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10

SPENCER MURDOCK

I parked my car in the driveway of Diego's house and took a deep breath. I knew I was going to have to convince Diego's family that we're dating and he's not interested in boys but now that I'm here I'm terrified. I couldn't calm down my breathing, my chest heaved up and down like a maniac.

I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my contacts looking for anyone that could calm me down. My finger quickly pressed the call button on my dad's contact.

It rang but no one answered leaving me straight to voicemail.

I sighed and hung up before scrolling through again. My nerves were still very much alive and I don't think I could go through with this. I just need to talk to some that can calm me down. Someone, I felt safe talking to and being with. Someone I trust.

Without thinking I pressed the call button and lifted the phone to my ear. For a good while, the phone rang through the Bluetooth connection to the car and my heart beat faster.

"Hello?" He answered with a hint of grogginess.

"Hi."

"Uh- Who is this?" He asked.

"Spencer," I muttered nervously. "Um- from school. I was your tour leader and we briefly met at the Rally. Well, and the cafe."

"Oh, how did you get my number?"

"Oh - haha - uh," god I'm so awkward, "your friend Tori said that I might need it so she gave it to me after the Rally."

He muttered something to someone else that I couldn't hear. The guy responded and I felt relief that it wasn't female.

"Jackson?" I called into the phone and the other side shuffled around. "Hello?"

"Yeah, sorry." He responded.

"Look I just wanted to call and ask if you and Cassie are - uh - like a thing?" I went into a mumble. There was an awkward silence on the other end and I shook my head in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. I should go-"

"No. Um, Cassie and I aren't a... thing." He said the last thing like it was foreign on his tongue.

"Oh, uh- well, do you want to have like - uh - coffee?" I asked.

"Uh..." Jackson drawled out.

"Jesus Christ, I'm usually good at this," I mumbled.

"At what?"

"Talking."

"Why aren't you now?" He asked, probably to avoid my question.

"I'm nervous," I whispered.

"Nervous?"

"You make me nervous, Jackson," I tell him. In actuality, he's made me less nervous. My heart calmed down and looking at the house doesn't make me terrified. It's Jackson's voice, that's what calms me. Him.

"Aren't you with Diego?" He asked through the phone. He's right, I'm with Diego. Even though I'm not really with him, I'm still his public girlfriend. Fake or not, I'm never a cheater. I won't be.

"You're right. I have no idea what I'm doing. I have to go." I say and take the phone away from my ear.

"No, no Spencer, wai-" I hung up on him.

I look at the wheel of the car and sigh. Of course, the odds are not in my favor. Even when I try to do my best to keep Diego safe against his parents by sacrificing my potential happiness, shit still gets thrown back in my face. I was so stupid to call Jackson and think that everything is gonna go my way. He probably doesn't even have feelings for me. This is just all in my imagination.

A tap on my window takes me out of my thoughts and I looked at Diego. He raises his eyebrows and I remember what I was supposed to do. Sighing, I opened the door and grabbed my bag putting it over my shoulder. Diego backed up and let me stand in front of him.

"Why are being so creepy?" He asked with a smirk on his face.

"What do you mean?" I asked in return.

"You're sitting out here in the car, watching my house," Diego explained and my face turned a light shade of pink.

"Dude, I'm scared," I said making him smile at me.

"Why?" I groaned and walked past him toward his house.

"Because... your house is intimidating, your cars are intimidating, you're intimidating... so your family must be fucking intimidating." I used the word intimidating so much that I think it's the only word in my vocabulary.

"You'll be fine, just be yourself." He reassured me and put his cold hand on the small of my back.

"Right, thanks." I still felt scared but not as much as before I talked to Jackson. But pretty damn close. I watched as Diego smiled walking up the driveway, it felt so tempting to interlock my fingers with his so I did. He looked at me shortly before clenching his hands in mine. "Diego?" I called to him nervously.

"Yeah?" He looked forward and I studied his calm features before I told him this.

"Maybe after I meet your parents we can publically break up," I suggested. He looked surprised at first, he wasn't hurt or filled with the look of betrayal. He looked like he knew why I really wanted this.

"You want to be free so that Jackson can make a move or vice versa." He whispered like there were other people around. "Spencer, I know that he will make a move but I don't know if his friends and family will accept you."

"Why not?" I asked, hurt that he didn't think I was good enough for Jackson's family.

