The house was filled with their friends and their partners as James and Rafaela decided to have some sort of party to celebrate their new apartment. After dinner, a few beers and many packs of cigarettes, the gang decided to go off to the club for some loud music.
"I am going to change then." Rafaela said leaving the group and going to her room to change her outfit. Meanwhile James and Lars went to the balcony having another beer.
"Do you realize that you're living with a girl? It's like being a family man..." Lars commented. James stayed silent for a while. "Do you really know what you're doing?"
"I know what I am doing and what this means Lars." James said calmly.
"You really love her this much, aren't you just deluded or something? She's cute and stuff..."
"No..." James shook his head. "I love her. Rafi is just different from all the other girls. You saw me on tour man...I haven't been with anyone, I didn't let those girls touch me, all because I have her and I don't want to lose her. She's right for me, I feel things for her I never felt before. I know what I am doing. I know what this apartment means and what is bringing to my life, but I want this. I want this very much."
Lars smiled and patted his shoulder. Despite their rants, and there have been quite a few, James was like a brother to him. "If you're happy then stick with it."
"I better check on Rafi, she's taking a bit long." James said. "I'll be right back."
James entered the room and she was just putting some clothes back in the drawer but she was dressed already.
"Have you seen my wallet baby?" He asked looking for it.
"Check in the drawers."
James began to open the drawers of his nightstand and nothing, then he passed to hers. The first drawer made him forget the wallet in seconds. He grabbed the video tape in his hands and smiled. "Babe, what is this?" He asked waving the porn tape in the air.
"Oh!" Rafaela frowned.
"Are you watching porn without me?" He asked still smiling.
"No..." She said ripping the tape off his hands. "This was a surprise for later." She pouted.
"For us?" He asked.
"Yes...to watch it together when we came back from the bar. I didn't know we were going out, so my plan was to watch it when they left."
"Watch porn with you?" He asked smiling. Then he got up and grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her lips. "Love the idea babe." He whispered against her lips. He was almost dropping the night out.
"Now put it back there." She told him. "So much for the surprise." Rafaela said rather disappointed.
"It's ok." He said. "Look, here's my wallet, are you ready to go?" Rafaela nodded and they left.
Already at the bar they discussed what to drink.
"A vodka shot for each one of us." James suggested. "For Rafi's new job"
"Thank God I got that damn part-time job." She laughed loud.
"It's on the new clothes shop?" Rebecca asked her.
"Yeah, it is. The money is not much but it will help with the bills." She said proudly.
"So babe?" James called for her attention.
"Yeah...vodka is fine." She agreed. James left to the counter to ask for the shots while Rafaela remained with Corinne and Rebecca talking cheerfully.
Then she spotted Kelly approaching James. She was drunk, stumbled on her feet here and there and then she smiled at him. Rafaela whished she could hear what they were talking about, but of course they were far. She felt a little jealous, after all there was some sort of story between them.
"Hi James." Kelly told him with a saucy smile on her lips. James looked at her and didn't smile back.
"How are you doing?" He simply asked her while waiting for the drinks.
"Missing you." She said taking both her hands to his chest and running them over it. Rafaela shuddered watching the whole scene and James wrapped his hands around her wrists and pulled her hands away from him.
"Kelly..." He warned her.
"Don't you miss me?" She pouted her lips.
"Rafi and I are still together. We have our own place now and I love her." He clarified things for her, at the same time he glanced at Rafaela by the corner of his eye. She was staring at them. He hope she was coping with the situation lightly.
"Are you really that serious about her?" Kelly asked then, feeling some weird sobriety invading her. That was too much to take. They were living together.
"I am." He affirmed looking straight in her eyes, so she could see he meant it.
"I thought you'd get sick of her in a couple of weeks..." Kelly smiled ironically, then shook her head. "Life is strange..."
"Well, you were wrong. In fact I love her more now than when we began. We're cool, so stop trying to provoke her. I know what you're doing..." He said.
Then he heard the glasses being put on the counter. He looked away from Kelly and grabbed the bills inside his pocket. James paid for the drinks and grabbed the small glasses within his hands. "Bye." He said dryly and left.
Rafaela's eyes searched for James' the instant he got there. James distributed the shots leaving hers for last.
"What did she want?" She asked him when he got near her.
"Leave her babe." He told her shaking his head softly.
"She was running her hands on your chest." Rafaela argued, but she wasn't mad at him, still she was jealous. James put their shots on the table and grabbed her hands in his.
"She was provoking you, maybe trying to tease me too. I love you Rafi..."
Rafaela stood on the tip of her toes and kissed his lips softly. "I love you too." She whispered after.
"Let's toast then." He cheered her up with his cute smile. Rafaela smiled back and grabbed her shot. The group united the glasses in the middle of them and yelled some cheering, then swallowed the liquid all at once.
"It's not much money, but I think we're gonna do fine." James said embracing Rafaela against his body.
"I think so too. As long as I have you I don't need anything else." She told him with her heart bubbling. But somehow she felt him distant after a few seconds. Even his embrace had subsided a bit.
His smile vanished suddenly as he stared at some distant point. Rafaela stopped smiling too as she noticed his face turning pale. His lines became rigid and she felt his chest coming up and down against her face in heavy breathing. She looked at where he was looking, his grip around her shoulders tightened then, he squeezed her against him like protecting her, but in the end he was just trying to protect himself. From all his actions, he didn't have to tell her who the man approaching them was, she instantly knew.
"What are you doing here?" James asked almost aggressively when the man stopped in front of them.
"I came looking for you." The man told him. "Why don't you talk to me James?"
