CHAPTER TWELVE
—
Jake woke up with a groan. He could feel Sophia shaking him by the shoulder, but he only buried his face in a pillow, whining. There was too much sunlight, and it was the second time he had to wake up this early in a row.
The night before, he woken up in the middle of the night only to work on the case. He still knew nothing about Mark Wallace's whereabout,s and it was killing to think that maybe they had even been a few meters apart from each other at some point and he still didn't know how the guy looked like, only Charles did.
So, he was definitely not up to waking up right now.
"Come on, babe," Sophia told him. "We have a long day ahead."
"Or we could just sleep all day," he groaned.
"I saw this fun trip they make to go whale watching! And I got tickets already."
Jake rubbed his eyes sleepily. "Why so early?"
"Because I know you will want to be back here for lunch. Come on, doesn't it sound fun?"
"Yeah," Jake slurred, although his brain was still processing everything very slowly. "Fun. But you know what would be more fun? If we stayed here and..." he got closer to her, trying to kiss her, but she got away, chuckling and shaking her head.
"That's for later. If we do that right now, we will be late for breakfast."
The last line convinced Jake to get up, and they got dressed to finally start the day. They met with the others and Sophia explained their plans to them. Jake didn't know why she wanted to include them in that as well, it was as if she didn't want to be alone with Jake at any time, but he knew she probably just wanted them all to bond.
So, he couldn't argue, and when they told Ben and Alex they got so excited it even got a smile out of him. He'd never thought about having kids, but the circumstances were making him understand why Sophia wanted to be a part of those kids' lives.
Meanwhile, Amy was still stressing over everything she'd told Kylie. What if she screwed up and forgot what lies she'd told Sophia and which lies she'd told her old friend? It was a disaster.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Jake and Alex, who were chanting "food, food, food!" as they waited for their breakfast to arrive. She chuckled to herself. At first her daughter seemed to hate Jake — and like she'd repeated several times, she had no idea why — but now they were getting along. She daresaid they had a better relationship than Alex had with her actual father.
"They really are father and daughter, huh?" Sophia told her, and it caught her by surprise that she was talking to her.
"Yeah," she said, smiling. "Alex is more like Jake, you know. Ben is more like me," she reached out to ruffle her son's hair.
"I can see that," Sophia agreed, and then looked around. "Where's Charles? Isn't he coming?"
"Oh, he's... busy. I think he wanted to buy something for the kids at a store."
Sophia nodded. "I see."
Amy looked at Jake a little nervously. She had that habit of turning to him whenever she felt anxious. And his smile made her feel better immediately.
——
Half an hour later, they were done with breakfast and Charles had joined them too. They got on a boat where they would be given the tour, and they all sat together. Amy was putting a life jacket on Alex, and she was complaining loudly. Ben had brought a camera that he was certainly too young to have, but he was Amy's kid after all, so Jake figured he was responsible enough.
