No Ordinary Love - G.Callen NCIS L.A

Chapter 41

Deja closed the door to their bedroom behind her and looked at him. "Are you okay? They ambushed you!"

Grisha plunked down on the bed and looked at her, his eyes wide. "How big exactly was your family on this side again?"

Quietly laughing, she joined him on the bed. "Thirty-six. That's including my parents and excluding us."

"Thirty-six," he mumbled. They had arrived at Abuela Elena's house three hours earlier, and the moment they were over the threshold, her family had been all over them. There was no escaping it. He was still trying to put names to faces, and everyone had asked him questions that he had barely understood because his Spanish needed work. Dee had started to teach him basics, but it wasn't enough to follow the rapid conversation going on around him.

Dee rubbed his back. "It's a bit overwhelming, huh?"

"That's the understatement of the year." He glared at her. "Seriously, they're loud and in your face and out there... But your grandmother seems really sweet and the kids are cute," he added to take the sting out of his statement.

"I know." She shrugged. "There's a lot of them. And they are loud. And in your face. And they stick their noses everywhere it doesn't necessarily belong. But they're my family."

Folding his hands behind his neck, Grisha leaned back into his pillows. "In other words, get used to it."

"I guess?"

Shaking his head, he laughed. "It's a good thing I love you so much. Every other man with sense would've run the other direction because this is so much."

"That's why I brought you. You're too much of a gentleman." She winked. "Give it time. Try and find a corner and do what you do best. Observe. They'll grow on you once you find out the dynamic."

"What is the dynamic?"

Pursing her lips, she pondered it for a moment. "Think of Abuela as Hetty; all my uncles and aunts are team leaders like you, all with their own team. She makes sure everything works like a well- oiled machine."

"She's the boss."

"She's Abuela. Kind of the same thing."

He grinned. "You really like them."

"I do." Taking her sandals off, she scooted back on the bed and settled next to him. "I don't get to see them all that much, because we live half a world away, and much as I love the English side, I think this is my favorite. Don't tell Nanna I said that."

"They are the 'quality time equals food and food equals quality time' part of the family."

"You remembered." She was touched.

"Of course. Our first Saturday at the market together."

"It feels like a million years ago." She toyed with her engagement ring.

"It does, doesn't it?" He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. "I like them, it's not that. I think it's just that I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that this too, is your family. All of them. That hadn't sunken in yet because I didn't know what to think of it."

Dee could understand it. "Does it make you uncomfortable?"

"Mmm... Maybe a little?"

"I understand, babe. Don't worry. I get it. You've been alone for way too long, and you have Hetty and your makeshift family, which is less than ten. And I come with the half the population of Spain and England attached."

"Well, maybe not half, but at least ten percent of it, yeah."

Playfully, she elbowed his ribs. "Fine. Ten percent. I do understand that it's a lot. And if you remember half their names by the end of the week, I'll be so proud of you."

"We should've practiced before we came here. I won't be able to remember half of them, let alone all."

By Tuesday, he had remembered most of them, without trying. Dee was right; he had found a relatively quiet place for the first two days, near the kitchen. And observing made that he felt a bit more at home in the mess that she called family. He could see her joke and play games with the kids, and how Abuela Elena bossed her around in the kitchen because she was doing something different from normal. Since it was fairly quiet until after siesta, he got time to practice his Spanish and get to know Abuela better. In a lot of ways, she was like Nanna, but she was more outgoing and extravert, as Spanish people are. He loved her from the moment she handed him an apron and a knife, and was teaching him ingredients and kitchen utensils in Spanish, before lunch.

As soon as siesta was over, though, everyone else was slowly dripping in, and after two days he found himself being kicked out of the kitchen by the women, and banned to the pool with the men and kids. Thankfully, most of Dee's cousins spoke a bit of English, but it improved his Spanish in a few days more than he would've thought.

By Monday night, sitting at the huge dinner table, surrounded by laughing people who were speaking passionately and loudly, he got why Dee felt that this was the favorite part of her family. He could see how you got used to the high volume. How they talked about everything; how the little ones and the serious ones got made fun of. But they all included each other and respected each other and their opinions. Dinner was eaten late, and he loved the fact that they could spent hours at the table with a glass of wine and each other. Dee caught his eye and smiled. She pressed a kiss to his lips. "I love you."

Wednesday morning, she took him to the nearby cemetery with a bunch of flowers. "It's just a little while. There are some people I want to say hi to."

The first grave they stopped at was her grandfather. The next her aunt. The last one was a tiny grave that Grisha couldn't place. Deja knelt down and brushed some leaves from the stone. Then she looked up at him. "Do you want the long or short version?"

"Tell me whatever you want to tell me."

She nodded, looking back at the stone and smiled. "They lost him eighteen months before I was born. I never knew or saw him, there are maybe three or four pictures of him left. He was barely two."

Grisha read the headstone. Ramiro Hugh Barrow. Always in our hearts. "Was he sick?"

"A car accident. Someone left the front gate open, and his toy rolled out onto the street. He was gone before anyone thought him missing." She rose, reaching for his hand. "So I'm an only child, but not really. Does that make sense?"

It did. "When did you find out?"

She shrugged. "When I was older. Papa never mentioned him; you know the English, so uptight about emotions. I think Mama had wanted to mention him, but she just didn't know how. In the end, I found a picture, when I was eight or nine, because they wanted me to do a family tree as a school project and I was looking for photos. Then she had to tell me."

"That must've been hard."

"It was. I think." She shook her head. "He died just a few miles up the road; Abuela lived in a different house back then. I don't think Mama could've handled taking him home. So they buried him here. They never added his birthday or the day he died. I suspect it was too much. I go say hi every time I visit Abuela, even though I don't know him." Letting her breath out, she looked up to him. "I wasn't sure how to tell you, so I figured I'd show you instead. He's not part of our life, but I don't know... You should know that he was here."

"Like I took you to see Amy."

Dee was thankful he understood. "Like you took me to see Amy."

Grisha gathered her close and kissed the side of her head. "I love you. Thank you for showing me."

"Thank you for being here with me. I know that this week has been a bit much, maybe."

"Actually, they're growing on me," he admitted. "I got what you meant, last night. They're rowdy and loud, but there is nothing more important to them than sitting around the table with food and drinks and each other. And I like that. We should do it more often, at home. Gather everyone, have a meal, talk."

She studied his eyes. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. You know, once we have a new house and everything. When Marty and Kensi are back from their honeymoon."

"I'd like that."

"Me, too."