Chapter 262: Playing the Part
** Harper **
After a few rounds of careful selections, Harper decided on a family-style Italian restaurant for the weekend. It looked like a nice place with quality food and drinks, classy enough for a pseudo double date yet not too formal to immediately scream "I’m setting up my brother and my bestie tonight". The choice of cuisine should also help to make Eli feel a bit more at home, which was a plus for this gathering that was potentially going to turn out disastrous on too many levels.
The two of them made the reservation, and when weekend finally came, they got behind the wheels of Eli’s little Honda and arrived at the airport with slightly complicated expectations.
"I’m surprised that he actually asked us to pick him up again," Harper commented as the car pulled into the passenger pickup zone, "considering how he left last time and how he turned down the offer to stay in my apartment for the week."
Eli shrugged. "He’s going to dinner with us after all. As much as he might want to avoid seeing us together so lovingly— Ah, there he is."
The sight of Tyler dragging a large suitcase toward the parking space made the two go quiet, and they got out of the car in a hurry.
"Welcome to Davenshire for reals!" Harper hopped over and gave her brother a big hug, hoping that he was still as glad to see them this time as he was three weeks ago. "You don’t have much luggage for someone moving long distance. One suitcase? That’s it?"
"The rest is with the moving company." Tyler gave her a firm squeeze in his arms. Good, at least he was still glad to see her. "Besides, it doesn’t look like more suitcases would fit anyway," he glanced at the small trunk popped open at the tail of the Honda. "What happened to the Mercedes? I seem to be getting a downgrade on the car service this time."
Harper roller her eyes with a snort. "What, did you expect any better after beating someone up and threatening to defriend them?" She nodded in Eli’s direction. "Come over here and say hi. Nicely, so that we might consider moving you up one class in the reception hierarchy next time."
Tyler stared at her, while Eli looked equally surprised by the protective speech that she hadn’t informed him about ahead of time. Then the two men exchanged a somewhat awkward handshake with an even more awkward pat on the back.
Good enough. At least that didn’t involve anyone getting pushed against the wall or drinking a whole bottle of whiskey.
"You know you’ll have to get used to seeing us together like this all the time very quickly," Harper pointed out, chuckling at the grudging look on Tyler’s face. "You’ll age too fast if you keep up with that expression every day from now on."