Chapter 12: We’re Expecting
The silence in the car was a thick, alive thing. It pulsed with the echoes of shouted words. Tasha stared out the passenger window, her knuckles white where they gripped the handle of the door. The warm, cluttered apartment with its half-open blinds and the scent of cilantro and simmering beans felt like a crime scene they’d just fled.
Ares drove with a violent focus, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. The streets blurred past. He didn’t speak. He just drove, one hand strangling the steering wheel, the other resting on the gear shift. The heat between them now was not desire, but the radioactive afterglow of humiliation.
“You could have warned me,” Tasha said, her voice eerily calm. It was the first thing either had said since his mother’s final, shattered plea—“Just think, mijo, for once in your goddamn life, just think!”—had followed them out the door.
“Warned you about what?” Ares’s voice was gravel. “That my mom would lose her shit? Consider yourself warned.”
“Not that. That your father would stare at my tits all through dinner like I was a dessert he was thinking about ordering.”
Ares’s foot slammed the brake at a red light a half-second too late. They jerked against their seatbelts. He turned his head, his green eyes blazing in the dark cabin. “Don’t.”
“Or what?” she challenged, the corporate litigator in her rising, cold and sharp, to bury the hurt woman. “It’s true. Your mother is screaming about condoms and cradle robbery, and your dad is over there giving me the fucking eye. It was disgusting.”
“He’s a man. You’re… fuck, Tasha, you’re you. Of course he looked.” He said it like it was an immutable law of physics.
“That makes it worse!” Her calm broke, voice cracking. “It makes me feel like… like some fetish. The old piece of ass that corrupted her precious boy.”
The light turned green. He didn’t move. A horn blared behind them. He ignored it. “You’re not a piece of ass. You’re having my baby.” He said it like a shield, a sanctimonious trump card.
“That’s not the get-out-of-jail-free card you think it is, Ares!” she spat. “It just makes me the old piece of ass who’s pregnant. It makes it a tragedy.”
The car behind them laid on the horn, a long, angry blast. Ares swore, stomped on the gas, and swerved through the intersection. He didn’t head back toward her sleek high-rise. He took a series of sharp turns, driving toward the older, artsy district where his own cramped apartment sat above a dusty used bookstore.
“Where are we going?”
“My place. I can’t… I need to not be in your fucking museum right now.”
She didn’t argue. The thought of returning to her sterile, perfect bedroom, the scene of his worship just nights before, made her skin crawl. It would feel like a lie. His apartment, with its paint-splattered floors and mismatched furniture, was at least honestly shabby.
He parked haphazardly and got out, not waiting for her. She followed, her heels clicking on the cracked sidewalk. He took the stairs two at a time, unlocked the door, and disappeared inside. When she entered, he was already in the tiny kitchen, yanking open the fridge, pulling out a beer. He twisted the cap off and took a long, draining pull.
The place was as she remembered—sunlight long gone, just a single lamp casting deep shadows over canvases leaning against the walls, a half-sculpted lump of clay on a wheel by the window. It smelled of turpentine, stale coffee, and him.
She stood in the center of the main room, hugging herself. The confrontation played on a loop in her head. His mother’s face, initially warm and welcoming until the moment Tasha, trying to be brave, had said, “There’s no easy way to say this. We’re expecting.” The way the woman’s smile had frozen, then melted into incredulity, then fury. The rapid-fire Spanish she’d switched to, then back to English for maximum damage. “Thirty-three? You are thirty-three? Ares, you idiot child! What did you do?” His father, Ricardo, a quieter man with Ares’s jawline gone soft, had just watched, his eyes constantly sliding to Tasha’s body, a strange mix of disapproval and lurid appreciation in his gaze. When he finally spoke, it was to Ares, low and disappointed. “The scouts, son. This is a distraction you cannot afford.”
Ares finished the beer and crushed the bottle in his hand, a sudden, shocking explosion of force. He didn’t flinch as the glass cracked. He just walked to the trash and dropped the pieces in with a clatter.
“They don’t get it,” he said, his back to her.
