4. cool as a cucumber

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"Tell them I want the French toast with berries."

Keith, phone pressed to his ear, side-eyed Melanie as she leaned uncomfortably close over his shoulder to read the food menu that the Tao could make for them. He jerked away from her and recited her order into the phone grudgingly.

Val was cuddled up on a shell-shaped chair and was flipping through some travel guides provided by the villa. "I want scrambled eggs and—"

"Bacon?" Keith answered for her with a devious grin, knowing exactly what the girl always wanted for breakfast.

She looked up at him in surprise before she slightly smiled and nodded in confirmation. Keith was sometimes easy to get along with, but his moods changed like the tides, their unpredictability often turning torrent.

After telling the Tao what Val wanted, Keith paused for a moment, his thumb stroking over the menu before he pulled the phone away from his ear and said, "What do you think Diana wants?" Her real name came out of his mouth uneasily, but calling her mom had never felt right. She didn't feel like a mother to him, just a vague figure in his life.

Val perked her head up, her eyes hooded from just having woke up. "Um." She closed the magazine she was browsing through and slowly stood from the concave seat. "I'll go ask her."

After Keith nodded, his dusty brown eyebrows arching together in nervousness from not wanting to bother or upset his mother, Val made her way out of the main area and to the walkway in the garden.

She eyed Diana's door on the far left and padded towards it, glancing at the white sand that surrounded the walkway. Her eyes then flickered towards the rolling morning seas, the sound of crashing waves filling the air and bringing about a wind that blew through her loose curls.

Upon arriving at Diana's bedroom, she raised her fist to the wooden door but then paused. Her heart began to beat nervously for a reason unbeknownst to her. She remembered their banter the night before, the way they threw sarcasm back and forth with ease as if they had been doing it together for years. But it was a new day, only the second day of knowing her mother-in-law, and she found herself highly strung amid it.

Her fist lightly padded against the door three times, and she took a step back to allow space. Fiddling with her fingers as she waited, she glanced at the jungle behind the villas and admired it, allowing the warm breeze to soothe her.

The door swung open and incited her nervous brown eyes to snap towards it, instantaneously locking with a set of viridescent eyes. Not wanting to waste time, Val hastily opened her mouth to ask the question she had come there for, but her words were stolen from her throat as her eyes slipped downwards. The tall woman was wearing a silky white robe that clung to her body, clinging especially tight in places where the fabric seemed dampened.

While her body was slim, it also sloped and widened like majestic hills in all the right places, and Val tried to keep her eyes on hers instead of the obvious dip and widening of her waist and hips shown so exquisitely in the robe. Seeing that her dark copper hair was wet, she realized Diana must have just gotten out of the shower. Val could almost feel hot steam emanating from her.

"Yes?" Diana coolly questioned, her smooth voice coming out a little raspy from her recent sleep. She stared down at the girl quizzically, wondering why her lips were so limply ajar and her chocolate eyes widened so.

"Um," Val began, snapping herself out of the daze she had strangely fallen into. She glanced down at her sandals and adjusted the skirt of the yellow sundress that she had donned. "W-we're ordering breakfast from the Tao and wanted to know what you wanted." She immediately bit her lip after she finished her words, not trusting herself not to stutter like a fool in front of the woman.

Diana hesitated in wonderment at the girl's awkwardness. While most people would have found her extremely prevalent shyness annoying, the woman found it cute and endearing. "Pancakes," her lips said before resting together in the vague curve of a smile.

Val nodded, stepping away from the door slowly. "Okay. Sounds goo—" Her words cut off when she unknowingly inched too far backward, her sandals slipping off the paved walkway and sinking into the powdery sand, causing her to trip. She stumbled a bit, casting her arms outwards to catch her balance, or else she'd fall onto her butt in the sand and get her dress all dirty.

"Watch your step, Miss Clumsy," Diana said in amusement, giving a small chuckle once the girl stood up straight on the walkway, shaking her foot free of sand.

Val smiled sheepishly and quickly turned away, crossing her arms over herself as she hurriedly made her way back to the main area. Her cheeks bloomed red because of her simple inability to act naturally around Diana. Then again she was her future mother-in-law, so perhaps that was why she felt so pressured to act a certain way around her.