"Why?" James laughed ironically and let Rafaela go free. His arms let her go but she held his hand in support and stayed there with him to help him hanging on. "You must be really out of your mind if you're still asking yourself why."
"I am trying to get close to you. Is that wrong? I have been trying us to talk for quite some time!"
"I don't care about that!" James yelled at him. "Why would I care? You didn't care! So why would I have to talk to you now? Why is it important?"
"Because you're my son!" The man retorted with an authority tone.
"You should have remembered that long ago, now it's too late. You lost me." James squeezed Rafaela's hand as his rage showed up.
"James..." She called his name sweetly, resting a hand on his chest to calm him down.
"Everything's fine." He told her knowingly.
"Look..." His father said and took a paper off his wallet. "This is my address, please...come to talk to me. We need to talk James, I am trying hard to fix things." With that the man shoved the paper inside the pocket of James's jeans. He didn't even move.
"Please, let's talk." His father insisted.
James turned his face to look away in despise and Rafaela felt her eyes burning with tears. She knew the situation was far from being the same but if her father came up to her like his was doing she would give him a chance, only the situation wasn't the same.
"You better go now." James shot but not looking at his father.
"I'll be waiting for you." The man said, then with a nod towards Rafaela he left.
"Let's go home Rafi. I want to go home." James asked her as soon as his father disappeared. She simply nodded. No one insisted for them to stay, they all knew what happened and how stressed James was feeling. Lars patted his back in support and then James grabbed his girlfriend's hand and dragged her out of there.
While driving her car he was just silent. Rafaela noticed how fast he was driving, just anxious to get home, and once there, he went straight to the bathroom and locked himself in there. Rafaela walked around the living room for a while not knowing exactly what to do. Then she sat on the couch just waiting for him to come out but he took long, too long for her to just wait. She got up and knocked on the door.
"Baby..." She called him.
"Leave me be...." He told her. "Please..."
Her eyes filled with tears as she noticed how his voice was choking and trembling. He was crying. She had heard him talking about his father many times, so she had an idea how he was feeling and hurting. His father trying to reach him was killing him, because James was torn between love and hate for his father. He was torn between the need to have him back in his life and the sorrow he felt since he had left.
"Baby, open the door, please...let me be there with you." She pleaded.
"No." He answered. Rafaela knew it was nothing against her, nor to do with her. It was just the simple fact that he didn't want her to see him crying.
"James, you once told me that it was alright to cry and you stayed there with me just pampering my hair while I dismantled in your arms. So I say the same to you, it's ok to cry baby..." She choked in her own tears. "...so I just want to hold you as you held me, remember?"
He didn't say a word, not a sound came out of the bathroom and Rafaela leaned against the door without knowing what to do. Then, seconds after, she felt the key turning on the locker and she immediately turned the knob to go inside. James was sat on the floor with his back against the wall. His eyes were red and swollen and she sat by his side, pulling his head down to her lap.
"It's not fair that he's trying to talk to me now you know?" He began to talk. "He caused us so much harm and now what? Now he thinks he can erase all that just by showing up?"
"Maybe you should at least listen to him babe..." Rafaela advised him. "I know all you've been through because of the things you told me, but he's here now trying to mend things."
"The point is there is nothing to mend Rafi." James claimed. "All the damage is done. I can' forgive him and go back to a relationship with him pretending nothing happened. He left me...he fucking left me...he couldn't have done that. There was nothing, he left us with nothing. We starved! My mother died and I had to go to live with my older brother. It was a freaking hell! Then I starved again because I left his house as soon as I was 18. He can't mend that!"
"I would give anything for my father to show up like that saying he wanted to talk to me. I know my situation can't be compared to yours in any way sweetie, but it's a father we're talking about. I also feel hurt he was so willing to let me go off his life just because I was dating someone he didn't approve, and even now that two months are gone he's still not talking to me or even looked for me once, so I assume I am that disposable in his life. It also hurts me, but if he looked for me, I would at least listen to what he had to tell me, because in the end he's my father and I miss him in my life."
"It's not the same thing babe." James whispered with a distant stare.
"I know, but I know it hurts you a lot that he's not around, so now he is trying to be. Give him that chance, the least, give him the chance to explain, whatever his reasons are. It might not take your sorrow away but it might smooth it, and maybe there are things you don't know that he'll say and that will help you understand his part of the story."
"I don't want to know his side of the story. Whatever his reasons were, you just don't walk out on your kids the way he did."
"It hurts me to see you like this." Rafaela whispered pulling his hair back.
"I'm sorry Rafi. I'm sorry I ruined our night." He said remembering she had the tape for them to watch.
"You didn't ruin anything." She smiled and bent down to place a kiss on his forehead. "There are other days."
"You don't mind? This ruin my mood."
"No...I don't mind...do you want to talk more?" She offered to listen.
"I don't know what to do." He confessed. "Part of me hates him so much and the other part needs to have him around again." James said confirming her suspicions.
"Then give him the chance to do so. You're not showing weakness if you allow him to get close to you. He's your father and no matter what, they are always important for us. He gave you his address, so now you know where to find him. Go there..."
"I don't know if I can go there..."
"Think about it then, and when you think you're ready you go. How's that?" She bent over him again.
"It's so good to talk to you." He whispered pulling her for a peck.
"I'm always here for you, for support." She assured him. "Now can we go to bed? My ass is freezing from this floor."
James giggled at her comment and stood, giving her his hand to help her stand too. He pulled her to him to kiss her lips. "You are my guardian angel." He whispered against her lips.
"Silly." She smiled running a hand over his air. "I just love you, that's all."
"Thank you for loving me, Rafi."