Love, Harry [l.s]

two

"Harry, welcome to our home!" Mrs. Huxley says cheerily, and Mr. Huxley helps me with my suitcase. With a bit of hesitation on her end, she finally decides to go in for a quick hug and I give her a little one back, not wanting to just stand there and look like a deer in headlights.

"Hello, and thank you for taking me in," I'm a bit awkward standing on their porch as we look at one another. I look from person to person on the porch briefly, just to see who I'll be living with for the next however many months. Claudia claims they met me back when I had adoption interviews at age 6, but I don't recognize them. Then again, that was 10 years ago and I've had more foster and adoption meetings with different families than I can count.

Mrs. Huxley is a tall and slim woman, with a cheetah print tracksuit and a fanny pack around her waist as if she's about to go to an exercise class in the 80s. She has blonde hair, but you can tell that it's not her natural color because of her natural chestnut-colored roots and occasional graying hairs. Not to be overly judgemental, but she dresses as if she's 20 years younger than she actually is (she looks like she's in her low 40s if I had to guess).

Mr. Huxley looks like your stereotypical businessman in every sitcom I've ever watched. He's in a dress shirt, dress pants, and a tie, which seems very formal for everyday clothes. His straight, brown hair is balding on the top, but he's done his best to comb it over the bald patch. He has a mustache too and paired with the big glasses perched on his nose and the slightly rounded figure he has, it somehow makes him look like one of two things.

He could either be a very wealthy man sitting on a shitload of money, or that husband who's completely oblivious to his family because he just watches sports from his recliner all day. The kind of guy who lived in his mum's basement until he turned 30.

As for Margo, she finally stops kissing the boy on the swing and turns to me, looking me up and down and appearing overall snobby and uninterested. She doesn't even smile or say hi, and just stares me dead in the eye as if she's challenging me to god knows what. I don't spend much time looking at her because she keeps sizing me up, and it's making me uncomfortable. But from what I see, she looks a lot like her mum with the same facial features and unnaturally colored blonde hair.

I tear my eyes away from her and don't even look at the boy right now - who's lap she's currently straddling - in case they looked the same and turn out to be siblings (hey, it's an honest fear because different family dynamics that I've been exposed too are weird enough for a lifetime).

The parents seem nice enough, albeit the mom appears a bit strange upon first impression, but Margo... not so much. The parents usher me into their house and close the door behind them, leaving Margo and the boy on the porch by themselves.

"So, Harry, I understand if you don't want to call us Mum and Dad," Mrs. Huxley tells me as she leads me through her enormous house to the kitchen. Mr. Huxley helps put my luggage at the bottom of the stairs before joining us at their kitchen island. Everything in their kitchen is white marble and looks extremely expensive.

"My name is Blair but a lot of people call me Bee. This is my husband, Oliver, better known as Oli. And our daughter, Margo, was out on the porch with her boyfriend. We'll make sure she introduces herself to you in a few minutes, she's just very... attached to her boyfriend." Blair explains, and Oliver nods in agreement before pulling out a tall chair for me to sit down on at the island.

I breathe a slight sigh of relief knowing it's not her brother that she was kissing, and try to get as comfortable as a kid thrown at in a brand new family can get. Blair seems very talkative, the opposite of her husband. But they both seem to be very nice, at least right now.

"Harry, why don't you tell us some things about yourself? We heard wonderful things from Ms. Parker, but I'd love to hear from you," She prompts, handing me a glass of water with perfectly spherical ice cubes floating around in the glass.