“They get it perfectly,” she replied. “They see a train wreck.”
He turned around. The playful boy was gone, erased. In his place was a man vibrating with a feral, wounded pride. “You think this is a train wreck?”
“I think it looks like one to them. To everyone.”
“Fuck everyone.” He crossed the space between them in three strides. He didn’t touch her. He loomed, his body radiating a heat that had nothing to do with warmth. “You think I give a single shit what my dad thinks about his timeline? Or what my mom thinks about your age?” He leaned in, his voice dropping to a raw whisper. “She called you a vieja. You know what that did to me? It made me want to fuck you right there on their kitchen table to show them exactly what this vieja does to me.”
His words were a match thrown on gasoline. The humiliation, the fear, the sheer injustice of it all combusted into a different kind of fire. She slapped him. It wasn’t a gentle tap. It was a full-armed swing that cracked across the apartment, her palm connecting with his cheek with a sound like a gunshot.
His head snapped to the side. He slowly brought a hand up to his reddening skin. A dark, dangerous smile spread across his face. “Yeah,” he breathed. “Like that.”
He grabbed her. It wasn’t a gentle embrace. It was an arrest. One arm banded around her waist, hauling her off her feet, the other hand fisted in the elegant twist of her hair, yanking her head back. He carried her, stumbling, through the cluttered space into his bedroom—a Spartan room dominated by a large, unmade bed and stacks of sports equipment.
He threw her onto the mattress. She bounced, the breath leaving her lungs. He was on her before she could right herself, his weight pinning her down, his knees forcing her legs apart. He ripped her silk blouse open, buttons pinging off the walls. He didn’t bother with her bra; he just shoved the lace cups down, exposing her breasts. His mouth descended on a nipple, sucking so hard it was a punishment, his teeth scraping the sensitive peak.
She cried out, arching against him, not in protest but in a desperate agreement. This was the language they understood now. This was the only way to scream back at the world.
“You think this is a mistake?” he growled, transferring his mouth to her other breast, biting down. She gasped, her hands flying to his hair, pulling.
“Yes!” she hissed.
“You think you’re too old for me?” He released her breast and yanked at the waistband of her tailored pants, tearing the zipper down. He shoved them and her panties down her hips in one violent motion.
“Yes!”
He reared up, kneeling between her splayed thighs, and fumbled with his own jeans. He freed his cock, already thick and raging. He didn’t pause. He didn’t prepare her. He grabbed her hip in one hand, angled himself, and drove into her with a single, brutal thrust.
She was wet—the anger, the adrenaline saw to that—but he was huge, and the entry was a stunning, breathtaking stretch. She screamed, her back bowing off the bed.
“Then why does this vieja cunt feel so fucking perfect?” he snarled, pulling back and slamming home again. The bedframe slammed against the wall in a rhythm that matched their pounding hearts.
He fucked her with a relentless, punishing pace. Each deep, grinding thrust was an answer to his mother’s questions, a rebuttal to his father’s disappointment. He leaned down, bracing his hands on either side of her head, his sweat dripping onto her face.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he demanded, his thrusts becoming shorter, harder, pounding into her cervix.
“I’m yours,” she sobbed, the words ripped from her.
“Tell me this baby is mine.”
“It’s yours! God, Ares, it’s yours!”
He captured her mouth in a searing, possessive kiss, swallowing her cries. His rhythm fractured, lost its anger, and found a desperate, driving need. He fucked her now with a starving hunger, as if trying to reach something, to touch the very life they’d created inside her.
“Come for me,” he rasped against her lips. “Come on this dick, Tasha. Show me this is where you belong.”
Her orgasm detonated, a convulsive, mind-wiping wave that clenched around him, milking him, pulling his own release from him. He shouted, a raw, broken sound, and drove in as deep as he could, pulsing hotly inside her, each jet a defiant claim.
He collapsed, his full weight on her, his face buried in her neck. They were a mess of sweat, torn clothes, and spent rage. The only sound was their ragged, syncing breaths and the distant wail of a siren through the open window.
