The Notebook

Caught

At the sound of the door, Sophie looked over at Keefe and was greeted with wide eyes. Put everything back as fast as possible! Sophie told Keefe, using her telepathy so she wouldn't be heard. The voices she heard downstairs confirmed her suspicions, Mom and Dad are home early.

They rushed to stuff everything back into the chests as quickly and quietly as possible. 

The swiftly exited the room and made a dash to Sophie's bedroom for cover. She may be able to solve the problem of being caught digging through Edaline's office, but there was no way to avoid her parents discovering that her and Keefe were hanging out alone. 

The pair must have made a little too much noise evacuating the office because from downstairs they heard "Sophie honey, is that you?"

Sophie grabbed Keefe's hand to stop him from moving anymore. He froze in place and glanced down at their locked hands.

"Hi Mom. I'm just, uh, I thought heard someone so I came out of my room to check. I guess I was right." Sophie awkwardly replied, attempting to come up with a cover story on the spot.

Edaline approached the bottom of the staircase. Sophie and Keefe standing right at the top of the staircase were unable to evade her view. Even worse, they were still holding hands, which of course Edaline noticed immediately.

Edaline's faced clearly displayed her surprise, and her mouth even fell open a little. She glanced down at their hands just as Sophie ripped hers hand away from Keefe's grip. "You didn't tell me we had a guest." was all Edaline said about the situation, despite it being clear she had much more she wanted to say.

Graddy appeared by his wife's side at this comment. "Hi Mr. and Mrs. Ruewen. Good to see you again!" Keefe said, his suave attitude kicking in.

"Sophie, can we talk to you for a minute?" Grady said to his daughter. 

"Of course." Sophie replied, but not actually moving, hoping somehow it would be a quick thing they could just get over with right there. Of curse it never is though.

"Alone please?" Grady added at Sophie's lack of movement. 

Sophie turned to Keefe. "You can wait in my room while I talk to my parents. I'll be right back." she said to him, before turning away and slowly dragging her self down the staircase to join her parents. She followed them into the living room and they all sat down. She looked back in forth between her parents for a few awkward moments of silence before Edaline initiated the conversation.

"Sophie... I don't want to blame you for something I don't know for sure, but can I just explain how this situation looks from our point of view? I come home to see you holding hands with Keefe, right after you said you were hanging out in your room... while you two were home alone." Sophie tugged out an eyelash while her mom looked at her with that infamous mom glare. She glanced at Grady for help but his face wasn't much kinder.

There was no good way to get out of this. Either she told her parents that truth that she was snooping through Edaline's office with Keefe (bad idea) and she goes with the story that she was just hanging out home alone with Keefe (also bad idea). She had to pick one.

"You can see how that doesn't look very good, right? And you can't just invite friends over without telling us. Sophie you need to-" Sophie cut off Grady.

"Look, we were just working on homework, I promise nothing was going on. And I'm sorry I forgot to tell you guys I was having a friend over." Sophie told them. They obviously didn't totally believe her story but they wanted to trust their daughter so they let it slide, mostly.

"You're ok this time but just make sure from now on you tell us if someone is coming over. But regardless, I think we need to have another talk soon about boys because you're getting to that age where-" Sophie cut Grady off again, not wanting to continue wherever that conversation was headed.

"I promise I won't do it again, but Keefe is still upstairs so I better not keep him waiting!" Sophie replied before jumping out of her seat and scrambling back up the stairs to her bedroom to talk to Keefe.