"It's hard to explain but just know that he will not be honest with you. He's gonna lie but you need to know that it's for a confusing but good reason." He told me.

"You're the one being confusing right now," I whispered back to him.

"I know but you'll understand. Just be careful with him."

I sighed in defeat, "Okay."

___

"Spencer, dear, could be so kind as to grab the salt and pepper from the counter? I must have forgotten it." Diego's mother asked in her beautifully smooth voice, it was like she has been talking for centuries. Each word is correctly pronounced with a hint of a European accent.

"Sure." I nodded to her and grabbed the bottles from the counter.

I sat down at the large long table and smiled at the people around it. The mother, Danielle, had short red hair and green perfect eyes. Her skin is pale, almost like a dead body, and her nails - along with her makeup - are seductively dark. Next to her was Kendrick, her husband, who was also pale with dark hair and an attractive masculine face.

Diego's little sister, Camilla, looked more like him than the rest of the family. She had long dark hair and plump lips that matched her tan skin tone. Her eyes matched the others, old and full of knowledge. Lastly, his brother, Derek, was very light, not as light as his parents but light nonetheless. He was the only one with blond hair and blue eyes. All of the family members are admittedly extremely attractive.

"So, Spencer, what are your hobbies?" Kendrick asked.

"Oh- uh- I go hiking and repelling a lot. A bit of boxing here and there. I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie." I chuckled to myself.

"That's cool, where do you work?" Camilla asked me, taking a bite of her very rare steak.

"At the cafe. The one downtown, it's small and cozy, I really like working there." I said with a smile on my face before biting into my own steak which was cooked just a little more than theirs were.

"That's nice," Danielle said. "You're a very attractive young lady, Spencer, how did my son convince you to be with him?" I laughed at that.

"Diego isn't that bad. He's kind of a gentleman when he wants to be." I told them, taking a drink of my water.

Danielle smiled at me and took a sip of her unusually thick red wine. The children, Camila, Diego, and I, were drinking water but I ended up being the only one drinking it.

"So, what do you like to eat?" Derek asked with a condescending smirk on his face.

"Derek," Diego warned him, I couldn't quite understand why he couldn't ask me that.

"It's okay," I touched his hand over the table. "I eat a lot of fast food and think that it's okay because I exercise and eat a salad once in a while. I'm totally wrong."

"Oh, that's interesting," Danielle commented.

"What's your favorite fast food place?" Camilla asked.

"Taco Bell," I replied, she looked at me with a smile but she didn't seem to recognize the place.

"Never been." She said.

"Well... what do you guys eat?" I asked.

"Lots of things, what me to show you sometime?" Derek snickered.

"Son," Kenrick warned.

"Dad." Derek mocked as he stared down Kenrick, I could have sworn that I saw Derek's eyes change into a tint of red like a flame. 

"We're about done so we'll head upstairs if that's okay with you." Diego immediately announced.

"I think that would be wise," Danielle told him with a knowing nod.

___

"No offense but your family is weird," I said as I entered his room.

"Trust me I know." He said chuckling. Diego lay on his bed, his room grey and filled with darkish things. His bed looked rarely used and his blinds closed. I hated artificial light. I opened up the windows so that rays of the sun would peak at Diego's cave and lighten it.

I walked along the walls and looked at all the things he has collected over the years. I saw a mix of artifacts and old comic books on a plastic sheet. I ran my fingers over an empty rust revolver gun that had been collecting dust on the shelf.

"Where did you get this?" I asked in awe.

"My father kept a time box since he was a little kid." He said softly.

"Kenrick?"

"No, Kenrick is my adoptive father. My biological father was Narciso Alvarez. He would collect all the things that impacted his life and keep them in a wooden box. He always meant to bury it but kept putting it off. He died before he could." He told me, I sat down next to him on his bed and looked into his sad brown eyes.

"He must have meant a lot to you," I said, my hand finding its way onto his.

"He did. I looked up to the man, but he got into some shady business and it got him killed." Diego looked out the window and winced at the bright sun.

"What about the other stuff?" I looked at the dull dagger that had Egyptian characters on the handle. A signed Elvis guitar and a Dollie hanging on by a thread.

"I collect things like my old man, eBay is a great place to find wonderful old things." He tells me.

"I like them." I barely whisper.

No normal ears could have picked that up but Diego looks at me and smiles. "I like you." He whispered back I blushed.

Jeff