Moira

11.

000d, 00h, 00m, 00s

"You're meeting my family on Saturday."

The second try worked out a lot better than the first one. This time I managed to direct my words towards the right person; His confused look immediately turning into annoyance.

Comfortably propping my arms up on the backrest of the couch — my whole body turned and sitting on it the wrong way around — I looked up at the archway into the living room, Esmond standing in it with his brows furrowed as they darted back and forth between Arley and me.

Unlike he had predicted, it took the brunette quite a while to get back here; a few hours, at least. Though, with the company I kept, I hardly minded.

"Who's that?" Tilting my head, my eyes shifted towards the unfamiliar voice, landing on a girl who must've been around my sister's age. Her hair was longer than my sister's short one, though, and rather messy as she, as if to emphasise, ran a hand through it.

The scowl on her face resembled the one on Esmond's face as she scanned me intently.

"No one who should be here," He snickered. "Just head to the kitchen. I'll be right there, yeah?"

I rolled my eyes at his explanation, though didn't feel the need to set the record straight. In all honesty, I'd rather just get this over with and get home, now that he was here.

"But—" She went to argue, though his stern voice cut her off right away.

"—Ellis," He hushed, a warning undertone in his voice that made her sigh in defeat before she trotted off, her middle finger high up in the air— not that he noticed; his eyes were trained on nothing but me.

"What are you doing here?" His gaze was almost intimidating, though his voice laced with that lazy indifference I was used to by now.

I sighed, turning back around and looking out the window in front of us. In the time that had passed, the sun had set behind the trees, and the darkness had taken over.

It never got this dark in the city. You never saw the stars there, not like this, anyway.

"To tell you you're meeting my family on Saturday," I shrugged. "Family and friends, actually."

"I'm most definitely not."

"I didn't ask, Esmond." He was stood in front of me now. Not only blocking the view but ruining my mood, too. The whole point of my wording was so that he wouldn't have room to argue. Yet, here he was, arguing.

His brows furrowed at his name coming out of my mouth, eyes dragging over to his friend still sitting on the opposite side of the couch. "Welcome back," was all Arley said, a different kind of indifference in his tone. He still sounded cheery, like nothing in the world would be able to upset him.

The man in front of me shook his head at the gesture, otherwise ignoring the words before looking back at me. Before he had the chance to speak again, I got up. "Look, I'm not about to argue about this. It's the absolute least you can do."

His brows raised at my words, lips slightly parting though no sound escaping them. "If you insist on being nothing but a twat to me, the absolute least you can do is pretend you're not when you meet my family so they can stop pestering me about you," I huffed, walking past him and up the few steps to his right. "Believe it or not, I don't enjoy talking about you, either."

Humoured, he snorted at the words and with my brows knitted together tightly in annoyance, I turned around before I exited the room.

"That really is hard to believe." Eyes batting open, he looked up to me, head slightly tilted and a faint smirk gracing his features. In the corner of my eyes, I saw even Arley rolling his eyes at the comment. Yet, he was watching our interaction with an amused grin on his lips.