Storm Warning

Despite Lyla insisting that she doesn't mind them coming along, Jeff shoos his sisters away so that he can have a little alone time with her. He spends a couple of hours showing her around town before he takes her back to his childhood home where his family is waiting. Obviously his sisters have done nothing but hype the family up because they're all sitting in the living room trying to look casual when she walks in the front door behind Jeff. He introduces her to the other two sisters she hasn't met and then his brother before he finally makes it over to his dad and mom who are sitting on the love seat together, looking like they're trying not to grin.

"We were wondering when you'd make an appearance, dear," his mom tells her. "He hasn't stopped talking about you since he got home."

Jeff flushes like he's embarrassed. "Mom," he says almost pleadingly, but the whole family just laughs at his expense.

"Oh, calm down, honey. It's not like I'm breaking out your baby pictures."

"Yet," his older sister Andrea adds with a slightly devious grin.

He rolls his eyes at that and grabs Lyla's hand, tugging her toward the staircase while his family is still poking fun at him a little bit. She follows him down the long hallway until they reach the last door on the right and when he pushes the door open, he suddenly seems to remember that now he's got her in his childhood room and he's embarrassed all over again. Some of the toys he played with as a child are still sitting on the bookcase in the corner and there are countless figure skating and peewee hockey trophies all over the place. His saving grace is that at least the sheets are plain navy blue and not still the batman ones he had back then. Lyla immediately gravitates toward all the medals and trophies and while she's reading each and every one, he's just watching her, kind of in disbelief that she's actually here in the bedroom of his childhood home. When she's finally finished examining them all, she turns back to him, smiling, but then her eyes shift over to the bed where a black duffel bag is sitting splayed open.

"Were you going somewhere?" she asks in confusion because surely Erica would have told her if it was a bad time to come visit. "Did you have plans?"

"No, no, no," he says immediately, shaking his head. "It was just this last minute thing. A buddy of mine called this morning and said he decided to throw himself a birthday party up at the lake tomorrow. I thought I might stay up there a couple days." He steps forward and grabs both her hands in his. "We don't have to go though. It's not a big deal, we can stay-"

"No way," Lyla protests. "You had plans already. You're not canceling them because of me."

"I have a place up there so it won't be-....I mean, we'll still have time to ourselves."

He blushes a little when he says it and she can't help cracking a smile. "Okay. Let's go."

Jeff has a few more things to pack so she goes downstairs to find Erica and Jillian and hang out with them until he's finished. That plan kind of evolves when she tells them where she and Jeff are going and they decide they want to go too if it's okay with her. She doesn't think it'll be a problem so she agrees and by the time Jeff is done packing and goes looking for her, she's curled up in the chair in the corner of Erica and Jillian's room talking to them as they pack bags for themselves. He drops his bag on the floor in the doorway and walks inside, glancing between his sisters hesitantly.

"Um...what are you doing?" He has a feeling he already knows even before he asks the question but Erica only confirms his suspicion. He looks over at Lyla then but she just smiles so he sighs heavily and scrubs a hand up and down the back of his neck. "Alright, well hurry up I guess. We're leaving soon."

Jillian reaches over to pat his cheek lovingly but he swats her hand away so she just laughs and goes back to finish packing. It's not long before the four of them are loading their bags into the trunk of Jeff's BMW and piling in to make the drive up to the lake. Jeff offers his brother a ride since the others are already tagging along, but he declines, saying he's heading up later tonight with a couple of their friends. The trip only takes about an hour, Jillian and Jeff bickering back and forth over the music while Erica and Lyla ignore them completely in favor of carrying on their own conversation. It isn't until they turn off of the highway and begin making their way down more residential streets that they all kind of just grow quiet and as they watch the world pass by their windows. The car eventually slows to turn onto a quiet street and then into a driveway that's hidden among full, tall green trees and suddenly the doors are all opening and everyone's climbing out of the car but Lyla's still sitting in the passenger seat looking at the house through the front windshield.

It's a tiny grayish-tan cottage with a heavy wooden front door and cute landscaping all around. Jeff and his sisters have grabbed all the luggage from the trunk before she finally moves to get out of the car and she follows them up the three wooden steps onto the small porch to wait as Jeff unlocks the front door. She's pleasantly surprised by how spacious the inside seems, especially considering that the walls are a dark teal color. The ceilings are tall with dark wooden beams stretching across and the living room is cozy with its dark wood floors, plush brown leather couch and armchair, and a wood burning heater in the corner. The compact kitchen is next to it with all wooden cabinets and sand colored granite counter tops, an iron and wood table separating the two spaces.

Jeff shows her where they'll be sleeping, the bigger of two small bedrooms just off the living room with rust colored walls and a bed with a thick gray comforter. The second bedroom where Erica and Jillian are staying is plum colored and has fluffy faux fur blankets on the bed, which Jeff attributes to the fact that he let them decorate it since it'd pretty much be theirs whenever they came to stay. He moves on to show her the house's only bathroom, which is the last door off the main living area, and she's low key excited to find a huge soaking tub in addition to the shower.