But she couldn't act normal or polite or easygoing the way she wanted to. She acted like a 'Miss Clumsy', according to the bane of her self-confidence as she tripped over everything and forgot how to simply function normally around the tall brunette.

***

Later, Fijian men and women arrived at their villa in a cart, the back of which hauled a chest that was locked shut. Keith went out to greet them—well, to inspect them to be sure he trusted them to cook his food. Upon seeing that they stood upright like professionals and wore genial smiles to match their white uniforms, Keith stepped aside to let them carry the chest in, directing them to take it to the dining room.

Val immediately stood from her seat as they entered the living room, giving them a friendly smile as the four Tao carried the chest out to the dining area. She felt happiness arise in her when they smiled back. Val had always been prone to overly nice mannerisms, flashing her lovable smile at every stranger she came across. Most usually smiled back—except her mother-in-law, who appeared from her room right as Val followed the Tao to the dining room.

Diana's eyes somehow met Val's immediately, even with the four strangers shuffling down the walkway. It was an automatic flicker, the magnetic drawing of her eyes towards where the girl just so happened to be standing, staring right back at her. Now that she was refreshed from her shower and no longer dazed by the confusion she felt earlier when Val had knocked at her door, she viewed the girl from afar, eyes raking down the sundress she wore.

It was yellow with hints of white flowers, and it fit around her waist so perfectly that it looked like it was still clad to the mannequin in the store. The girl's black curls lay right beneath her shoulders, and her brown eyes glowed hints of honey in the morning sun, which just so happened to strike upon her at that moment like a spotlight. Palm leaves in the garden around her tilted downwards behind her head, intricate green leaves waving towards her like Mother Nature was pointing the girl out with the very tip of her green finger.

Why was Val looking at her like that? Why were those puppy eyes staring into hers expectantly with a hint of apprehension, like she was aware that she was staring at the tall woman so hard and was ashamed of it? Diana was also aware she was staring at the girl with fierceness, but she showed no shame.

The cord that seemed to connect their eyes hung loosely in the air, waving in the morning wind, but its gentle tautness was released when Keith walked out of the living area and right in front of Val, brushing past her a bit aggressively as though she wasn't even standing there.

Val jumped at the suddenness of his presence, his familiar cologne attacking her nostrils as he followed the Tao into the dining room. He noticed Diana standing in front of her bedroom door, and his stride slowed a bit.

"Morning," he said with as much affability as he could force out of himself. For him, that was like trying to squeeze lemonade out of a dried-up lemon. The saddest part for Val and Diana, who could both easily see right through him, was that he was not being kind to his mother to make her happy; he was only being kind to make himself look good in her eyes. He knew that she never looked upon him with anything more than a bored expression shadowed with pain, but he wanted to change that. He craved the inflation of his ego from her approval.

Diana awkwardly smiled at him, giving a small "Good morning." as she slipped her hands into the pockets of the black shorts she wore. With it, she wore a tan button-up, one with quarter sleeves and one too many buttons unbuttoned. A gold necklace filled in that space, and even from afar, Val could see a couple of freckles dotting the fair skin of her chest.

Keith smiled and entered the dining room, and Diana's eyes returned to the girl. She walked toward the dining room, eyes never leaving Val's, but then stopped, her brown eyebrows perking up. "Are you going to go in?" she asked the girl in a tone that was much different than the one she used with Keith.

Trying to keep her eyes away from the woman's long, toned legs exposed by the shorts, Val gave a small smile and a nod, hooking her hands together below her waist and making her way toward the door. A tinge of something warm flared in her as she walked past the woman, realizing she had respectfully waited for the girl to enter before she did. What a gentlewoman.

Diana watched Val walk past her, her lips pressing together tightly as she turned behind her and also entered the dining room.

The Tao placed every person's meal, which were enclosed in tight silver containers, out on the table, taking the lids off the plates, filling up the cups, and placing the silverware. Keith watched them meticulously, standing tall with his hands slipped into his pockets—a small habit he shared with his mother.

