CHAPTER 7

Pepito was having a tantrum. A tantrumming Pepito was never good. A tantrumming Pepito meant he was going to make life extra tiresome for anyone in his vicinity.

The catalyst: The match had been cancelled.

His team were about to step on to the pitch when one of the referees made the announcement that due to the weather forecast the round robinmatch will not continue.

To be honest, I had been pretty glad about the announcement as I'm sure a lot of the parents were too as we were all getting wetter and wetter by the minute from the heavy downfall of rain. Luckily for me I had brought an umbrella, but not so many of the other parents had and so they were hurrying to get their kids to leave as soon aspossible.

Of course, Pepito took his time to go to the changing rooms to get his things, and when he came out he was still lingering around the pitch until I walked on over to him to say we needed to go.

"Pepito you need to dry yourself, or you're going to get a cold," I said handing him his towel whilst trying to shelter the both of us with the umbrella in my other hand, but he was making it hard to because of the snail's pace he was walking at.

"Leave me alone!"

Boy, if that was Bobby talking to me like that, he'd get checked real quick. I had to really put that professional cloak on properly and remember I was on the job. Nevertheless, it was about time that Pepito, or 'Pepe' as he was being notoriously known as now, got a handle on his emotions before it landed him in a whole world of trouble as he got older.

Crouching down, I levelled my gaze with his, "You're eleven years old Pepito. Anytime you don't get your way, you're always having tantrums and it's not going to get you anywhere it just makes you look silly. There's going to be plenty more matches, so stop sulking and dry yourself before you catch a cold."

Begrudgingly, he did as he was told, using the towel to dry the curly mop on his head and face, before entering the car.

Just as I was opening the door to the driver's side, my eye caught a very wet looking Manuelo making his way outside the football grounds towards the bus stop. Telling Pepito that I'd be right back, I quickly walked over to Manuelo, who was pretty much in his own world and was oblivious to the fact that someone was running after him.

"Hola Manuelo!"

His brown eyes looked up at me in mild surprise and familiarity. My heart broke realising just how drenched he was. He wasn't even wearing a jacket to shield him from the wind and rain. His soggy, wet hairstuck to his forehead, his nose had gone rosey pink and his lips were subtly trembling.

My heart cried for this boy.

"Casa?"I asked, flinging back my thumb towards the car.

For such a young boy, he held so much intensity in his eyes that rivalled that of an old sage, who feared nothing.

"Gracias," he said quietly, before walking along side me towards the direction of the car.

As soon as we got into the car, I blasted the heater on – there'll be no sick children on my watch.

"Pepito, can you ask Manuelo if Gabino brought him here today?"

Still mildly annoyed at me for my earlier reprimand, he wore a frown but repeated in Spanish to Manuelo what I'd asked him to ask.

"He said he came on his own."

I was so pissed off at Gabino. My text to him from a few days back to ask if his brother was also coming to the now cancelled match was met with no reply. He could have at least let me know and I would have offered to pick his brother and drop him off home afterwards, instead he let his brother battle the cold and rain without wearing appropriate clothing.

I'd been so preoccupied with keeping myself warm and dry under the umbrella during the game, that it didn't even cross my mind to check for Manuelo on the field.

Looking through the rear view at the boys, Manuelo appeared to be totally unaffected as he now engaged in conversation with Mr. Pepe himself, but of course they were children it was easier for them to get over things, but me being the adult this was something I just couldn't get over like that and I'd be having some serious words with Gabino.

Seeing that I still had over two hours left before I picked up Little Miss Diva from her ballet classes I thought best to take the boys out to get something to eat.

I made sure that both boys drank and ate something hot, so when Pepe asked to get ice cream he was answered with a resounding no.

They'd been out in the rain for so long they needed some proper insulating food, not some damn gelato.

After having lunch and getting a takeout for Candela we went to pick her up, who all of a sudden decided she didn't want to sit in her booster seat and when I told her she had to she started blowing raspberries at me and sticking her tongue out and then started kicking her brother's seat in the front.

Pepito being definitely not in the mood, slapped her legs away, pretty hard I must say which I was sure was going to bruise soon enough, which resolutely made her start crying. And this was all while Manuelo was trying to give me directions to his house with the aid of Pepito's translating, but his sister deciding to be an annoying brat made it difficult to do so.

I was reaching the end of my tether, and honestly the part of me that was my mother was desperate to make an opening act but that would only get me fired and possibly in jail.

It was hard enough driving as Pepito kept telling Candela to shut up over her unneccessary loud wailing, but somehow I managed.

By the time we reached Manuelo's apartment block I had developed a pounding headache.

Thei rapartment block faced a basketball court but upon closer look, the net was missing. The surrounding walls of the court had several words sprayed in angry red and black graffiti paint.

There were several cracks in the ground and just generally the neighbourhood looked pretty rundown. And no, I wasn't becoming bougie– far from being it, I mean my neighbourhood back home wasn't the highest improvement to this.

Barely even saying a bye to us, Manuelo flung out of the car (I don't blame him with the borderline traumatising ride) but instead of going into his house as I'd expected, he jogged briefly down the street to meet up with a group of boys all similarly aged.

