Bees & Honey [H.S]

Chapter 25

Hungover and not so fabulous I was in an uber on my way to mum's house. I had promised my parents a birthday lunch the day after my party, and with the pounding headache I started to regret my planning choices. All I was looking forward to now was pizza night with the reunited gang; Jack, Casper and Max.

I stepped inside the hallway and my family rushed to meet me.

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday..." All five started singing and I tried to smile politely through the pain, a choir was the last thing my head needed. My mum didn't look so happy with the eyebrows meeting in her forehead as she watched me nod to the melody. I looked over to Lea who stood next to her and had also caught our mum's expression. Lea discreetly gestured for me to take off my sunglasses now that I was inside. Against my will I took them off, when I in reality had wished to shade myself behind the darkness of them for the rest of the day. But it made the frown on my mum's face disappear.

All of them gave me a hug and sloppy kisses on the cheeks before leading me to the set up table in the dining room. The savoury pie smelled delicious and looked fantastic. Seemed like I had timed the lunch perfectly. My mum wasted no time to get us all to sit down. With us all adjusting our napkins and cutlery Teresa asked the first and most obvious question, "How was the party?" she smiled warmly.

"It was great, Casper did a great job with it." I began before realising the important part I had missed, "And Max came!" I exclaimed as much as my hangover would allow.

"Really?" Teresa spoke thrilled through everyone's joy. I nodded back, just as excited as the rest of them.

"Harry surprised Bianca with her!" Lea shared with them, getting too caught up in the excitement, obviously not thinking her information through and the consequences that would come with it. The moment she said it she realised her mistake and gave me guilty eyes. She mouthed the word 'sorry' in my direction without anybody else picking it up since their focus was intensively fixed on me, shocked. Here we go...

"Harry who also took you and Grimmy to L.A?" My mum asked from across the table, nosy and suspicious. Still, it was not an actually question since she already knew her answer, she just wanted confirmation to the assumption she was cooking up in her head.

"Yes..." I answered hesitantly. I didn't want to lie, but I also didn't want her to get any wrongful ideas- which I knew was already doomed to happen.

"Hmm..." And there it came, the wrongful idea. She didn't speak it out loud, but a child knows what that means from their mother, and what they're thinking.

"What are you 'hmm'ing about?" I sassed back, annoyed at her indirect way of communicating.

"Oh just, nothing..." She continued, shrugging it off and going back to passing the salad to Vincent. Everyone else sat in silence, avoiding to get involved. I looked at her in disbelief but decided to let this one go, since I didn't actually want to talk about it. However, my dad suddenly seemed more than eager to.

"What she meant to say was when do we get to meet this boyfriend of yours?" He added. Lea almost snorted out the sip from her drink she had just taken, and my facial expression must have been equally as surprised with the chin that had dropped to the floor.

"Boyfriend!?" I spitted out, stunned and even more annoyed now. Dad seemed to regret his decision. Teresa slapped him over his arm and started scolding him for me.

"So how was it to meet Max?" Vincent tried kindly to go back to the original subject while Teresa and dad argued and bickered lowly on their corner of the table. I took my eyes off them and met Vincent's gentle, but formal persona. Ignoring the rest of them, I went back to telling him about Max.