Melanie entered right at that moment, bouncing in with that usual spark in her step. "Damn, it smells good in here. I am starving." She elbowed Val as a greeting as she walked past her.

"It all looks really good," Val said when the Tao seemed to be finishing up. "Vinaka," she thanked with a head bow, receiving one back from one of the women.

"We will return in around an hour or two to clean up," she told the girl, picking up the chest with the help of the three men who had accompanied her. "Enjoy your mea—"

"I said I didn't want tomatoes on my omelet," Keith interrupted her as he pointed to his plate, a steaming omelet sitting atop it, topped with only a few red chunks of tomato. His voice was cold like stone, and his eyes stared at the plate for a minute before he looked towards the woman, lips pursing together.

The woman's head snapped up to him and then down to where his strained finger pointed, an apologetic look immediately filling her eyes. Setting the chest down, she stood upright with her hands clasped together. "Oh, I am so sor—"

"Is it so hard to simply not put tomatoes on an omelet?" Keith interrupted again, his jaw clenching as his dark blue eyes stared at her with flames in them.

"Sir, I deeply apologi—"

"The first meal we order here, and it's already fucked up?" He grew louder, motioning his hand in the air angrily.

Diana, who stood on the other side of the table, stared hard at him, her upper lip curling at how similar he was to his father. He was a rude asshole and a total brat, and for those reasons, she could hardly even stand to look at him. Glancing over to Val, she noticed the way she flinched at the peak of his tone as if his voice had swung back and hit her across the face with its harshness. Not liking how the girl was reacting, as if something else was prone to accompanying the smack of his voice, Diana's cheeks blanched with anger as he continued to rage.

"I pay all this money to stay here. My money funds your paycheck, yet you can't follow a simple fucking—"

"You can pick the goddamn tomatoes off, Keith."

Every eye in the room instantaneously shifted to the origin of the edged voice, all landing right on the tall, copper-haired woman who eyed her disgrace of a son with detestation. Even the Tao's stares were a bit nervous, and Val and Melanie's stares were of pure shock that someone had talked to Keith that way. All the while, the man—who acted more like a toddler throwing a tantrum over tomatoes—stared at her with a look of anger and disbelief. A hint of disappointment was also thrown in there, considering he believed that people who bowed down to him and always let him get his way were the ones who liked him. If that was the case, Diana didn't have a fucking ounce of respect for him.

"We can make you another omelet, sir," the Tao woman said with a slightly shaky voice, blinking rapidly and awaiting his response, which she hoped wouldn't be explosive.

Keith hesitated, his eyes still locked on his mother, who stared back at him with a blank expression. He was shocked at her ability to be completely unaffected, to have no shame in talking so bluntly to him. It was unsettling to his bratty self, and he had to admit that Diana's stare was bloodcurdling and heart-stopping.

"No," he responded to the woman in a much calmer voice, slowly peeling his eyes away from Diana to look at her. "It's fine. Thank you." Grinding his teeth, he stiffly sat down in his seat, his muscular shoulders flexing as he pushed himself up under the table. Everyone was frozen, standing in front of their plates, watching him pick up a fork and begin to flick the tomatoes off the top of the omelet.

As the Tao reluctantly picked the chest back up and hauled it out of the room, Val and Melanie exchanged knowing glares of surprise that someone finally had the power to shut Keith up. Never had they seen the dude be silenced so quick, sitting down in such a defeated way.

Diana, seemingly oblivious to the tension she created, sat down coolly in her seat, picking up a fork and a knife and digging into her pancakes.

Val and Melanie both slowly sat down, and Val tried to be as quiet as possible as she pushed up her seat. Taking a fork, she carefully stabbed it into her fluffy scrambled eggs.

Melanie, strands of brunette hair falling over her face and revealing streaks of blonde amidst it, cleared her throat as she leaned over her plate and tried to keep her mouth shut from saying something childishly snobbish to Keith about being shut down by his mommy. But she knew that would escalate the situation, so she ate her French toast in silence, casting glances at Val every now and then.