There were about seven or eight of them in total, a few of them sitting on their bikes. Now I know they said, one shouldn't judge a book by its cover but when I saw two of the older looking kids bring out several cans of beer out of a bag, I went to overprotective mode and before I knew it I had flung out of the car and was pacing down to meet them.

All the other kids noticed my presence before Manuelo who was justcradling a ball between his legs, as the beer cans were being passed out like Christmas presents from Santa.

"Manuelo, key, casa?" I asked doing weird key hand signals/don't you have the key to your house?"

"No, sólo mi madre y Gabino tienen la clave."

"¿Dóndetu madre erm...Gabino?"

I was getting frustrated with my bad Spanish I was just grateful that Manuelo could still get the gist of what I was asking.

"Trabajo."

(TRANSLATION:Work.)

Now I was doubly pissed off at Gabino and their mother that they could just leave this young child to be wandering around these worryingly unsafe streets, and not even think that giving him a spare key would be the better option.

I knew that in Europe drinking legally was set to a pretty young age but still, it was a major culture shock for me. Plus, I didn't want a gifted boy such as Manuelo to ruin his chances as a football star because he's compromised his liver.

Feeling helpless that I couldn't exactly force Manuelo back in the car or I'll be the one who would look like a child kidnapper I told him in awkward Spanish, that I'll wait until his brother or mother arrived before walking back to the car.

Little Miss Diva was fast asleep with tear marks staining her face - thank God for that, but her sleeping now would mean trouble to get her back to sleep during the night.

But honestly I was tired and I needed a break from her – I think everyone did, so I just let her have her siesta.

Moments later, a previously brooding Pepito who had barely spoken to me out of free will (because of course it was my fault that the match had been cancelled) asked if he could go and join Manuelo who was currently playing football on the wet street with the other kids.

On one side I thought it was dangerous seeing that a car could drive through anytime or they could accidentally kick the ball in one of the apartment windows and get in trouble. But the other side of me that was a kid and admired the innocent, carefree attitude of the children, that fades in adoloscence and is mostly completely lost in adulthood, said yes.

Without even hearing another word from me, he sped down the short distance to meet the rest of the kids.

In no time I observed how ''Pepe" acquianted himself with everyone there with a quick introduction done by Manuelo.

I still had a little anxiety at saying yes being that if anything happened it would be my fault, but the streets was where football was invented so really these kids were just taking it back to basics, but nonetheless my gaze never wavered from Pepito and Manuelo.

It would be the first time in the day that I could have some silence and it finally gave me time to think – about everything. About everything to do with my engagement. Yes I was engaged. It still hadn't hit me, but that was true. Yours truly, engaged.

A smile tickled my lips and as much as I tried I couldn't resist hiding it any longer. Never did I think that such a thing would happen -that a man would want to spend the rest of his life with me. It was something I never even entertained the idea of. How did it even happen?

Both Angelo and I agreed not to tell our families until I went back to the States for Christmas. The ring – it was so beautiful, it was a cushion cut diamond centre and it pained me to hide because I would just love to show it off and be like one of those newly engaged girls who treated their hand with purpose and made sure every action with their hand, whether they were drinking coffee or washing the dishes was to parade that they were taken.

It had been a week since Angelo flew back and saying that I was 'missing him' would be the biggest understatement. And the way to deal with it, was for me to keep being busy all the time, which was relatively easy and hard due to my schedule but the thing is that we'd spent over a year being in once place and at the most twenty minutes distance away from each other.

I missed saying things like, "I'll leave the door open for when you come."

Or, "I'm on my way to your house."

We couldn't exactly say those things any longer because there was a big ol' ocean separating our closeness.

And it really just made me miss him more. I got a little inappropriately hot thinking about our conversation on Skype a few days ago after I'd asked him why he'd asked to marry me and the conversation had turned something sexy:

Angelo:You know how in the Bible it says, "It's better to marry than to burn,well yeah, I've been burning for you for the last year."

Me:Oh so you're only marrying me so we can have sex?

Angelo:Yes and no, but mostly no, and don't pretend, you don't want it as badly as I do.

Me:I'm actually pretty tame!

Angelo:You know our naked bodies are meant to touch, it's deeper than sex.

Angelo:I want to know the deeper parts of you.

Me:I thought you'd mastered your lust.

Angelo:How can I have mastered my lust when I have a gorgeous girlfriend and your ass..damn...

Me:Lol,okay the temptation is there but you know how to handle it.

Angelo:I don't know how to handle it, I'm always horny.

Angelo:Isn't it attractive, that I have lots of sexual energy built up inside of me, like really powerful energy?

Let me just say I wasn't feeling as innocent anymore and I had become more eager to get married after that conversation.

But a phonecall that I had with Dominica last few days ago was making me feel all types of ways. When I burst with excitement about me being engaged she didn't have the reaction I'd anticipated, instead she questioned my decision to get married at such a young age and believed that I was being naïve since she knows Angelo is the first guy I've ever been in a relationship with.

I let out a deep sigh as I watched the group of kids trail after one another in the empty basketball court to continue playing.

Despite our many challenges I was sure of the love between Angelo and I, but I couldn't help but think that Dominica had a valid point.