After a long time, he rolled off her, pulling her with him, tucking her back against his chest. His hand, gentler now, settled over her stomach. Outside, the city hummed, indifferent.
“I didn’t sign the papers,” he said into her hair, his voice hoarse.
She knew what he meant. The scholarship. The ticket out. The clean, proud future his father wanted.
“I know.”
“I’m not leaving you to deal with this.”
“You have to,” she whispered, but the fight was gone from her voice. It was just a fact, hanging in the dark.
“We’ll figure something out.”
It was the same naive promise. She didn’t believe it any more than she had before. But wrapped in the smell of him, their bodies still intimately joined, the sharp edges of the world felt temporarily blunted. The lies were still there. The problems were still colossal. But here, in this messy room, they were just two people hiding from the storm they’d created, holding onto the only thing that felt undeniably real: the desperate, physical proof of each other.
But here, in this messy room, they were just two people hiding from the storm they’d created, holding onto the only thing that felt undeniably real: the desperate, physical proof of each other. A week passed in a fragile, temporary truce, the un-signed scholarship papers a ghost on his cluttered desk. They avoided her sleek apartment, living in his world of canvases and athletic gear, as if the paint-smudged floors could absolve them.
Tasha sat cross-legged on his unmade bed, her laptop balanced on a pillow, but she wasn’t working. She was scrolling through a site selling tiny, impossibly small socks. A soft yellow pair with little ducks. Her thumb hovered over the ‘add to cart’ button. It felt like a dare.
On the floor, his back against the bed frame, Ares was obliterating digital soldiers on his console, the violent crack of sniper fire filling the room. “Got you, you fucker,” he muttered, his fingers flying over the controller.
The door to his bedroom burst open without a knock.
It slammed against the wall with a force that made Tasha jump, her laptop nearly slipping. Lucia Morales stood in the doorway, her face a mask of furious, worried intensity. Luis was a half-step behind her, his eyes scanning the room and immediately, irrevocably, sticking to Tasha. She was wearing one of Ares’s thin white t-shirts, the fabric stretched taut across her breasts, and nothing else.
“¡Dios mío, Ares!” Lucia’s voice was a whip. “You sit here playing games? Juegos?”
Ares jerked, dropping the controller. “Ma? What the hell? How did you get in?”
“The landlord still likes me! This is what you do? Your life is now a game?” She marched into the room, gesturing wildly at Tasha, who instinctively yanked the rumpled duvet up to her chin. “What is the plan? Have you made a doctor’s appointment? What about child care? Do you have money for this? Have you even gone baby shopping yet, or is that also a game?”
Each question was a hammer blow. Ares stood up, his height suddenly making the room feel smaller. “We’re handling it. Get out of my room.”
Luis’s gaze, however, hadn’t moved from the shape of Tasha’s body under the blanket. He bit his lower lip, a slow, unconscious motion, his eyes tracing the curve of her shoulder where the shirt had slipped. He finally dragged his eyes to his son, the disapproval returning to mask his distraction. “Your mother is asking you real questions, mijo. You need real answers. Not this… this playing house.”
“We’re not playing,” Ares snarled, stepping physically between his father’s line of sight and Tasha.
“It looks like playing!” Lucia shot back, pointing at the paused game on the screen. “You have a child coming! With a… a woman!” She said ‘woman’ like it was a curse, her eyes darting to Tasha with a mix of venom and profound, helpless fear.
The air was pure ammonia, burning Tasha’s lungs. She pulled the blanket higher, a flimsy shield against the scrutiny and the shame. She wanted to speak, to deploy the crisp, logical arguments that won courtroom battles, but under that gaze, she was stripped back to nothing but a pregnant body in a boy’s bed.
“Get. Out.” Ares’s voice was low, vibrating with a threat that was entirely new.
Lucia stared at her son, saw the man where she only wanted to see the boy, and something in her face fractured. She turned on her heel, shoving past her husband. “You will ruin everything,” she said, the words choked, and left.
Luis lingered a second longer. His eyes found Tasha’s over Ares’s shoulder. They held none of his wife’s fury. They were dark, appraising, and deeply uncomfortable. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then just shook his head and followed his wife out, pulling the door shut with a quiet, definitive click.