The room was utterly silent for a few minutes, besides the clinks and clanks of their forks, but the inside of Val's mind was unbearably loud. She knew Keith well enough to know that as he stared down at his omelet that he had yet to take a bite of, only disinterestedly poking at it with his fork while his eyebrows sewed together, his mind was also loud. She could feel the clock inside her ticking reluctantly, waiting for him to explode like the grenade he was.

Then he did.

"You know, I really don't think it's right that you speak to me that way when I paid your way to this vacation, Diana," he abruptly grumbled, causing every other person's fork to freeze where they were placed, which for Melanie was in the middle of hauling a huge ass chunk of toast into her mouth.

Keith's dark blue eyes flickered to look askance at the woman sitting diagonally across the table from him, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned in his seat like a pouty kid.

The raven-haired girl winced, her heart careening in her chest like a boat bracing stormy waters. She hated that feeling, that deep swelling of an ocean inside her that seemed to weigh her down right there in her seat. Every muscle clenched, and she despised herself for allowing herself to feel those feelings she felt as a child now, as a grown adult. Her boyfriend was like her own father, and that was why her palms started to grow clammy.

But it surprised Val when she only heard a borderline despotic laugh, one so bitter that it seemed to shoot caustic venom across the table. Yet it was majestic, and as she slowly lifted her eyes to the woman across from her, she was surprised at the playfulness dancing in her green irises.

"Oh please," Diana began, white teeth sparkling in the light with her sardonic yet achingly radiant grin. "It was your father's money, not yours. Besides"—she took a small bite of her pancakes, letting her teeth scrape against the fork, a delicate cling sounding out—"my bank account is triple your father's. Don't act like you committed some kind of charitable act when I could've paid for everyone here twice over."

Although her tone, which had a defensive undertone, was fairly light, Val could see something in Diana's eyes solidify at the mention of Keith's father. She could tell that although Diana appeared to have a talent for giving no fucks, she was internally becoming quite aggravated at her son's immaturity.

Keith brusquely leaned forward, his plate chaotically pushed to the side as Val jumped at his sudden movement. She kept her eyes glued to the table as the space around her became a landmine, her glance just the right amount of pressure to set it off.

"If you have so much money, then where was the child support all those years, huh?!" he exclaimed, his face tinging red as a vein in his neck bulged from the surface. Years of pent-up angst unfolded right there at the table.

Diana paused, and although her exterior rested cool as a cucumber, there was a horrifying weapon behind her cat eyes, a lethal astuteness that called for a tongue sharper and quicker and more intelligent than anyone at the table could handle. A smirk shaded the corners of her lips as she remarked, "The child support I paid every single month for 18 years? Oh yea, that probably went straight in your dad's pockets to fund his booze addiction which was unfortunately passed on to you."

A twinkle of consternation crossed his orbs for a moment, but he pushed it away and put those cement walls back around his close-minded brain. "And how am I supposed to believe you over him?" he growled.

The woman tilted her head, leaning against her seat nonchalantly before stating, "The most important thing here is that I don't really care if you do or don't."

Her words were like clothes pins snapping onto Keith's eyelids, opening them up wide before snapping onto his lips and twisting them into a furious grimace.

Val jumped again, heart harrumphing behind her rib cage, as Keith abruptly shot up from his seat, his chair squealing across the floor before tilting over and tumbling to the ground. Eyes lingering on the unbothered Diana, Keith flared his nostrils as he turned and stormily exited the room.

There was a frozen moment where Melanie stopped chewing the toast she had continued to eat while watching the whole escapade, and Val stared at the door after him, wondering if, for her own safety, she should go after him and comfort him. She knew that Diana had a point, for she was aware of Keith's dad's love of alcohol. She was also aware that Keith was ill-tempered and easily triggered—maybe he was the landmine she constantly had to tip-toe around.

Diana elegantly shook her head to make her hair fall away from her face and back in its place. She scooted her seat up more and picked up her fork again, giving a small, airy chuckle. "So sensitive."

She was right, but Val was his girlfriend and felt the responsibility of making sure he was okay. So, chewing her lower lip, she

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