My reflection in the mirror

Chapter 02

The trip to New York was a strange one for TK.

He was a completely different person. He had left heartbroken, humiliated by the man he had hoped to propose to and had also attempted to take his own life.

He was not proud of that person at all. But he had managed to put it behind him and move on. If he thought about it, had it not been for that episode and his disastrous relationship with Alex, all the rest would not have happened.

His father would not have gotten him to travel to Texas, he would not have met Carlos, and he would not now be a happily married man who was about to have a child.

He barely slept on the plane ride, he had too much on his mind, but Carlos barely knew about it, he slept leaning on TK's shoulder the whole way because just before leaving he had just finished a double shift due to lack of personnel at the police station and he was exhausted.

He looked at him while he slept, he used to do it when he first started his relationship with him, when he had spent the first nights at his house, because it was hard to believe that a man like Carlos could want to be in a relationship with someone like TK, with all his problems. It had been a true miracle.

Besides, while it was true that without Alex, he wouldn't have met Carlos; a part of TK thought that without Carlos he wouldn't be alive now. He had never told him, because he didn't want to put any more pressure on him either, but TK knew he could never be grateful enough to his husband for how he had been able to get him out of the hole he’d been in and make him happy.

Carlos had told him that he'd only been to New York once, a quick weekend with friends because they wanted to see the city, the cool bars, everything you saw in the movies.

That had made TK start writing a list of all the things and all the places he wanted to show him and wanted to visit with him. New York had been his home for much of his life and he wanted Carlos to see where he had grown up and where he had become a firefighter.

First though was Sandra, the mother of his future baby. TK had decided to stop thinking about whether he would rather have a boy or a girl. He was afraid it would be a girl, because he barely knew anything about girls, but he was terrified of the idea of having a boy and having him make the same mistakes.

In the end, he concluded that it was better not to think about it. They were going to be parents, that was the only important thing.

Sandra had said she would pick them up at the airport. They had told her it wasn't necessary.

“I know New York," TK had told her during their last phone conversation. “I grew up there”

“No sir, you are my guests, so I will pick you up.”

There was no way to dissuade her and as they stepped off the plane with their bags, they found the huge banner with their names on it and under it a tiny woman with curly black hair and a huge smile on her lips.

She hugged them both at the same time and almost choked them as she did so.

“You are just as I had imagined you.” She said in a singsong voice.

“You've seen us on facetime.” Said Carlos uncomfortably, he was not used to so much love and affection, even coming from a Latino family like his.