There's a small deck off the back of the house, complete with a grill and a little patio table and chair set but her favorite part by far is the fire pit beyond that in the backyard. It's surrounded by a circle of large rocks for sitting and she hopes they'll be able to use it at least one night while they're here. "So, what do you think?" he asks hesitantly and when she turns back to look at him, he's got his hands stuffed into his pockets and his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

"I love this," she says dreamily as she looks back up at the little house and then she walks over to throw her arms around his waist. "This is perfect."

He chuckles as he drapes an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in tighter, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, but then the moment is over when Erica peeks her head out the back door. "Jill and I are going to the store."

Jeff is all too eager to surrender his car keys to his sisters just to get them out of his hair and have a few minutes alone with Lyla so he tosses them over and as soon as they're gone, he and Lyla settle on the big leather sofa together. Making out is plenty fun but making out after not seeing each other for a considerable bit of time is a whole other level. They barely stop to breathe until the girls get back and then they get chirped mercilessly for their flushed cheeks and messy hair. Lyla gets up to help start making dinner as Jeff builds a fire in the small heater and after they've all eaten and cleaned up the kitchen, they spend the rest of the evening just hanging out in the cozy living room.

Tuesday starts out lazily. They don't drag themselves out of bed until well after ten and when they finally shuffle into the kitchen for a late breakfast, there's a note on the counter telling them that Erica and Jillian caught a ride with friends and already left to go over to the house where the party is being held. Since they have some time to themselves, they take their time making and eating breakfast together then getting ready before driving over to the party. It's being held by a childhood friend of Jeff's who's had the most epic summer parties at his family's perfect house since they were fifteen.

It's only about a fifteen minute drive around the lake but by the time they pull in, there are already a ton of people there. The stone house is massive, apparently built with parties in mind. The porch wraps all the way around the front on both the main level and the second level. When Lyla walks in the front door behind Jeff, she counts four couches in the spacious living room and, beyond that, a dining room table fit for sixteen. She's pretty sure she heard Jeff say eight bedrooms when he was telling her the story about how his friend got lost in the house one time while drunk and they couldn't find him for a few hours. As they continue on out to the back of the house, she sees the large concrete patio around the pool, a few hammocks set up under a couple of shady trees, and then finally the lake with a dock. There are apparently two boats to go along with it but they're both out on the water now.

The large crowd of guys huddled around the grill shout at them in greeting and Jeff leads her over to introduce her to them all but he barely gets finished with that before the pontoon boat comes back and a wave of new people arrive. Lyla spends a solid two hours meeting Jeff's friends before she eventually catches up with his sisters and then they want to introduce her to some of their friends too. She tries not to wince every time they call her Jeff's girlfriend but she can't help noticing how happy people seem to be that he has one again and that makes her wonder just how bad it was when he and Mia broke up.

Jeff catches up with her not long after and they spend most of the afternoon swimming then eating burgers off the grill then laying out on the dock and hanging out with his friends in the boat on the lake. His cheeks and the bridge of his nose along with his shoulders are a nice bright pink by the time the sun begins to set and he yelps every time one of his friends clamps their hand down on the burnt skin. The temperature drops when the sun does and Lyla pulls her hoodie back on over her bathing suit before curling herself up under his arm, moving closer into his body for extra warmth. She's in the middle of a conversation with one of his friends' girlfriends to her right and he's busy talking to his friend on his other side but he keeps his arm around her, fingers brushing her shoulders the whole time and every once in awhile she gives his thigh a little squeeze.

"Skinny, Richie, c'mon!" someone shouts and they all look up to see Steven, the birthday boy/host of the evening, coming over toward them. "We're going to pick Matt up at his place."

Richie gets up immediately to go but Jeff glances down at Lyla before shaking his head. "I think I'm just gonna st-"

"Go," she interrupts, and he looks back at her, hesitant.

"Are you sure?"

"I'll be fine," she reassures him with a smile. "Go."

He smiles too now that he's confident she's alright with it and he hands her his beer, pressing a kiss to her lips before he gets up from the chair they've been sharing. "Be right back," he promises and then he follows the other boys out to the dock because apparently they're picking up their friend by boat instead of by car.

Once they're gone, she turns back to her conversation with Richie's girlfriend and that lasts about as long as her drink does before she's seeking more alcohol. She doesn't feel rude getting up since someone else has joined in on the talking so she goes up the steps of the back porch and through the french doors into the huge kitchen. The last person she'd ever expected to be at this party is standing right there, leaning against the stainless steel fridge in her tiny pink bikini sipping on something from her red solo cup.

"Lyla!" she chirps happily when she looks up and sees her standing there. "I didn't know you'd be here! How are you? Where's Jeffy?"

"Hi, Mia," she greets politely, shutting the door behind her and making a beeline for the vodka bottle. "I'm good. He's out on the boat with a couple of the guys. How're you?"

