Storm Warning

The spend the next two days there, just the two of them, before they finally make their way back home to Jeff's parents' house and the whole family welcomes them back with open arms. It still surprises Lyla how well she's being received by the female members of his family, especially after overhearing his friends talk about how protective they are over Jeff. Lyla offers to make dinner for everyone on their first night back and after a whole lot of protesting from his mother about a guest in her home slaving in the kitchen, Jeff finally convinces her that Lyla is a great cook and that he promises to help and she relents.

Erica and Jillian tag along with them to the supermarket and by the time Lyla has picked up all the ingredients she's going to need for dinner and homemade dessert, it's been almost two hours. Jeff shoos his mom out of the kitchen where she's "pre-cleaning" in preparation of Lyla using the space and then they unpack all the bags to get started. Jeff mostly sits at the bar next to Erica and just watches Lyla do her thing, but he immediately jumps up to help when she asks him to chop some vegetables. Andrea joins Erica at the bar while Lyla and their brother are occupied and they just sit there watching the couple then exchanging knowing looks. Jeff meets their gazes every so often and he just grins before going back to watching Lyla, deep in concentration and none the wiser to the siblings' silent communications.

Erica and Jillian are both whining about their hunger pangs by the time Lyla finishes dinner and gets dessert in the oven to bake so she insists they go first in filling up their plates before heading to the dining room to sit down at the large oak table. They wait until everyone is seated with their plates and then Jeff's father says grace before they start eating. Lyla graciously accepts the compliments from the entire table on her cooking and then it gets pretty quiet, everyone pretty much occupied by stuffing their faces to do too much talking. Jeff's mom though, she's stayed quiet so far, that is, until now. Now is her opportunity to find out anything she wants to know about Lyla by putting her on the spot, and she has an audience to do it.

"So Lyla, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Where are you from?"

"She's not from anywhere, Mom," Jillian says, mouth full, and she gets a disapproving look for that but elects to ignore it. "Right, Lyla?"

"Pretty much," Lyla smiles at her before looking back to Mrs. Skinner across the table. "My parents were Americans but I was born in Japan and I've grown up kind of all over the world. We moved a lot, lived in a lot of different countries."'

"That sounds very interesting, I bet you learned a lot about different cultures. Where'd you enjoy living the most?"

"Oh, that's so hard to say! I loved each one for different reasons but I guess if I had to choose, it would be a toss up between Italy, Sweden, or Greece."

"You lived in Greece? Ohhhh my God, I'm so jealous," Erica pouts.

"So what do you do for work?" Jeff's mother asks her, and Lyla is sure this is the real question she's been waiting to ask and have a conversation about. She knows that her answer is not going to go over well and she's going to have to explain her situation again.

"Oh, I, um...don't."

The table goes completely still, everyone except Jeff frozen in the middle of taking a bite or a sip of water, and they're all looking at her now, Mrs. Skinner with a stricken look on her face. "You don't-....you don't have a job?"

"I don't, no."

"If you don't work, then how do you support yourself?"

"Mom," Jeff intercedes, hoping to maybe not go down this road for the second time in a very short span of days. He knows this ended up being a painful topic for Lyla last time and he doesn't want to put her through that again, especially around the dinner table in front of his entire family.

"What? It's a fair question for anyone one of my children brings home," she states matter of factly and all of her children just look amongst each other, unsure, while she turns her gaze back to Lyla. "Do you support yourself? Or does my son support you?"

"Mom, seriously!"

"It's okay, Jeff," Lyla immediately says, looking over at him and grabbing his hand under the table.

"No, it's not. You just went through this with Mia."

"I know," she says softly. "But that was Mia. This is your family. They just want to look out for you."

He sighs heavily but he squeezes her hand as he looks back across the table to his parents. "She has her own money, Mom. Like even more money than I have. So if anybody's gotta be a gold digger around here, I guess it'd have to be me. Although," he continues, looking back to Lyla. "In all fairness, I did like you before I knew you had money so that doesn't count, right?"

