Sunkissed Serendipity

Chapter 29

Isla

After all of the chaos of Julian's family bringing home a girl for the first time, the both of us reluctantly head downstairs. We walk off the staircase and towards the living room, where everyone is still hanging around. I put some distance between the two of us because whatever we were acting like before wasn't helping our case.

Lorraine looks over at me, and her eyes light up in enthusiasm as she sees me. I try not to let my cheeks heat up at her gaze and instead walk a little further into the kitchen. "All jokes aside," Lorraine says with a wave of her hand in the air toward her older son. "I'm really glad you decided to join us, Isla."

"I'm really glad you invited me," I say to her with a polite smile, and that causes her grin to widen. She turns toward her husband, grabbing the back of his wheelchair and saying, "Daniel wants to go outside and start the barbecue. The older boys can help!"

Leo and his brothers nod at that, moving toward the direction of the kitchen, which I presume would lead to the back door. Julian moves towards his mother, and before she can help but push her husband in the direction the other boys went, he says, "Hey, mom. I'll take him from here, okay?"

"Oh," Lorraine says, looking up at her son and wiping a lock of long brown hair off her face. "You don't need to."

"But I want to," he says softly, and then peels her hands off the back of the wheelchair. Looking back, he gives his mom a grin and says, "How about you wait for your sister here with Aunt Cecilia, okay? Have fun here. I've got Dad."

"You sure?" his mom asks, and he nods promptly. "We will head outside and get started on cooking."

Loraine breaks out into a grateful, if not a prideful, look considering how much she was beaming as she studies her son. "Thank you, Julian."

"No problem," he says, pushing his father forward. Once he steers his father toward where I was standing, he says, "Want to join in on the fun?"

"Hm," I say in response, already falling in step with Julian and his father. As the three of us head into the kitchen, Julian's father looks up at his son and says, "You've really matured, Julian."

"I don't know about that," Julian says with a shy smile.

"Yeah, you did," his father says, looking over his shoulder with a smile. "Last year, you barely had time to hang out with your mother and me with being out all the time and playing video games. I don't think I've ever seen you sit at the dinner table on a weekend either. But now—I don't know. But I do know that I'm proud of who you are becoming, buddy."

"Aw, dad," Julian responds, glancing at me with an embarrassed smile. I only tap him on the arm and give him a smile that matches that of his father on some accounts. Once we tread through the kitchen and toward the back door, Julian wheels his father out of the house and into the backyard. There is a ramp placed on top of the stairs that Julian uses as easy access to get his father down.

"Okay," Julian's father says, clapping his hands together. "Just because I've lost mobility in my legs for now doesn't mean everyone else will be doing my job for me. Everyone move out the way."

The older cousins laugh at their uncle but give him the space to work the grill. After a while, the rest of the family starts to head out of the house, including the including the little cousins and Lorraine and Cecilia. There are a few more boys I'm familiar with, and it takes me a second to realize that the other sister finally made it.

She seems to be more of the quiet one when she introduces herself to me; she doesn't make a joke as the others have. Julian steps back from helping his father grill once they are nearing the end and toward me. I watch as Lorraine walks over to Daniel, Julian's father, sliding a hand over his shoulder.