'm not so keen on choosing is to elope. And relax, there's too much time for babies . . . "

"Can't be." She blushed deeply, a self-satisfied blush. "You both won't be able to keep your hands off each other once you're living together. Living together! I wonder why Tony hadn't ever thought of that . . . "

"Precisely because of 'not-keeping hands-off-each-other' part," I remarked and her tweezed eyebrows gathered confusingly in the centre. "Haven't you ever thought why both of you plan to have sex, but never end up doing it? Tony's scared whenever it comes to the topic of sex."

"He is! Last time, I honked his thing because I was nervous too and---"

"Honked his thing?"

"I didn't do it on purpose! We were talking about what to do and when we finally got around it, I just did honk, honk." She opened and closed her pink fingers in a honk motion. "To make him laugh. He was more nervous than I was!"

A fit of giggles escaped my lips which reddened her face further. "Tony's face must have been priceless. Poor boy!" 

"Yeah, well. He left," she muttered, uneasily twisting the napkin. "He hasn't been talking to me since then. What should I do?"

"Rule number one, Ally, never honk his thing. I can't believe how that even crossed your mind!" And I burst out laughing again to which Allison threw the napkin at me, her face lit up under the bright lights of the café.