It's almost weird how polite they're being because they both know neither of them mean it. The two girls Mia had been talking to when Lyla came in are standing there silently while the other two exchange pleasantries but when there's a lull in the conversation, one of them finally speaks up. "She's so fake," the girl says in French, obviously assuming Lyla doesn't understand her. "What does he even see in her?"

"Not now," Mia replies, giving Lyla a sideways glance but she just looks down at the alcohol choices laid out on the center island in front of her and grabs the vodka bottle, pretending not to understand or even hear them at all.

The door behind her opens again and two more people enter the kitchen, a guy and a girl. The girl whom Lyla had met earlier is obviously just here for the drinks because she doesn't even acknowledge the others in the room but she and Lyla exchange words in passing as she grabs a couple more beers and heads back outside. The guy however apparently knows Mia and he hops up to sit on the counter beside her, popping the cap off his beer and taking a swig.

"What are we talking about?"

"The new girlfriend," Mia answers in French, and she glances over at Lyla again as if she's making sure that she doesn't know what's being said about her right in front of her face. Lyla just opens the vodka bottle and pours some into her cup without looking up.

"I like her," the guy shrugs. "She's cute, and he's obviously crazy about her."

"But how well does he honestly know her though? I mean, doesn't he think it's strange how she's lived in so many different places? How she has absolutely no family or at least she doesn't talk about them? How she just randomly showed up in Raleigh one day out of the blue? She doesn't have any friends from before she met him that she keeps in touch with. It's like she just appeared out of nowhere. Doesn't any of that seem strange to him?"

Lyla's hand shakes a little as she screws the cap back onto the bottle, wondering how exactly Mia knows all that about her while the other two girls nod along in agreement. The guy just blinks at her. "What's your point?"

"My point is that she could be anybody and there's no way for him to really know. She doesn't even have any parents? That's so shady to me. What if she actually has some big family somewhere and she's just trying to hook herself a pro athlete so she can support them? He's such a good guy, Marc. I just don't want to see him get hurt when it finally comes out that she's some con artist or something."

Lyla's trying her hardest not to show her anger but she knows that Mia kind of has a point too. Jeff really doesn't know all that much about her. Sure, in their many long talks he'd learned lots of little things but he still doesn't know that much about her family. He knows nothing about her past. She swallows down the guilt and pours some sprite into her cup.

The guy, Marc, just snorts and shakes his head at Mia's statement before tipping his beer back. "That's kind of a stretch there, but it's his deal anyway. He's not stupid, Mia. I think he'd know if some girl was using him. Besides, his sisters obviously like her too and you know how protective they are over him."

Mia scoffs because she does know. The Skinner sisters were pretty cautious of her for the first few months of hers and Jeff's relationship and when she broke up with him, she went straight to their shit list. The only reason they're civil to her now is because Jeff asked them to lighten up. "She could have fooled them too," Mia shrugs. "I bet if you asked them, they wouldn't be able to tell you anything of significance about her."

That's true, they wouldn't, Lyla thinks to herself as she puts the cap back onto the sprite bottle and she picks up her cup to head back outside, not caring to stick around for the rest of their conversation. Once she's back out in the cool air, she throws back about half her drink and then goes to sit back in the chair where she'd been curled up with Jeff before. Richie's girlfriend is no longer sitting there but it's okay because Lyla really doesn't feel like talking anymore anyway. She finishes her drink, dwelling on Mia's words and letting the weight of that sink into the pit of her stomach, along with the guilt that comes along with it. Jeff is a good guy, the best even, and it's not fair to him that he doesn't know important things that have happened to her.

She decides she can't be here anymore and she gets up to go and find Erica or Jillian but they're nowhere to be found, not that they would even be in any condition to drive anyway, but then she glances over her shoulder and--

"Ben!"

Jeff's older brother turns to see who called his name and he looks surprised when he sees that it's her. "Hey, Lyla. What's up?"

"Could you do me a huge favor?" She just met him a day ago and she'd really prefer not to have to ask him, but she can't seem to find the only two people she knows at this party and she's desperate.

"Sure. Whadda ya need?"

"Could you take me back to the house?"

"Something wrong?" he asks, eyebrows furrowing in concern as he studies the look on her face. "Where's my brother? Did he do something shitty?"

"No, of course not."

"You sure? 'Cause I'll kick his ass."

Lyla cracks a half hearted smile and shakes her head. "Thanks, but not necessary. I just need a ride."

"Okay," he agrees, and after a moment's hesitation, he moves into action. "Um, truck's this way." He leads her in the direction of a dirty but big and nice white truck at the end of the driveway that he mentions happens to belong to a buddy of his and after he opens the passenger door and helps her in, he goes around to get in on the driver's side.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asks once they've backed out of the driveway and turned out onto the road that leads them back to Jeff's house.

She shakes her head silently and turns to stare out the window.