A Deceiving Passion

A Second Time

Once the family would return home to California, everything would start to go back to normal for the simple sake of getting the kids back into a routine of going to school and coming home like they had been before their father died. 

The reality was, Brandon wanted to distract himself from any sadness and though he missed his father, he still had so many unanswered questions that revolved around what influenced his idea to deceive his mother in the first place when surely it couldn't be that he missed Samantha that much. But other than those questions leading to nothing but theories about what could have been the reason, he was more invested with trying to distract his younger brother from being sad because he felt his way of dealing with grief and just giving his attention to Rhea was better than looking at pictures of their father who had passed a month before. 

Meantime, Roman was having a hard time dealing with the death of his father and all he wanted was to cry about such things. As the time had passed, he'd learned to speak up a lot more and have his own opinions rather than rely on his brother for the answers and it took that leap of faith to lead him to what he knew he needed and what he wanted was his mom. He wanted the comfort of Stevie and she was more than willing to help him deal with his emotions.

While she tackled those tasks, she highly appreciated the help of her spouse when it came to Sofia only because Lindsey was doing it all so effortlessly when it came to the child; he was playing with her, taking care of her and loving her as if she were his own. It gave her the opportunity to help everybody deal with everything that was related and non-related to ongoing matters between a few of the kids going through grief while the others were dealing with their every day things like school and relationships. Beyond the dark cloud of sadness that was hanging over their house, being a wife and mother was really helping to heal the sadness within the songstress; she loved her children and husband more than anything that she didn't have time to mourn nor did she want to when she preferred taking care of everybody.

Although she took care of every body, Lindsey was really watching her in order to take care of her. In actuality, he was feeling ever so guilty that everybody was going through such grief that he couldn't help but want to be supportive as a father figure to the children that were not biologically his and of course, he was trying to help everybody deal with everything; his wife overall, his children since they weren't so sure what to say to anybody when it came to being supportive of having lost somebody.

It seemed at the time, the only person who knew how to be remotely reassuring and supportive was Rhea to Brandon because she was there for him more as a girlfriend than a sibling considering they weren't biologically siblings, then of course, she knew how to be a great big sister when it came to Sofia and although she couldn't get too much out of Roman, she tried, but expressed efforts to her parents and she encouraged her brothers to cheer up Roman while she only kept her older sister updated on everything that was going on in the house since she no longer lived with them and was preoccupied with school.

~ : ~

Waking up in the middle of the early morning, Stevie rolled over on her side and she sighed from relief when she looked over and saw her spouse sleeping. She then pressed her hand to the side of his face very gently and she swiped under his eye.

Lindsey opened his eyes slowly and he creased his brows a little and he reached up, placing his hand on top of hers. 

She kind of smiled gently. 

"Are you okay?" he whispered, unsure of why she was awake so early.

"Mhmm... I just..." she trailed. "I thought I heard the ocean..."

"The ocean?" he wondered, bringing her hand down to kiss the back of it.

"Yeah..." she sighed. "When I was still living with Brian, the waves crashing against the rocks would wake me every morning... At the time, I was really afraid and my body would tense when I would hear them because of the crash... But now, I seem to still be accustomed to it and I think I hear them a lot when it's obvious, we wouldn't be able to hear them from here."