Break In My Heart

31. The Anniversary of Forks

Quick reminder: Padre= Noah, Papa= Madison

***

I'd never wanted to hug someone more than I wanted to hug Tyler.

We were sitting at the dinner table with my fathers on one side of the table and Azalea, myself, and Tyler on the other side. My other younger siblings had decided to go to bed, which was a rare but appreciated occurrence. But the smaller amount of people didn't stop Tyler's leg as it nervously bounced under the table against mine. I could practically feel his nervousness.

My fathers, being the weirdos they were, kept looking between Tyler and I, looking like they were about to break into a bout of questions at any moment. Tyler brought another fork full of his food to his mouth, chewing it thoroughly before he looked up at my fathers. "This is great. You all did an amazing job."

Papa gave him a friendly grin. "Thank you, Tyler. I'm glad you enjoy it."

Tyler offered his own closed-lipped grin before he broke eye contact once again. Both empathetic and a bit amused by his shy demeanor that countered the way he acted when we were alone, I slid my hand into his under the table.

Papa lightly chuckled as he shook his head, his attention on the food on his plate.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing, I was just...I was just remembering when you were still a little boy and you made your first dish. I don't remember what it was exactly, but I remember that you burned it. Bad. Noah was out on a book tour, so it was just you, me, and Azzy, and I tried to stop you because I knew it was going to be bad when you set the stove too high, but you refused to listen to me. And you were so proud. We covered all the burnt bits with cheese and whatever else we were using, and you just smiled and smiled." He scoffed as he shook his head, obviously fond of the memory that I couldn't quite recall. "We ate that burned food and you wanted to save a bit for your Padre when he came home and–"

"–and burned food already tastes bad when you eat it after it's made, but it tastes even worse after you reheat it!"

"Hey!" I protested. "I did my best! How old was I?"

"Too young," Papa said. "But it feels like yesterday and look at you now..." His words died on his lips as he looked between Tyler and I, a grin on his lips. "All grown up."

I felt a blush ignite on my cheeks as I looked away, slightly embarrassed by his sappiness. "Dad..."

"Ooh, Madison, remember when I almost burned your apartment down back in South Carolina?"

Papa laughed. "Oh my–Noah, you almost killed us!"

"Wait, wait, wait, what now?" Azalea asked, voicing Tyler and I's piqued interests as well.

Papa sobered up. "Alright, so what happened was–"

"No, no, no, you never tell it right. Let me."

Papa put his hands up in surrender and let Padre tell the story. "Alright, so it was back in my senior year of high school after everything had gone down. I'd been living with Madison for a while and–"

"–actually, Noah never moved in, he just stopped going back to Nonna's and started stealing all of my food and clothes!"

"Whatever, Madison. Every time I would try to go home you'd get all said and be like 'Il mio re (my king) please don't go. I'll miss you, what can I do to make you stay? Blah, blah, blah'."

At the mention of the familiar nickname my Papa used for my Padre, I caught Tyler looking at me out of the side of my eye. "Mr. Noah? What does that mean? Il mio re?"