Under The Jasmine Tree ✔

🖌 Insanity

"Cut her some slack, she was obviously with lover boy over here." And queue Luna to embarrass the living daylights out of me as she pointed towards where Apollo was standing. All three of my siblings walked over and squashed me in a Garcia sibling group hug.

"We missed you." Luna whispered softly.

"No, not really." Adrian gave my back a pat. He's acting like the tough older brother, but when were at home, he needs me to spread cheese on his bread.

"Lyra, can you make me French toast." Ajax lifted his head, that was previously buried in my torso, and looked up at me. I moved a stray hair from his eye and nodded. "Of course."

The kid turned to see who was with me, "Who are you and why are you holding my sister's hand?" Ajax squared up when he saw a hand entwined with mine and traced it back to its owner: Apollo.

Flustered Apollo is my favorite version of him, so thanks to Ajax's unfiltered tongue, I got to see that. I nudged his rib making him shake his blush away and extend his hand towards ajax.

"My name is Apollo, I'm your sister's friend." I looked up at Luna who had a sad smile on her face. I shrugged my shoulders and returned her smile. Luna happens to be the only person who knows about my more-than-a-crush on Apollo.

What I didn't notice was another pair of brown eyes observing the whole interaction with furrowed eyebrows.

"So, you can hold her hand if you're her friend? Can I do that? Mom! Can I hold Tia's hand?" Tia is the girl that absolutely despises Ajax. If she could incinerate him, she would. In third grade, she put a bottle of liquid glue in his bag.

While it was opened.

It's safe to say that half of his books needed to be replaced and we had to wash his bag three times. Our whole family despises Tia, and Luna and I are personally waiting for her 18th birthday to return all the favors.

"No, Ajax, don't get near Tia or she will probably chop of your hair and burn it." My mom warned my brother, who thinks that all that demon-child is doing, is being playful.

"Hello." I smiled at my parents, who returned the smile fully. I walked up to them, and they stood up from their seats in the booth, then pulled me into a warm embrace.

"We missed you Ly-ly." My mom kissed my head, and my dad ruffled my hair. "Hey!" I playfully pushed his hand away. Both my parents looked up to the mountain standing behind me once we pulled away from the hug.

"You must be Apollo." My dad eyed him up and down while simultaneously walking up to him. I could visibly see Apollo gulping at my dad's 5'7 height.

I can't blame him, he can be very intimidating, but...

"It's nice to finally add a face to the name! Lyra has told us all about you!" He pulled Apollo into a bro-hug and gave his back a pat.

He is a bubbly teddy bear on the inside.

"It's nice to meet you, sir."

"No, please, call me Travis." My dad grinned at him mirroring Apollo's smile.

"So, this is the musician that helped my daughter, huh?" My mother's brown-haired head peeked from behind my dad's large form. "I'm Ameera, it's a pleasure." She extended her hand.

Apollo shook her hand, "The pleasure is mine."

My mother's face lit up, "and he's respectful!" she threw a wink my way. "Come on, sit down, we were just about to order."

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"And the water reached our feet, so she jumped on him! She looked like a chimpanzee. In the end her shoes got wet anyway." Lucy finished telling the story of the time I jumped on my dad while taking a walk on the beach.