Sophia blinked her eyesawake, looking around the room to get her bearings. When she saw me propped on my elbow staring at her she gasped. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know, eight?” I guessed.
“Your parents,” she whispered, pushing herself up.
“Will be fine,” I said, kissing her softly. “You already declared your love in front of them; I think they’ll assume we sleep together. I wanted to watch you wake up. You slept through the alarm, so I turned it off.”
“You’re not the one who has to do a walk of shame out of here,” she groaned.
“I’ll slip out first if you want—distract them while you sneak into the guest room. It’ll be very stealthy.” I crawled on top of her. “But we better go soon, or I’m going to start to get other ideas.”
“Were you serious about coming to Hawaii with me today?”
“Yeah, I want to meet your family.” I cupped her face. “I want to see the place you love. And most of all, I want to be wherever you are.”
She kissed me deeply. “Okay, well we need to try to book you a flight, so go see if the coast is clear.”
I opened the door and stepped into the hallway, walking toward the sound of voices. My parents and Jace were seated at the dining room table.
“You might as well just tell your girlfriend to come out and say hello. We all know she’s in your room,” Jace said, sipping on a Starbucks peppermint latte. Another one sat in front of Mom, something he often brought her during the holidays on his way over each morning.
“Will you keep your voice down?” I hissed. “Don’t embarrass her.”
I heard my door open, then the guest room door shut loudly. A muffled “shit” drifted down the hall and I suppressed a laugh as Sophia failed epically at playing this cool. “I’m going to go back to Oahu with Sophia for a few days,” I said to my parents.
Mom looked up from the legal brief she was reading and searched my face. I didn’t know what she saw there but she didn’t protest. “Okay, I gather you’ll be back before practices resume?”
“Yeah,” I said as Sophia appeared, still wearing her leggings and the shirt she’d pulled from my floor last night.
Forget a key piece of our cover there, baby?
“Good morning, Hawaii,” I said, grinning as if this was the first time I was seeing her this morning.
“Hey,” she said, stepping forward. She kissed me chastely on the lips before greeting everyone else.
“Good morning, Sophia.” Jace smirked into his coffee. “That shirt Leo was wearing yesterday looks great on you.”
She inhaled sharply and looked down at her clothes, apparently just realizing she was wearing something that made our little stealthy room shuffle this morning entirely unnecessary.
“Give her a break, Jace,” Dad said. “Though I did recommendsevenif you were hoping to avoid this, Sophia.”
She dropped into a seat at the head of the dining room table and I kissed her head with a soft chuckle. “Don’t worry, baby. This is how they welcome you into the family. Consider it their version of hazing.”
“Is it almost over?” she asked, leaning forward with her head in her hands.
Mom put one hand over Sophia’s on the table. Sophia lifted her head to look at her. “They’re overgrown children, all of them. Just stick with me and Lavi and you’ll be fine. I’m willing to ignore the sounds of you sneaking into Leo’s room each night, just like I can ignore all the other sounds that can be heard when you’re in there.”
“Mom!” I yelled, grabbing Sophia’s shoulders and pulling her against my side as I tried to cover her ears and shield her from the revelation that we weren’t quiet enough.
Mom laughed. “Please, it’s worse for me than it is for you. Have fun in Hawaii. Sleep further away fromherparents if you can.”
“Let me get you some caffeine before you have to deal with these jerks any longer,” I said.
Sophia looked up at me with red cheeks and a shy smile “My dad and Kennedy have a pool house that they use for guests.”
“Probably a good idea to ask for that,” Dad said as he stood and followed me to the kitchen.
A part of me wondered if I should be more embarrassed about how my family was responding to the situation but this was just who they were. I loved that nothing was off-limits in our house if we all showedrespect. As Dad passed me the ingredients for Sophia’s latte, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe they could already see how much she fit with us too.
