Inferno

~22~ Project

Ellie's POV

Jake is coming over for dinner tonight. I haven't seen him in a bit, and I'm missing him. We've worked on our relationship extremely hard over the years, and I can now honestly say that I love him. There were a lot of years when I couldn't even say that I liked him.

He comes over around 5, and gives me a kiss when I open the door. Then he grabs me by the shoulders.

"Alright, let me look at you" he says seriously.

"What are you doing?" I ask confused.

"It's been so long since I've seen you, I've gotta see if you look different" he says with a smile.

"And"

"Nah. Still old" he says with a grin.

"You're funny" I say, kicking him lightly on the leg.

"What's up man?" He asks, grinning at Taylor standing behind me and giving him a high-five.

"Come on in" Taylor says, grinning back. It took a little longer to get Taylor to like Jake. He didn't trust him around me for a long time. Jake used to hit me when he would get mad. The last ten or so years, have been pretty good between them.

"What's been going on?" Jake asks as he comes in and goes to the kitchen, sitting on a barstool.

"Oh, you know, just been disciplining the child who never gets in trouble" Taylor says, rolling his eyes.

"Emma?!?" Jake asks, completely shocked.

Taylor nods silently and then explains what happened a week ago.

"I'm sorry, but you're talking about Emma?" He asks again, still not believing it.

We just nod.

"I'm worried about her, Jake" I say sadly.

He just nods and says nothing for a second.

"Why don't you have her start working out with me at the gym?" He says after a minute.

I instantly get irritated.

"Jacob Lee Freeman if you even think about insinuating that my daughter is overweight and that she needs to start working out, I'm gonna get pissed" I snap.

Both Taylor and Jake look at me, surprised.

"Did you just full name me?" He finally asks, with a chuckle.

I say nothing, I'm still irritated.

"Ok, calm down there, tiger. Don't go full Momma Bear mode on me. That's not what I meant at all" he says, holding his hands out, trying to get me to chill.

"All I meant was, why don't you have her come down, and start kickboxing with me. I taught you, and you can hold your own. I taught Liam, and he is actually pretty good now. Sasha knows the basics. The twins haven't had any lessons at all yet. It's an important skill to have. They need to be able to defend themselves. Maybe if she gets some confidence, it will help with everything." He says, gauging my reaction.

Taylor and I exchange looks. "It's not a terrible idea" I say, shrugging.

"I would never imply that she needs to lose weight. She doesn't. She's perfect. I'm just saying, why don't we start with kickboxing. Luke too, if that will help make it seem like we're not singling her out." He says, relaxing his posture once he can tell I'm not mad anymore.

"I think it's a good idea. I've been on the receiving end of a few of her moves. You trained her well" Taylor says, kissing my head.

Jake chuckles. "Yeah well, I'm still completely convinced that I can kick your ass, Preston. Wish we would have gotten our chance to test that theory" he teases.