Series of one-shots inspired by this anon request: Can I please request a fic where Emily’s super innocent cousin moves in with the Gallindo’s and Nestor immediately falls for her? But she’s new to the area and doesn’t speak any Spanish or anything like that and he offers to teach her? Thank you!
Warnings: 18+, language, Nestor having an inkling of an emotion
Word Count: 3k
A/N: Just some low-stakes fluffiness for these two absolute goobers. I love them so much. 🥰 (For other Nestor x Jessica stories go Here)
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Nestor was trying to figure out whether or not he was enjoying himself as he and Jessica walked through the plaza together. She had shopping bags hung in the crook of her elbow, gawking at all the shops they passed by. He kept his head on a swivel the way that he always did, but whenever he took the time to really look at and focus on her, there was always a smile on her face as she talked. Nestor wondered if she was always this chatty, or if it was just because he was a new person to her.
“You know,” she looked over at him, “if you feel like contributing to this conversation at any point, please feel free,” she laughed, her grin only growing wider when Nestor turned to her with raised eyebrows, “You’ll get sick of my voice eventually, Nestor, and that’s okay. I talk a lot.”
He didn’t say anything in response, just giving a small nod as they continued down the block towards the next place she wanted to go. She got distracted from her original mission when she caught a glimpse of a small café across the block. Stopping in her tracks, she grabbed onto the back of Nestor’s arm to get his attention.
The contact put him on-edge, not used to casual touch. He whipped to look at Jessica, only to find her excitedly staring at the small coffee shop that was less than one hundred yards away. She looked up at him, beaming with excitement, “Coffee?”
“You want coffee?” he didn’t care either way, but if she wanted to go, he knew that he wasn’t going to be able to talk her out of it.
“I always want coffee. Come on,” she started walking, hand falling back to her side as she did.
Nestor easily caught up to her, silently falling into stride next to her. Despite the fact that she was shorter than him, Nestor almost had to work to keep up with her fast pace. He wondered if she was able to move so fast because of all the caffeine she apparently consumed in a day.
The two of them found their way to the back of the relatively short line to place an order. Jessica looked over the menu. Despite the fact that it was in Spanish, she knew most of the important words, a lot of them very similar if not the same to their English counterparts. At some point she was going to have to reckon with the fact that she didn’t know Spanish, but it wasn’t that moment.
She turned to ask Nestor if he wanted anything, and saw him looking down at his phone screen with a pensive look on his face. He was about to hit the accept button when she asked, “Before I lose you—what do you want?”
He shook his head, muttering out a quick, “Doesn’t matter,” before answering the phone, “Yea, Mikey?”
She couldn’t stop her eyebrows from lifting at the greeting. She knew that she was going to be inquiring about that later. She watched him silently, listening as he spoke quickly and quietly, switching over to Spanish once he felt her staring at him.
Pulling the phone away from his ear for a second, he spoke to Jessica, “I gotta take this.”
“Pick something to order before you go, or I’m gonna pick for you.”
“Told you,” he was already walking away, “Doesn’t matter.”
“Psychopath,” she shook her head as she muttered under her breath, not understanding how someone could play Russian roulette with a coffee order like that. It definitely mattered.
When she walked back out of the café and onto the sidewalk, Nestor was just hanging up his cellphone and tucking it back into his pocket. Looking up, he almost looked surprised that she had gotten their order that quickly. What was more surprising to him, though, was the drink choice. He didn’t know what exactly it was, but never in his life had he drank anything that had whipped cream on top.
Jessica saw the slight shift in his expression and immediately burst into laughter, “Told you that I was gonna choose for you!” she handed him his cup, “I asked what her recommendation was for something really sweet and very caffeinated.”
“Her?” Nestor was inspecting the cup.
“The barista! I always do that when I try someplace new,” she took a long sip through her straw, “I think I might be in love with her, because this is so good. Did you know they make their own coffee syrups and stuff there?” she could tell that Nestor was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the way that she operated, switching gears just slightly, she said, “Don’t worry, I asked them to put less sugar in yours. You seem like a hot, black coffee kind of guy so I tried to be a little nice.”
“Couldn’t just get me a hot, black coffee?”
“You couldn’t have just asked me to get you a hot, black coffee?” she paused, keenly aware that he hadn’t taken a sip yet, “Try it! If you don’t like it, I’ll go back in and get you something boring. Promise.”
His lips flattened into a thin line at the sarcasm, but he tried the drink nonetheless. He was fully expecting to hate it, but much to his surprise it was really good. He wasn’t going to ask for the name of it, knowing that he wasn’t going to start becoming the kind of man who rattled off a long, complicated coffee order, but he wasn’t upset about having to finish the drink in his hand.
