OVER THE RED (Book 1 of The Red Series)

Chapter 29 - Francine

Lara's POV

"DAD?!" Keith barks at his father.

"Have I ruined the surprise?" My dad suddenly speaks up, maybe to right his wrong.

"Surprised?" Keith lowers his voice as he turns to my dad.

"Your dad, wanted to surprise you." My dad elbows me for help.

I raise my chin up. "He wanted to prank you."

"Seriously? For what?!" Keith still looks very much angry.

"Exactly!" I laugh at my misery. "For what, Kyle?!"

Kyle is totally off guard! His eyebrows are raised high up and his eyes are almost popped out of the sockets. He swallows his fear to speak up.

"You know, I just wanted to be reconnected with you, son!" Kyle lets out a massive sigh.

"By pranking me?" Keith has not left his temper behind.

"Most likely, yeah." Kyle draws such an awkward smile.

Keith pans his eyes to me and all I can do is to lift my shoulders up. I am shaking and I am scared that he notices this lie.

"It's failed anyway, thanks to Harry." Now, Kyle is literally blaming my dad like I do.

"Sorry, mate!" My dad is truly sorry.

"Err, Lara..... I need to talk to you about your next book." Kyle gives me the runaway look.

"Yeah." I happily follow him to a secluded area behind the book shelves.

My eyes keep checking on Keith who is apparently darting his eyes tight on me and his dad. Luckily, my dad reads the situation really well and quickly takes Keith outside. Once, they both are gone, I let a seriously big sigh.

"Do you think he knows?" I ask Kyle.

Kyle lends me his smile to place his hands on both of my shoulders, "Believe me, if he already knew, he would tear this place apart with his temper."

His joke brings a mini laughter to me, "Right."

"Look, at some point we have to tell him about us." Kyle starts the terrifying conversation.

"We should have done that from the very beginning." I feel so wrong.

"I know, but at that time my relationship with him was at worst." Kyle admits.

"You're just going to make it even worse by lying to him."

"We're not lying to him." Kyle is in denial.

"Yes. We are." I have to nod my head. "Look, he's been wanting to know who my boyfriend is and don't tell me that he's never asked you about all those phone calls we had to disconnect because your children needed you."

Kyle rubs his face in frustration.

"We should tell him." I convince him.

"Yes, but a bit longer. Give me some time." He begs.

"Okay." I give up.

"Let's put that aside and let me give you a good news." Kyle's blue feeling has evaporated.

"You have a good news?" I copy his wide smile.

"We are going to have a book tour." He breaks the news to me.

I gasp. Still speechless and I really can't believe his words.

"How?" That's the only word that comes to mind.