Page 28 of Enter if you Dare: Part Three

“Is this her?”

“Yes, this is Valli. Love of my life.”

Valli has no idea how to sign. She told me as much, and was freaking out, but I assured her it’s fine. I will help teach her if she wants, but for now my mom can read lips. My mom steps around me and takes Valli’s face in her hands, and Valli goes incredibly still. When my mom releases her, she signs to Valli, who then looks at me.

“She says you are already hers. She has claimed you,” I explain.

Valli looks back at my mom with a shy smile as my father joins us with their luggage.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Valli,” my father says politely, which I made him promise to do. Otherwise he can be a bit hard-headed at times.

“It’s nice to meet you too,” Valli says, grabbing at the hem of my shirt.

My father nods and looks around. “This place isn’t what I expected,” he says. This is his first visit to the island, since I normally always travel to see them.

“Valli!” Noa shouts.

She turns to Noa, releasing my shirt as Noa runs over and takes her hand. He pulls her closer to his family, and I watch Noa’s mom, Kelly, take Valli by the shoulders. She gives her a look, followed by a huge smile, then pulls her into her body and wraps her arms around her.

“I told you,” Noa says to his brother Lach. “I told you she would cry.”

After Noa introduces Valli to his family, he yells for everyone to follow him. So everyone grabs their bags, while I find Valli and take her hand, not wanting to lose her in the chaos.

As we walk toward the cornfield, Noa’s brother stops. “This place is incredible. Is that the cornfield? Why are there Christmas trees instead of cornstalks? Noa said that someone lives in there.”

“No one lives in there,” Noa says.

“But you said . . .”

“Cave used to live there, but he isn’t here right now,” I explain, hoping that will be the end of the conversation.

“He now lives with us,” Valli adds. “But the cornfield is his.”

Lach looks at the field of trees and nods. “I want to meet him.”

Noa’s older brothers, Ellis and Mack, have been less vocal, but his younger twin sisters are clearly displeased that they have to walk and drag their bags behind them—typical sixteen-year-old girls.

Leni joins us on our walk and introduces herself. She falls into a natural conversation with Nelli and Rory as they want to be called, though Noa insists on using their given names—Lenora and Aurora—which I think is because of how they react to them.

We manage to get everyone to the guest house and their things unpacked before Kelly announces that it’s time to eat. She wanted to make us a meal, but the houses are not stocked with food, as everyone on the island eats at Ares’s Bar, and we don’t keep anything more than non-perishables and breakfast foods handy.

By the time we take a seat, Noa’s family fill two tables with Noa directing the moving of furniture to accommodate everyone. I sit at one end with my mom sitting beside me, and poor Valli is down the hectic end with Noa.

My father sits across from me, next to Kelly, and she proceeds to talk his ear off.

“He is proud of you.”

I look at my father and back at Mom. “He hasn’t said so.”

My father didn’t want me to move so far away from him; being their only child, he wanted me close. But when a job opened here, and I came for a trial, I never left. I love it here.

“He doesn’t say things aloud. You know where you get it from. How is your boyfriend doing?”

Mom knows everything about Cave. She was afraid for me at first after what I shared about him, but she trusts me to make the right choice.

“He is doing okay. He should be home soon.”

“And you?”