A triumphant smile spread across Jessica’s face when Nestor didn’t immediately look disgusted, “Ha! Look at you, growing already,” she started walking back towards the shops again, “I think I’m good for you, Nestor. We should hang out more often.”
Multiple times throughout the day, Nestor had to remind himself that he wasn’t there because Jessica was in danger. It wasn’t really about protecting her from anyone trying to get her. If anything, the only people he was trying to protect her from were the people she was living with, himself included. He didn’t allow himself too much time to ruminate on that. His role for that day was simply to keep her company and make sure she was having a good time. He couldn’t help but to think that it would take an awful lot for someone like Jessica to have a bad time.
She hadn’t been lying when she said that she talked a lot. Nestor thought that for sure at some point, she was going to run out of things to talk about. It wasn’t that there were never any bouts of silence between them, but she just always seemed to be able to conjure up another topic of conversation. Something around her always sparked another story, another tangent, or another question that Nestor did his best to answer while giving as little information as possible.
He was trailing behind her as she strolled through the bookstore. She was plucking books off the shelves, reading the back and inside covers of whatever jumped out at her. Every now and then, she’d even read the first page or so of the story if it piqued her interest enough. Nestor watched, seeing the way she would instant become invested for a couple minutes before sliding the book back onto the shelf. She typed the titles of a few into the notes on her phone, planning on going back and buying them when she was in her own place again.
“So,” she started as she put another book back on the shelf, “I’ve gotta ask, what’s with the Mikey thing?”
Nestor was idly messing with the straw in his drink that was nearly finished, stopping when he registered the question, “What?”
“You called Miguel Mikey earlier,” she rounded the corner into the next aisle of books, “I just, I don’t know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that nickname for him before. I’ve only ever heard people call him Miguel.”
No one had ever asked him that. Anyone who had met Nestor in recent history, met him under work circumstances, and they knew better than to really question anything that he and Miguel said or did. But she wouldn’t know that.
He thought about his response for a moment, “That’s just what we always called him.”
“We?” she poked her head back around the corner.
He inwardly cursed himself for opening that can of worms, “Yea, me and my brother.”
“Oh,” more questions were on the tip of her tongue, but she saw the way that Nestor recoiled a bit after his statement, and she let it lie. Rather than prying, she shrugged and gave him a smile, “Cool,” when he joined her in the next aisle over, she continued, “If you can call him Mikey, then calling me Jess shouldn’t be a problem at all.”
“I haven’t—”
She cut off his protest with a laugh and a wave of her hand, “You haven’t called me ma’am. You haven’t called me anything. Don’t think I didn’t notice. I know that trick! I use it all the time when I forget people’s names,” she opened another book, “But I know that you didn’t forget mine.”
Nestor watched as she read the book in her hand, one finger trailing underneath whatever line she was currently reading. He felt his lips fighting to tug up into a smile and stopped himself, shaking his head before walking into the next aisle over, granting himself some distance.
As they exited the bookstore, Jessica pulled her phone out of her pocket. After responding to a few missed texts, she checked the time. She looked over at Nestor, who was scanning the area around them. She wondered if he ever stopped, if he was even capable of it. This was the most low-brow day that she’d had in a long time and she had to assume that that was also the case for him, and yet he was still constantly on the lookout.
“Lunch?” she broke his train of thought.
“What?”
She laughed, “You eat, right? Wanna do lunch? Or do you have to get back?”
He shrugged, “Whatever you want to do.”
“Know any good little spots around here? My treat,” she gave him a cheesy grin.
He wanted to go home, but he also knew that she didn’t want to. And the whole point was staying with her and letting her do what she wanted to do. So instead of recommending going home, he nodded towards the main street.
“Good spot a few blocks that way.”
She beamed, “Great! I’m starving.”
Jessica let Nestor lead the way, falling into stride beside them as they made their way down the sidewalk. She wanted to ask about where they were going, but she had the feeling that she was going to be met with a response somewhere along the lines of, “You’ll see when we get there,” so she refrained. She was very curious, though, to see what kind of place Nestor liked going to, what kind of place he thought that she would enjoy too.
The farther they strayed from the main drag of shops and stores, the quieter things got, not that it was an overly loud town anyway. It was a nice change of pace for her, something that she could get used to. She was looking around, watching the way the types of stores began to change as they got a block or so away from the plaza.
She was looking across the street, completely in her own little world when she felt her shoulder bump into someone else’s. Turning, she was already offering an apology before she even saw who she had bumped into.
Resting her hand on the older gentleman’s shoulder, she gave him an apologetic smile, “I’m so sorry—was too busy gawking at everything. Are you alright?”
His smile was soft, kind as he shook his head, brushing his hands off on his apron, “It’s alright.”
“Okay,” she did her best to shake the mild embarrassment from her mind, “Sorry, have a nice day.”
