Chapter Thirty-Four
Leo
Sophia blinked her eyes awake, 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 recommend seven if 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 from her parents 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 showed respect.
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.
Sophia was in the shower, taking her time and probably hiding from my family, when I’d just about given up hope of finding a ticket to Hawaii.
My aunts had both come over and joined us at the dining room table and were watching me with interested expressions.
It was like they’d never seen a man in love before.
“I can’t find a ticket,” I said, dropping my head in my hands.
“You checked all the flights, not just hers?” Mom asked, pulling the laptop from me.
“Yes,” I groaned.
“Can you believe he’s this into a girl?” Aunt Sloane asked. “I can’t wrap my head around it.”
“Leave him alone,” Aunt Lavi said. I lifted my head to look at her. “You didn’t just check first class, right?”
“No, I checked everything,” I said, defeated. “I’ll sit in the fucking bathroom for the entire flight at this point.”
Mom sighed, closed the laptop, and put it back in front of me. “You can take the jet.”
“What?” Aunt Sloane jumped out of her chair in outrage. “You’ve never let us take that anywhere!”
“Because you can be drugged on a commercial flight just as well as on a private jet, Sloane,” Dad said. Aunt Sloane had been sedated on family trips due to her flying phobia for as long as I could remember.
“And it’s unnecessary,” Aunt Lavi added.
She wasn’t wrong, but it’s not like my parents had bought a private jet.
It had come with the multi-billion-dollar company Mom had inherited from my grandfather.
Technically it was the company’s jet, though Mom was the one you had to go through for access and she rarely approved business trips.
Jace had been on it once and had bragged about it for a month.
“Really?” I asked. I’d assumed I would never fly on that jet given everyone’s feelings on using it.
“Yes, really. I’ll call and have it prepped for you,” Mom said as she stood up.
I heard Sophia come out of the bathroom and I got up to tell her the plan.
I stopped in the doorway to the guest room and watched as she sat on the bed and pulled on a pair of knee-high boots over her jeggings.
For someone born in Hawaii who clearly preferred a warmer climate, she still managed to look smoking hot in all her winter clothes.
“Good news, bad news,” I said. “There are no seats available for me on your flight. But my mom owns a private jet, courtesy of the company she inherited from my grandfather, and she said we can take that.”
“You’re kidding.” Sophia’s jaw dropped and she froze with one boot half zipped.
“I’m not.” I chuckled. “She knows how I feel about you, and she’s clearly helping me impress you.”
Sophia finished zipping her boot, jumped up, and sprinted to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I spun her in a circle until she was pressed against the doorframe and I lowered my mouth to hers for a soft kiss.
“Well, it’s working,” she said. “You’re a private-jet-owning hockey star with an eight-inch dick. Color me impressed.”
Jace cleared his throat, and I lifted my head to see him standing beside us with a smirk on his face. “Hello. I was just headed to the bathroom.”
Sophia froze and her cheeks instantly flushed crimson. She slowly turned to face him and Jace’s smirk grew.
“You think the hockey star is impressive?” he asked. “I run a third of the company that pays for that private jet, and I wouldn’t be bragging about an eight-inch dick.”
“Fuck off, Jace.” I shoved his shoulder.
He laughed. “I’m kidding. That’s very impressive, little dude. I can barely top that. But I can.” He winked at Sophia and went into the bathroom.
“This has been a humiliating weekend for me,” she said, dropping her head on my shoulder. “Please take me away on your private jet and let me watch you be embarrassed around my family now.”
“I can’t wait to meet the family you love so much,” I said, stepping closer to her.
She laughed and looked up with a menacing smirk. “You say that now. Just remember: I have three men in my life who think of themselves as father figures and I’m their first little girl.”
My stomach dropped. “Should I be worried more about embarrassment or my safety?”
“Oh, definitely your safety.”