The New Girl

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

Thea's POV

The banquet hall where the event was taking place was a grand place. It was a huge hall, with high ceilings on which a number of chandeliers were hanging giving a soft glow to the room. There was an open space on entering the hall with many round tables around it. The decoration was quite good with a theme of silver and blue and on each table, there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers. On one side of the hall was an open bar and on the other end was the information counter along with the organizer's desk. Straight towards the very end of the hall, was a stage.

Seeing the number of people here, I took a drink from one of the waiters passing by, and looked around. Spotting them quickly, I made my way to where my brothers were standing. I saw that my parents were with them too so I placed my glass on one of the tables.

"Hey guys." I said, joining them, standing beside my Dad.

"Thea? Honey you look...", Dad said, trailing off, with a surprised look on his face.

"Beautiful. You really do baby.", Mom completed, placing a hand on Dad's arm. He nodded, smiling, before quickly kissing my head.

"Of course, she does. She's my daughter." Dad bragged, making us all laugh.

"James Walter", a voice said, loudly from behind us, a few minutes later. I turned and saw my Dad's best friend and a businessman himself, Samson Hunt, or Sam as we call him, walking towards us.

"Samson Hunt", Dad said, going forward to shake his hand and clapping on his back while Sam did the same.

"Laurel, you look lovely as always", Sam said, hugging Mom. "Boys you are all so grown up now. Seems like only yesterday you were all running around creating a ruckus. Erik, son, you've done very well, I'm rather impressed by the project."

"Thank you, Sam.", Erik replied.

"Now tell me where's our little Thea?"

He didn't seem to recognize me but I can't blame him either. It's been a while and my get up doesn't help either.

"She's right here Samson." My Dad said, putting his arm around me. Sam looked stunned for a moment but then came forward for a hug.

"Thea sweetheart. I didn't even recognize you. How've you been?"

"Hi Sam. I've been good, busy coping with school stuff."

"Yes, yes. Your father told me that you kids moved back to your hometown. Tell me how's that going?"

"It's going well."

"Well I'm glad to hear that. On that note, I actually have something I wanted to discuss with you all. The thing is...", he got cut off by someone on stage, asking everyone to take their seats as they were about to begin. We all went to our table and Sam went to his which was next to ours. I didn't see Beth, his wife, at the table and asked my Mom about it as we were sitting down. She told me that Beth is visiting her parents with Delilah, her daughter. I miss Delilah. She and I are close but I'm sad to say that we haven't been in touch much recently. She's like a younger sister to me and I'll ask about her to Sam later on.

Soon the event started and the host introduced the organisation along with the events motive. Anyone is allowed to support any of the project being honored tonight and can even get the information to take part in them. One by one the host called all the project heads to give a little speech about it and tell us what was the thought behind them. When it was Erik's turn, he got up and moved towards the stage squeezing my shoulder on the way, passing me a smile. His speech was amazing. I was so happy to hear him talk so passionately about the project. Anyone could see the commitment he had to it. He ended his speech and got a huge round of applause. He came back to the table, stopping to speak with some of the people congratulating him.