"Stop it," Lyla scolds quietly, a small smile on her face as she shakes her head at him and he grins so big that she can see the big dimples in his cheeks. "My parents left me quite an inheritance when they passed, "she explains, looking directly at his mother. "Way, way more than I could ever spend. And my father made me promise that I'd continue to travel and have adventures, even though it'd be without them. But I don't go overboard. Like back in Raleigh, I live in an apartment above a restaurant with a roommate. I'm still driving the same Jeep I got when I first came to America. I really don't even have that much material things because I lived practically out of a suitcase for about a year after my father died. The bottom line is...I live simply and I have more than enough to cover that for the rest of my life. Mrs. Skinner, I promise you, me being here has nothing to do with money."

His mother just sits there silently, like she's considering all that information, and Lyla glances over at Jeff again but he just smiles brightly at her which is totally contagious. Her heart is racing just a little bit, admitting that out loud, because she knows she shouldn't be having such strong feelings this early in. The last time she felt something like this, she had to cut and run and it broke her heart to do it. She knows that if she had to do it again, to Jeff of all people, it would destroy her. She can't even think about what it would do to him.

Luckily, the timer on the oven beeps, signaling that the dessert is done, so she politely excuses herself from the table and heads into the kitchen to remove it so that it can cool enough to be served. Footsteps follow only seconds behind her and once she closes the oven door and drops the oven mitt back on the counter, she turns around to see Jeff standing in the doorway, watching her carefully. "You okay?" he asks, making his way around the bar to stand right in front of her.

"Yes, I'm fine," she smiles. "I'm great."

He takes a step even closer, gently taking her face in his hands. "Are you sure?"

Instead of replying, Lyla just leans up to kiss him and he either takes that as a good enough sign or he just gets too distracted; either way, he gets caught up in it, maybe a little too much, and she eventually pulls away with a little grin, kissing the tip of his nose before she turns back to the task at hand. "Come on," she tells him. "Let's get this served."

Jeff gets out nine plates and forks while Lyla transfers the dessert from the pan to a platter and then they head back into the dining room where the rest of the family is chatting casually about anything and everything. Andrea asks Lyla about what the dessert is and where she learned how to make it and Lyla launches into a mini story about Estelle, a pâtissière she befriended while living in Nice, and while she's talking, she notices that Mrs. Skinner seems to be listening intently to her story, but no longer with the wariness she had before. Jeff's siblings take turns asking her questions about some of her travels while they eat and it's just a really nice, easy time. Lyla can't help thinking about how wonderful and open Jeff's family has been toward her and she honestly can't believe she's actually even at this point with him already.

After they're all finished, Lyla insists on cleaning up everything and so she and Jeff carry all the plates back into the kitchen and get to work. She rinses off the plates then hands them to Jeff to load into the dishwasher before she starts washing the pots and pans and he comes to stand by her side with a towel, waiting for her to hand them off for him to dry then put away. With one final wipedown of the countertops, they turn off the light and head into the great room where the rest of the family is watching television and Lyla freezes in her tracks when she sees what they're watching.

It's a hockey game, Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final as the announcer happens to say at that exact moment, and she immediately recognizes the logos on those white jerseys. Jeff sits down on the floor in front of his oldest sister on the sofa and Lyla begrudgingly follows to sit next to him. She can't think of anything she would want to watch less than this game but this is of course a true Canadian family with six kids that all play hockey so of course they're going to want to watch it. She watches for a little while, pretends she's interested and tries really hard to not act suspicious, but it's hard, and she soon decides to lean over to rest her head on Jeff's shoulder, feigning sleepiness. This way, she can close her eyes and not watch the game anymore, perhaps even falling alseep for real; at the very least, he can't see her face because she knows she cringes every time the cameras focus in really close on the players when the puck isn't in play.

She does actually end up dozing off despite the excitement of the commentators turned up loud and the chatter among the family in the same room with her, but as soon as it's over, Jeff gently shakes her awake and then jumps up from the floor to help her stand. Everyone has scattered now that the game is over, his father having gone to bed and his sister Jennifer nowhere to be seen. Andrea and Ben say goodbye there in the living room but the rest of the family follows them to the front door. Erica and Jillian both hug her, promising that they'll be seeing her again in a day or two if Jeff doesn't hog her all to himself to which he replies that he can make no such promises. Lyla is stunned however when Mrs. Skinner wraps her in a hug and tells her that she's welcome back anytime before turning to hug her son like that was no big thing after what happened at dinner.

Jeff laces their fingers together as they walk back down to where his car is parked in the yard and the three Skinner women stand there on the porch waving until they pull out of the driveway to head to his apartment in the city.