“You too,” he nodded, but when his eyes shifted over to Nestor, there was a change in his expression. It was slight, but still noticeable.
Jessica looked over at the man that she was walking with, seeing the way that he’d tensed up a little bit as well. Neither of the men said anything to each other one way or the other, and she didn’t know how to take that. Clearly they weren’t strangers. Her eyes found their way to the sign above the store. Her brows furrowed in thought as she read it. Carnicería Reyes. She wondered what tension there could possibly be between Nestor and this man who worked at the butcher shop. It seemed like another thing he didn’t want to talk about, though, as they continued their walk down the block.
“Okay,” Jessica set the menu down on the table, propping her elbows on the table and interlocking her fingers so she could rest her chin on them, “two things. One, this place is very cozy and I’m surprised that you do cozy,” she laughed, hesitating before she continued, “And two, if I tell you something, you need to promise not to give me shit about it.”
He lifted his eyes from the menu in front of him, not that he really had to look at it. He already knew what he was going to get but it was better than just sitting there and staring at the woman sitting across from him. His eyebrows raised just the slightest bit, “Yea?”
“I don’t know, like, any Spanish,” heat rushed to her face and she fought the urge to bury it in her hands, “I know a few words. But if I got stranded in the middle of town or something and couldn’t find someone who was fluent in English, I’d be fucked,” nervous laughter spilled from lips.
He leaned back in his chair, studying her face, “You don’t know Spanish?”
“No,” she shook her head, “I never really thought about it until I got the job offer down here. There has never been a time in my life that I regretted taking French in high school more than when I decided to move down here.”
“You don’t know anything?” it was difficult to wrap his head around, spending so much time around and over the border, everyone knew Spanish. A lot of the people he was close with were more fluent in Spanish than they were in English.
“Alright, I’m not an idiot,” she laughed with a shake of her head, “You don’t have to say it like that. I can use, you know, I can use context clues. There are similarities with some words across languages and all that stuff. But, yea, I’ve never really learned Spanish.”
“You should,” he paused as the waitress set waters down for each of them, asking her for an extra couple of minutes when she asked if they were ready to order. Returning his attention to Jessica, he said, “Emily didn’t mention that maybe it would be good to learn before you moved down here?”
“This all came together kinda fast,” she admitted sheepishly, heat creeping up into her cheeks again, “Hence me having to stay with them in the first place. Rosetta Stone wasn’t really on my supply list.”
“Hm,” his lips twitched as he thought about everything she’d just said.
Jessica watched him, keenly aware that this was the most he’d spoken all day, seemingly the easiest it had been for him to talk to her, too. Figuring the worst he could do is say no, she asked, “Wanna add Spanish tutor to your resume along with tour guide?” she punctuated her statement with a laugh, letting him know that if he didn’t want to, she wasn’t going to make a big deal about it.
“Well,” he closed his menu, leaving it on the table, “you gotta learn it if you’re gonna stay here and do…” his voice trailed off, realizing that no one had mentioned to him what Jessica’s new job was going to be.
She laughed, seeing that he didn’t know, “I’m starting at a small law firm next week.”
“Lawyer?”
She nodded, “Yea.”
“Then you really need to learn some fuckin’ Spanish,” he laughed.
Jessica’s eyes widened at the sound. She wasn’t sure if laughter was something that he was even capable of. She tried to tone down her expression, not wanting to make the situation uncomfortable, “So is that a yes on the tutoring thing?”
“You can’t not know it.”
She smiled, giving a small nod before letting her eyes drop back to the menu. It was as much of a confirmation as she needed. A small laugh slipped past her lips, “First thing you can do is help me with this goddamn menu.”
Lunch was quiet, but comfortably so. Jessica couldn’t talk while she was eating, and it wasn’t like Nestor was dying to turn into a chatterbox. Every now and then between bites or sips she would ask a question or make a comment, but nothing ever dragged on. She wasn’t expecting it to feel as comfortable as it did. She did tell him that he had a good choice in restaurants, though, and she was totally planning on coming back again, with or without him. Nestor fought the urge to make a joke about her not being able to order without his help, but he wondered if it was a little too soon for that.
The waitress came and set the check down in the middle of the table, smiling at each of them before turning and walking away. Jessica reached for it, but Nestor snatched it up before she could. She laughed, shaking her head as she tried to reach across the table and take it from him.
“I said it’d be my treat!”
He shook his head, sliding his card into the check holder, “You got coffee.”
“I forced you into that,” she smiled.
“I got it. Next one’s on you.”
“Next one?” she gnawed at her bottom lip as she tried to contain her grin.
One end of his mouth fought to lift into a smile, “Yea, next one,” he paused, looking at her from across the table, “Lessons, right?”
