Persevere

Chapter 3

"Are you asking for permission?" my husband chuckled.

"For permission? Never, I don't ask for anyone's permission to do anything." I argued.

"Penelope . . ."

"Just a small blessing." I smiled, dropping onto his lap.

"Woman, dark web? Have you been getting into things you shouldn't have while I'm not at home?" he asked as I started kissing his neck.

"I'm always . . . getting into things . . ." I said between kisses as I started to unbutton his jeans.

"Penelope Toretto Hobbs!" he groaned. "Babe, we were talking about . . . I can't remember what we were talking about."

I pulled his shirt off and moved my hands over his chest back to his jeans.

"I'm trying to get you naked and you want to talk?"

"Don't know what's gotten into you tonight but . . ."

"Hopefully you unless you wanna keep talking."

"Jesus Christ." he groaned, getting up with me on his lap and throwing me over his shoulders . . .again.

"Luke!" I shrieked when he slapped my ass.

"You're gonna deal with it and like it."

"Mmm . . . whatever you say, Mr. Hobbs."

He took me to bed and I liked it, Mr. Hobbs ravished his wife well and proper. The next couple of days were normal around our house. As normal as they can get anyway. Luke and I continued to work on finding information on the super-virus. His bosses are aware of my assistance and as long as I don't get involved in anything without him, or anything that he doesn't know about they're okay with it. I have a certain set of skills that help him, as long as it helps them get the bad guy they don't really care.

Come Sunday morning, we decided to go out and have family breakfast for Luke's cheat day. Sam brought all of her graded work to show her father since he hasn't been able to spend much time with the girls this week. They've grown accustomed to it by now, it makes them sad but they know that daddy is out there making the world a safer place for them.

"A . . . A . . . A . . . Excellent! Oh, and by the way, your Old Man and the Sea report?" Luke said to Sam.

"Mm-hmm?" she replied.

"The one from last week? You did so good, Penny showed it to me last night. It was awesome, baby girl." he said, making her smile.

"I told you Sam, you're brilliant." I added.

"Thanks mom, dad."

"Sammy color a tree!" Keilani said, pointing to a page that I hadn't seen before.

"What's that?" Luke asked and I was curious as well.

"Um . . . it's a Social Studies assignment. It's a family tree . . . it's just a sketch." she shyly replied, handing the page over.

She had a pretty good drawing of a tree and some falling leaves. I'm honored that she has me on her tree as mom #2, but other than that, it's just the three of us and nothing else. Oh my poor baby.

"Oh yeah! That's our family tree right there. It's uh . . . it's . . . super easy to read and very clear, yeah." Luke said and knowing him as well as I do, I could see the discomfort in his posture and hear it in his voice.

"You didn't tell me that you were working on this." I said, taking her hand in mine.

"I wanted to surprise you. Uh . . . I was going to use this, I found it in the garage drawer. That's you, isn't it? Who's Jonah?" Sam asked and I took the picture to look at it for a few seconds before Luke took it from me.

"Is that your brother?" I asked him, seeing the sadness in his eyes.

"Yup, that's my brother." he sighed.

"Daddy have a brother?" Keilani asked, smiling big up at her father.

"Yeah baby, daddy has a brother." he muttered.

"Why don't you ever talk about Samoa? Did something happen?" Sam asked.

I have to admit, I have a healthy dose of curiosity there as well. I've told Luke all about my life but he's very sparse with the details of his own home. All I know is that things went bad and he left. He hasn't spoken to anyone from his family since the day he stepped on a plane.

"In life, things happen and you may not want them to but they do. You just gotta do your best and move on. The fact of the matter is, I'm your family. We're your family, we're your people. Just us." Luke said and this is him shutting it down.

"And you're a whole lot." Sam smiled, recognizing the same.

"He's definitely a whole lot." I smiled.

"Oh, I'm a whole lot. Look at this, perfect timing." Luke said when the waitress walked up with the first few plates. "Oh no, this is for the mini. Thank you so much."

"Cheat day?" she asked, knowing us very well.

"Cheat day! Yeah! Thank you so much."

Luke got a stack of pancakes with scrambled eggs and bacon, Sam got pancakes and sausages, Lani got her favorite chocolate and strawberry crepes, and I got cream-filled French toast. The amount of plates on this table is ridiculous but . . . cheat day! My husband is a greedy man on his cheat day and this is how he does this.

By the time we finished, Keilani had chocolate all over her face and Sam was stuffed. I love our Sunday breakfasts, ever since we came back from our last job Luke makes sure to be home for this. If for some reason he has to work out of state, he always takes a break on Sundays to have virtual breakfast with us.