The silence they left behind was heavier than the yelling. The electronic ping from the forgotten game menu seemed obscene. Tasha realized she was shaking. The blanket smelled like Ares and sex and now, forever, like this humiliation.
Ares didn’t move for a full minute. He just stared at the closed door, his shoulders rigid. Then he turned. The look on his face wasn’t anger anymore. It was something darker, more primitive. A possessive fury ignited by his father’s lingering look, by his mother’s reduction of Tasha to a problem.
He walked to the door and twisted the lock. The sound was a solid, final thunk.
He turned back to the bed. “Take the blanket off.”
“Ares…”
“Take it the fuck off.” His voice was quiet, ice over lava.
She let the duvet pool around her waist. The white t-shirt was translucent in the afternoon light slanting through the blinds. He stared at her, his eyes crawling over every visible inch, reclaiming what his parents had tried to shame.
“He was looking at you,” Ares said, unbuttoning his jeans.
“I know.”
“He bit his fucking lip.” He shoved his jeans and boxers down, his cock already hard, jutting out thick and angry. He didn’t approach her like a lover. He approached her like a force of nature.
“Come here.”
She moved to the edge of the bed. He didn’t let her stand. He pushed her shoulders back down onto the mattress, grabbed her ankles, and dragged her bodily to the edge until her ass was on the precipice. He hooked her legs over his elbows, spreading her wide open. There was no preamble, no kiss. He leaned his weight forward, the blunt head of his cock pressing against her, and shoved himself inside with one deep, punishing stroke.
She cried out, her back arching. She was still wet from their earlier, frantic coupling, but he was huge, and the invasion was absolute. He didn’t move. He just stood there, buried to the hilt inside her, his hands gripping the backs of her thighs, his eyes locked on where they were joined.
“This is mine,” he growled, his voice rough. “This cunt. This pussy growing my baby. You see him look at you again, you remember this. You remember what’s in you. Who owns it.”
He pulled back slowly, making her feel every inch of his withdrawal, then slammed back in, making her gasp. He set a relentless, deep-fucking rhythm, each thrust a brutal punctuation mark on his words. The bed rattled against the wall with a sound that felt like it would summon his parents back.
“Tell me,” he demanded, his breath coming in harsh pants.
“It’s yours,” she moaned, the words torn from her.
“Louder.”
“It’s yours! Oh god, Ares, it’s your pussy!”
He bent over her, changing the angle, driving even deeper. One hand snaked between their bodies, his thumb finding her clit. He circled it hard, rough, a counterpoint to the deep pounding of his cock. “Come on it. Make a mess on this dick so it’s all you can smell, all you can feel.”
The command, the filthy claim, unspooled her. Her climax hit like a seizure, a violent, clenching wave that pulled a guttural shout from her throat. He fucked her through it, his own control shattering, his thrusts becoming erratic, brutal jabs.
“Fuck, I’m gonna fill you up,” he choked out. “Gonna put another baby in this perfect, fucking cunt.”
The obscenity pushed her over another edge. He groaned, a sound of utter surrender, and plunged as deep as he could, pulsing hotly inside her in long, satisfying jets. He stayed there, slumped over her, his forehead damp against her collarbone.
Their breathing slowed. The room still hummed with the ghost of his parents’ voices. The tiny duck socks were still on her laptop screen. He finally pulled out, the wet, leaving sound stark in the quiet. He didn’t let her go. He gathered her up, t-shirt and all, and carried her to the shower.
Under the hot spray, he washed her with a strange, focused tenderness, his hands gentle on her belly. “I’ll get a job,” he said, the water sluicing over them. “I’m not signing those papers. I’m not going.”
It wasn’t the naive promise from the dark bedroom. It was a flat, weathered statement. A decision carved from the wreckage of the afternoon. She heard the death of his father’s dream in it, and the terrifying birth of a new, harder reality. She leaned her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, and said nothing. The storm wasn’t outside anymore. It was in the room with them, and they had just anchored themselves to the eye of it.