Luna

15 | cookies

The door opens, making me swallow the nervousness inside my stomach. A tall man with chestnut hair and amber eyes stands in front of me.

Mr. Cooper?

"You must be Luna," he says, offering a handshake, which I gladly accept.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Cooper," I say. "I'm here to see Max. Is he at home?"

Shoot. I'm trying so hard not to squeeze my eyes shut from realizing how stupid that must have sounded.

God, Luna. Of course, he is. Why do you have to be so stupid? Clumsy, silly Luna. Always blurting out stupid things when nervous.

Mr. Cooper lets out a laugh, and my face reddens from the embarrassment.

"Come inside. We've been waiting for you." He lets me in and closes the door behind me. "And please call me Vaughn."

As I step inside, I travel my eyes around the house, which feels so homey even though this is the first time for me to be here. It's a contemporary styled home with a bit of coastal touch.

Vaughn leads me further to the living room, and that's when I found a woman coming out from the kitchen. She's blonde-haired and has a big smile spread across her lips the moment she sees me.

"Hi, Luna." She approaches me for a hug, and I feel her kindness as she engulfs me in her embrace. "I'm Melanie. It's so good to have you here."

When we pull away, my gaze darts on her beautiful emerald green eyes. So, Max has his eyes from his Mom.

"I really adore your mother." She beams with delight. "I love her songs so much. How is she?"

"She's doing great." I smile, feeling so grateful to be welcomed here with such warmth.

Movement from the stairs catches our attention, and I see Max walking down the stairs in a pair of grey joggers, his hair messy.

The fact that he has no shirt on shocks me.

I snap my head toward the other direction so hard that I wonder why I haven't broken my neck. My cheeks heat up.

There's no sound from Max, so I guess he didn't expect that I would have arrived.

"Just woke up, buddy?" Vaughn greets his son. A soft chuckle leaves his lips as he walks casually toward the kitchen with his hands shoved into his pants pocket.

"It's early," Max seems to have blurted that out of the blue, or maybe he's still not recovered fully from the sleep, because it's obviously not early anymore.

Melanie sighs. "It's reaching lunchtime already, Max."

Max's voice is still husky when he groans, "I overslept." And I still don't dare to look over his shirtless body.

"Who wouldn't oversleep if one couldn't sleep the whole night?" Another voice fills the air as a girl emerges from the second story, stepping down the stairs behind Max, yawning. "Someone got too excited for a girl coming over."

It's when the girl finally notices me that her mouth drops into an O-shape.

"Oh, Luna's here." Her voice is small, like she just realized what she said about her brother in front of me. She slowly turns her head toward Max, but her expression is more amused than guilty. "Oops."

Max shoots her a glare that can make any dogs or cats cower under it, but she only mutters, "For God's sake, Max. Put your shirt on."

That's what she says before she rushes past him to greet me instead. "I'm Max's sister, Sienna." A big grin creeps on her lips before she suffocates me in a tight hug, making both of us sway.