Their Little Princess

Chapter Thirty-One

Emilio's POV:

I stand at the island, wrapping up an email summarizing all we've got concerning Daniel to send to Dante. Sandro is on the other end, typing on his laptop. Jessica walks into the kitchen, "Can I have a cup?" She asks.

Sandro nods, not looking up from his screen, pointing up at a cabinet before going back to typing.

Xander invited Jessica and Chase over. I suppose it's his way of bringing Maddie around to forgiving him. We've all realized how Xander has received the harsher end of her anger, but I have to admit I don't feel bad for him, and I admit unless it gets out of hand and he does too much, I'm not stepping in. I'm gonna let him feel it for a while until they work it out amongst each other.

Jessica and Chase are sweet though. They seem good for her.

"Why did you guys invite us over?" Jessica asks curiously, "Did Maddie finally ask? She's been building up the courage to for a while."

She doesn't have to be scared to ask. That hits a little bit that she is scared. "Xander fucked up, we all did. But I'm sure you can tell how stubborn he is," I say, a small friendly grin.

"Him and Chase level each other out, so it's fine," Jessica says, "What did you do? Unless it's too personal." She adds quickly.

I explain it semi-vaguely to her. She nods, "Sounds like her."

Sandro looks up, his eyes slightly narrowed, "She's done something like this before?" We both look at him at his voice.

Jessica's face flushes slightly, sipping from her cup to cover her face. 

"Um...Well, yeah. It's on her school record? She has a bit of a thing with her anger," She explains, "And her anger might be misplaced at times, but it's never unjustified."

"What do you mean?" I say curiously.

"When we were in 7th grade. We went to this stupid party we got an invite to. And this upperclassman slipped something into my drink," She shrugs, looking at her cup, "He didn't do anything because the girl hosting the party said no one was allowed in the rooms and stopped us. The boy's friend saw everything. And at school the next day, after I told Maddie, she found the boy's friend and punched him in the face. Shattered his nose. Knocked out his front teeth. She negotiates with violence when she's angry."

Sounds a lot like Xander.

She shrugs it off, ""She doesn't want me to tell you but um..." She hesitates, "She misses home a lot. I know she didn't want me to tell you, but I just really want to see her happy. I don't know the details but she had it hard back in Seattle and...If you really want her to be happy, you have to do the things that make her happy."

I look at her curiously, "Like what?"

"Well, exercising for one, she loves exercising, we spent all day at the gym sometimes back home," She clarifies.

"Thank you, Jessica," I say.

"You're welcome," She says, putting her cup in the dishwasher and walking out the kitchen.

Maddie's POV:

Jess comes back as Carlo, who joined us a few minutes ago is on the bench press, Chase is rooting for Carlo simply so he can root against Xander.

Xander lifted 100, beating Chase obviously, so when Carlo came down, Chase all but forced him to give it a go with 115.

Jess sits back beside me and throws her arms around my neck, almost toppling me onto the floor completely.