“Don’t hit on the staff!” Eva giggled as her brother rose from their booth and walked away, claiming to want to wash his hands but she knew that look on his face. “Gordon!” she called after him, bursting into giggles at his fake name, but he was on a mission. She feigned a pout as he winked at her and walked away, but this wasn’t the first time he’d temporarily ditched her for a pretty face. She knew her brother would never actually ditch her, no matter how beautiful the woman.
Picking up the phone, she scrolled through Snapchat, watching the badly taken photos of her friends back at college. She was secretly glad she was home for awhile, knowing that she was having much more fun eating at the same old diner with her brother back home.
She glanced up at her phone, furrowing her brow at the waitress. It took a few moments for her to realize it was Sophia, one of the few girls Xander had brought home she didn’t instantly detest.
“Hi,” she said abruptly. “Sophia, right? You dated my brother? That hot mess hitting on the waitress?” she pointed. “We’re kinda drunk!” she whispered, though it was loud enough for everyone to hear. She’d regret all this behavior later, as she so often did.
“Uh,… fries. With cheese? Or gravy. Or both….” her eyes went wide at the though.
“Wait like… how are you? I thought you like… moved away,” Eva exclaimed, grabbing Sophia’s hand before she could leave with the half order Eva had given her.
“Yes!” she replied enthusiastically, pleasantly surprised that Eva remembered her name.
“Oh,” Sophia laughed and glanced over her shoulder towards Xander. “Actually...different brother,” she admitted, feeling a little embarrassed to be correcting her. It was silly, really, to be embarrassed about that and Sophia knew it, especially since Eva was clearly intoxicated and she had been in high school at the time (not to mention there were many brothers and even more girls, it had to be difficult to keep track of). “I dated Blaise,” she shrugged. “It didn’t work out, though...Obviously. But my little sister is friends with Xander, so I do see him around, too.”
The corner of Sophia’s lips quirked upward when Eva attempted to discreetly confide their condition to her and managed to announce it, instead. Not that their state was any mystery to anyone who saw them. Sophia winked. “I won’t tell anyone.”
Pulling out her notepad, Sophia started to write, scratched out cheese, then wrote cheese and gravy. “Great!” she chirped, but was cut off as Eva caught her hand. “Oh, well...”
Sophia slid into the side of the booth opposite Eva. “I’m doing really well!” she declared, brightly. “I, um, I moved in with a guy for awhile, but I’ve been here the whole time. Oh! Except I did go on a vacation for a week, recently...It was totally temporary though, as you see.” After things ended with Michael, Sophia had had to get away from Ka’ala for a time, but she couldn’t afford to entirely pick up the roots she’d settled and leave entirely, either financially or emotionally. Here, she had a steady job and friends and family and, as much as she wanted to see the world, it presented challenges she in truth didn’t feel brave enough to face at that moment.
And now it had arrived, the moment where she asked herself if it would be better or worse to bring up the parents. Was it kinder to spare the thought or to give her a chance to vent? Sophia shifted uncomfortably and decided to dive in. It would be too rude to ignore it entirely? “What about you?” she inquired, softly. “I heard...what happened and I’ve been thinking of you all. Is there anything I can do?”
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