Chapter Text
"Wait, tell me again," Xiomara interrupted, before adding, "You have the worst luck, Jane, honey, I swear."
It was late at night, Mateo was sleeping, and Jane and Xiomara had finally found the time to talk about Jane's eventful morning.
"Petra ended up being Professor Moore, and Professor Chavez kicked me out of class." Xiomara burst out laughing - again - and Jane rolled her eyes. She pushed Xiomara away from her lightly, further onto her bed, where they were talking in Jane's room. "Okay, but Petra and I ended up being friends, so how bad can my luck be really?"
"Well, you did ditch class to answer an important call that turned out to not be important," Xiomara pointed out - unhelpfully, in Jane's opinion.
"Thanks," Jane said sarcastically. Xiomara laughed again.
"Jane, I know that you want and need to choose Mateo over other important things," Xiomara said, and Jane heard the unspoken 'like Michael' reverberating around the room, "but Rafael or I or Abuela or Rogelio or maybe a nanny can help and be there during times when you can't."
Jane nodded. "I know, I realized that today, too."
"You're right, though," Xiomara said, "you're luck isn't too bad. There's always tomorrow for your writing class, and this Petra sounds... nice." Jane laughed this time. "You know what I mean, that turned out well. You seem to like her."
"I do," Jane confirmed and was surprised by how much she meant it. "Do you think it's sad that the only friend I made today was a professor and the only enemy I made today was a different professor?"
Xiomara bit her hip so she wouldn't laugh again. "That's your luck, Jane. The 'not too bad' luck."
"The Villanueva luck," Jane corrected, and Xiomara elbowed her. "How are things with Dad, by the way?"
So Xiomara began to fill Jane in - about the novela and Luciana - and Jane listened and eventually fell asleep on her mom's shoulder.
_
They couldn't find the time to really talk the following day, but Jane still saw Petra the next day and throughout the week before Friday.
On Tuesday, they ran into each other in the restrooms, and Petra had given Jane tips about moisturizers and lotions for her hands. Jane had smiled at Petra's nervous small talk and bought one of the moisturizers on a whim on her commute home.
On Wednesday, Jane bumped into her again - literally - as she hurried to catch the bus, but instead of arguing like on Monday, they laughed and Petra offered to give Jane a ride home.
Jane was a second away from accepting, but instead said no and rode the bus, unsure yet how she felt about being so comfortable around Petra.
Petra had seemed a little surprised at herself for offering, and Jane knew she wasn't the only one feeling their connection.
On Thursday, they saw each other only in passing as Jane walked to her creative writing class, except this time Petra was walking with a shorter, brown-haired man in a suit. She waved at Jane and smiled and Jane reciprocated, but absently wondered the rest of the day who he was.
By now, she was familiar with most of the staff, if only by their faces, and she had never seen him before - yet he still looked vaguely familiar.
Eventually it began to knaw at her, the familiarity itching away at her while she was writing and distracted her while she was talking to Rafael about Mateo's doctor's appointments.
It wasn't long before Rafael noticed.
"Jane? You still there?" he asked when she had gone quiet in thought, racking her brain to figure out where she had seen Petra's mystery man's face before.
"Yeah, sorry," Jane said, still audibly distracted. "Sorry, I have a lot on my mind."
"School?" Rafael guessed, and Jane murmured her assent. It was the truth, or at least related enough. "You can tell me, Jane. We're still friends, I hope."
And they were. Despite their short-lived romance, they came out of it with their friendship intact. It was a little more strained with Michael, considering everything going on with Sin Rostro, but their friendship was okay too, and Jane didn't know a lot of other people still friends with their exes, especially when their dating history was so drawn.
Jane had left Michael for Rafael, and Rafael had broken up with her after the failed proposal and the weight of the stress that came with everything happening in his life. And while it had broken Jane's heart at the time, she understood now, with time, that it had been for the best.
Both break ups had been for the best because with everything that had been happening in Jane's life lately, it had given her the opportunity to stay grounded and remember who she was while focusing her attention between Mateo and graduate school. Which meant -
"Yeah, we are," Jane agreed, "but it's really not a big deal." And she explained what had happened on Monday and the days in between.
Rafael has been suspiciously silent throughout the story, and when he was finished, he only asked, "Her name is Petra?" but it wasn't really a question.
"Do you know her?" Jane asked instead of answering.
"Yeah, sort of," Rafael admitted, and he sounded far away. "She's married to Lachlan Moore, he works for my dad. Technically, he's my boss," Rafael added, bitterly. "He was at the Marbella recently, do you remember?"
And she did remember: Lachlan had been going to take over the Marbella, but Luisa, thankfully, gave Rafael her shares and prevented what would have surely been another drama in their already telenovela-esque lives.
"Oh," Jane said and she felt curiously blank in light of all this information, at the realization that that's who Petra had been walking with at the school. All she could think was "Petra's married to him?" - apparently all she could say, too.
"Yeah, but they're separated right now, I think," said Rafael. "She cheated on him."
"Oh," Jane repeated. "They seemed pretty chatty when I saw them."
"Well, maybe they're getting back together," Rafael said, clearly done with the topic of conversation. Jane wished she could be, too.
"How did you know she cheated on him?" Jane asked before she could stop herself. Rafael sighed.
"Because Lachlan told me. Before... when I first met Petra, Lachlan had just gotten the promotion I was supposed to get. I was bitter," Rafael explained reluctantly, and Jane wisely didn't comment that he still sounded bitter, "and I tried to... steal Petra from him. She turned me down." There was silence for a moment. "Lachlan made a comment about it. I guess she changed her mind with someone else."
Jane hummed, bemused. Her mind was already racing far past their conversation, and when they returned to talking about Mateo and the upcoming holidays, she was still distracted.
Jane had class with Petra tomorrow, and she had to process this information tonight in order not to blurt it out at Petra as soon as she saw her.
She could already tell that tomorrow was going to be a long day.