Freed [N.H.]

Ch. 12

Sam and I headed over towards the counter, but instead of usually stopping Sam led me behind the counter and into the kitchen. I made sure not to let my eyes drift over to the windows and missing table…

“Dad?” Sam called.

Tito appeared and grinned at both of us.

“Samuel! Jess! You’ve come to help?”

I blinked a few times.

Then some more.

And finally let my jaw drop.

“What?” Sam asked me.

“He just spoke English…”

Tito and Sam both laughed.

“I know English, little Jess,” Tito grinned at me.

“But you always confused me when you spoke Spanish for the past year! How come you never told me you spoke English?”

Tito chuckled and reached for an empty bowl on a shelf. “It was entertaining.”

I groaned and shook my head, while both of them laughed.

“You’re defiantly his dad,” I told Tito. “You two act just the same.”

Both of them only laughed harder.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Tito told me.

I rolled my eyes.

“Better than being like my mom.”

I looked over at Sam, “Why?”

Tito and him shared a glanced before Sam shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

I nodded and let it drop. For not at least.

“So what brings you two here?” Tito asked.

“Sam said we could come help you!” I grinned, which was weird because I don’t usually.

Tito raised an eyebrow at the two of us. “Really?”

Sam cleared his throat and nodded, “Yeah, we were bored.”

“No, I was asleep,” I defended. “You were bored and woke me up.

“Sounds like Samuel,” Tito chuckled. “But great! I could use four more hands around here. Ever make tacos, Jess?”

I shook my head no, “Never. The closest I got to cooking was making boxed macaroni and cheese.”

“That doesn’t sound very good…”

“Trust me, it was worse since I made it,” I chuckled.

The three of us moved farther back into the kitchen and I noticed large bowls and containers were laid out.

“I’ll be cooking the meat first, Sam maybe you could fry the tortillas and Jess cut the vegetables?” Tito asked.

I nodded and walked over towards the laid out lettuce and onions but I was pulled back.

“Hey,” I frowned looking at Sam.

His eyes were wide and he looked back and forth between his dad and me.

“Maybe Jess shouldn’t work with the knife…”

I scoffed and ripped my arm away. “Really? You think I’ll do something here? Now?”

“They found a pair of scissors by you Jess… They don’t know how they got there,” Sam’s voice trailed off in a whisper.

“Yeah, I brought them down but I’m not going to doing anything right now but cut vegetables.”