Little Lion [DISCONTINUED]

Jack

Jack grinned happily as Eliza jumped up and ran offscreen. His face had erupted into fondness. He was glad that the plan had worked out just to see the pure joy on her face.

"Hey, Jack! What are you doing?" a man's voice called.

"Skyping!" the teenager yelled back.

"Okay! Kaz is here, though!"

As Jack's father yelled this, the familiar face of his friend poked up above the railing leading into Jack's room.

"Hey," Kaz said. His dark curly mess of hair was the only thing he got from his father, PJ. His dark skin and blue eyes, however, were from his mother, Sarah.

Jack flashed a peace sign. "What's up, Liguori?"

"Not much, Howell," Kaz returned.

"Who're you Skyping?" Kaz sat down on the desk next to Jack's open laptop.

"My girlfriend."

"The Lester girl?" Kaz began to swing his legs. Jack just nodded in response to his friend's question.

At that moment, Eliza came back into her bedroom. "I'm so glad you can come to New York!"

Jack grinned widely. "I am too! I can't wait to meet you in real life!"

"You're moving to New York?!" Kaz exclaimed.

Eliza looked startled. "Who's that?"

"Kaz," Jack answered before switching his attention to his friend. "Just for this year."

"That's still a whole year!" Kaz prostested.

"You can come visit," Eliza interjected.

"It's not the same," Kaz pouted.

Jack leaned back in his chair and laughed. Kaz stared at him, pout still on his face. Eliza just smiled. The three of them continued to talk for a few hours until it was time for Kaz to leave. Despite spending almost all his time at the Howell house, his mother still wouldn't let him spend the night without addequate warning.

Jack and Eliza lay in their separate beds that night, yearning for the day they could meet.

<>•<>•<>•<>

It was March when that day came. Jack had taken all his exams early so he could move to New York. Now he was standing in the American airport, bouncing up and down on his toes, trying to spot Eliza.

His mother, Isabel, stood over his left shoulder, exhausted after the flight. She hadn't wanted to move to America at all, so she was not in a very happy mood. When she saw how happy it made her son, however, she tried to make her bad mood go away. His father, Dan, was off wandering around the airport, trying to scrounge up some Starbucks coffee for his wife.

"Where are they?" Jack whined.

"I don't know, honey," Isabel said. "Maybe they're late."

Jack continued to strain, craning his head and turning around in a circle, trying to spot the head of reddish blonde hair he loved so much.

Suddenly, something very heavy latched onto his back. "JACK!" it screamed.

"Eliza?" he asked. The thing on his back nodded against his neck. "Well get down so I can hug you!"

Eliza obliged, hopping off of his back. He turned around and for a moment he could barely breathe.

She was beautiful.

She blushed. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because you're so beautiful," he whispered.

Eliza blushed more.

"Hey hey hey, calm down Mister," someone said from behind Eliza. Jack looked up to see a man with a black fringe like his father's, but going the opposite way. He had black frames that surrounded his blue eyes, and he was certainly taller than Jack by a few inches. Jack could now see where his girlfriend got her height.

"I'm Phil," the man said. "Eliza's dad."

"Hello, Mr Lester," Jack said. "I'm Jack Howell."

Phil paled a little bit. "Howell?"

"Yes," Isabel said. "I'm Isabel, Jack's mother. I don't know where my husband is, I'm sure he'll be back soon."

"Oh, that's alright," Phil said. "Have you gotten your bags?"

"Um no, we were going to wait for Dad to get back," Jack said.

"Well Eliza and I will gladly go with you to get them if your mother would like to stay here?" Phil looked at Isabel to see what she would say.

She nodded. "You three go ahead, I'm sure you know where the baggage claim is, Mr Lester."

"Indeed I do. We'll be back soon." The three waved at Mrs Howell before walking off on the direction that Phil said the baggage claim was. Eliza followed warily, well aware of her father's natural ability to get lost. When he turned to her with a bewildered expression on his face, she simply sighed and pointed in the way they were supposed to be going.

Phil only managed to get them lost three more times before they claimed the bags and headed back to where Isabel was waiting.  As they approached, Phil tripped over his own two feet, and his glasses fell off. He patted the ground in front of him, trying to find where their fallen.

Eliza picked them up and handed them to her father while Jack continued walking, oblivious to the incident behind him.

Phil stood, bracing himself against one of the bags. He could barely make out three blurry figures that he assumed were the Howells. Even thinking the name made him shiver, but he assured himself for the hundredth time since they'd arrived at the airport, that Howell was a fairly common surname.

He put his glasses back on his face, looking up at the blurry faces that were now crystal clear. There was Jack, standing with the bags, and talking to his mother. Isabel, however, was not paying attention to her son. She was looking at Phil with a slightly horrified expression. Phil wondered why she was looking at him like that, and then the last face registered.

Brown hair, slightly curly from the humidity in the air and styled in a fringe that swept across his forehead in the opposite direction of Phil's. A tall, lanky frame that was as tall as Phil himself. Big brown eyes, and, of course, all black clothing. Blue eyes met brown, and the two men stared at each other.

One look turned to that of hope with a twinge of sadness, while the other turned to a glare full of unbridled hate.

"Dan," Phil breathed.

"Phil," Dan said, full of anger.