Emma & Jax

Emma

Emma poked at her food as she listened to her stepmom laugh about something she forgot because she just kept blabbing.

"Francisco! Are you listening?" She squeaked loudly.

"Yes, Ursula." Her dad jumped.

Emma made a face. Why oh why why did her dad marry her?! Of all women? Her dad was basically the woman's slave.

"So mom," her stepsister, Maddie began. Emma coughed. Maddie scoffed.

"Oh my god, Emma," she said. "Do you always have to make everything about you?!"

Emma furrowed her eyebrows. "I didn't even-"

Maddie rolled her eyes and stood up from the table and hurried up the stairs angrily.

Ursula slammed her metal utensils onto the dinner table and ran up the stairs after her daughter. "Maddie! Maddie winky!"

"Emma." Mr. Alonso looked at his daughter across the table. "Please try to be nice."

Emma gaped. "Dad, I didn't say anything."

Mr. Alonso stood up and began to clear the table. "Just, please be nice. Okay? At least try? Will you?"

"Okay. I will." She sighed.

• • •

On weekends, Emma and Maddie worked at the Alonso family business. Emma has been working there ever since she was thirteen. She'd known everything about the place. Maddie, on the other hand, was just starting out.

Her dad owned many of the businesses that were located all over the U.S. She worked in the one back in Washington. Ursula was the one who insisted they all moved to Miami. Her dad then opened one where they lived now. They owned a hall that handled weddings, bar mitzvahs, bot mitzvahs, birthdays, all kinds of things like that.

"Maddie, could you give me a hand?" Emma called from the kitchen. The two girls were prepping for a big, big, wedding.

"As if! I'm too busy looking at myself in the mirror!" Maddie fluffed her blonde curls. "So selfish!"

Emma rolled her eyes. "You know you're getting paid, right?"

Maddie widened her eyes. "Well, in that case, I'm coming!" She squealed.