Lucia's POV:
"Great, you move in tomorrow, and we'll be leaving." He said as the others got off of their seats and silently moved towards the exit, sending a few glances in Nova and I's direction.
"Wait,"Nova said all of a sudden. "Have you eaten yet?" I looked at her in disbelief as she directed the question towards each of them, yet staring straight at Luca.
Before a reply could come out of someone's mouth, Marco replied, "No, we haven't. This one over here dragged us all out at a horrendous hour to track down which apartment you lived in." He pointed over his shoulder at Santo.
"It was an hour ago Marco, don't be dramatic" He said impatiently rolling his eyes that somehow shone with amusement.
"Well... Luce and I were just about to make some pancakes and fruit, you can join us if you would like to" She said fiddling nervously with her fingers as I furrowed my brows, wondering why out of everyone she had asked them to join us.
"Please Santo?" Both Amalia and Marco asked simultaneously, having their puppy eyes on display, wide as they could be.
He sighed not being able to withstand the torture of their surprisingly adorable expressions, while Luca stood there in boredom. "Partiamo subito dopo, ho una riunione tra poco più di tre ore" (We leave straight after, I have a meeting in just over three hours), he said impatiently, directing his constant glare straight at me when I groaned.
As I was watching the interaction back and forth, I was speechless at how comfortable Nova already seemed around each of them when Marco grabbed her arm dragging her and Amalia towards where the dining room was set, talking their ears off. That seemed like a habit of his, not that I was complaining as it was nice to have someone else to talk too once in a while.
Heading towards the kitchen I could feel eyes burning a hole into the back of my head. "Keep glaring at me and see what happens," I spoke steadily to Santo, staring him directly into his forest green eyes, as everyone stopped and became quiet all of a sudden, but began advancing again to the table.
Smirking, he replied, "Maybe I want to see what'll happen, not that you could do much to me anyways."
"No, no you really don't" Nova yelled, knowing what I was capable of.
"You really don't know what I can do, do you? Yet you still choose to let me train your soldiers. I don't know wether that's really stupid or clever" I spoke condescendingly.
"That sounds like a compliment" he remarked smirking yet again.
"It sounds like you heard wrong" I told him turning a corner into the kitchen, leaving him to follow the sound of obnoxious laughter to the dining room.
Almost a half hour later there were stacks upon stacks of soft pancakes and berries, with maple syrup threaded generously on the top. It remained my favourite breakfast, yet had nothing to do with the food. I loved it so much as it reminded me so much of the days in mid summer, when my mother and father danced lovingly to the familiar Spanish music that flowed through our cosy yet large home.
Leaning on the edge of our marble counter, I wiped off a lone tear that had fallen along my face and grabbed the large plate full of pancakes, along with the fresh orange juice I had grabbed out of the fridge.
As I reached the dining room, I could see each of their mouths ajar with hunger as they gazed wide eyed towards my many pancakes. Placing the tray down onto the table, they were all snatched away quickly as if they would run away at any second.
Minutes later, there were few pancakes left. The silence was filled with groans of satisfaction and the clangs of forks hitting plates, my cheeks warmed as a product of people other than Nova enjoying the food I had worked hard to produce.
Luca was the first to finish, then Santo, Amalia and Marco as Nova and I cleared the plates heading to our marble kitchen, leaving them to talk amongst themselves.
"See Luce, it wasn't as bad as you thought right?" she said knowingly as we got out of the others' hearing range.
"I guess, but I'm not going to be all friendly with them just because they ate my food. " I exclaimed putting the empty dishes in the sink.
"I never expected you to" she said chuckling to herself a little. "But, do you think that we could move in to their house today, I just feel like it would be much easier since I have so much homework to do tomorrow" she asked warily, waiting for my answer.
"If that's what you want, we could push it forward" I complied after contemplating what to do for a minute.
"Thanks Luce" she said hugging me for few seconds.
"You're asking Santo" I whispered in her ear, smirking as she agreed reluctantly.
The dishes and utensils were all put away in the dishwasher as we made our to the living room where they were watching Iron Man 3, for some reason unknown to me.
"Hey Santo?" Nova questioned nervously as he turned his heads from the screen towards her and raised his eyebrow, showing that she had his attention. She grabbed my hand, clearly feeling tense from his gaze. "We were wonderin-" she dragged me down with her.
"Nope" I said quickly taking a step away from her and releasing my hand from her grasp as he furrowed his eyebrows from this awkward interaction.
"Fine, I was wondering, if we could move in today instead of tomorrow as I have quite a few things to do." She childishly rolled her eyes at me while talking with Santo.
He responded, "Sure, but we won't be able to move all of your cars until tomorrow Lucia" while getting up and making a call. "They'll be here in 10 minutes" he told us sitting back down.
"Who will?" I asked skeptically.
"My guys, they'll be packing your things for you" he replied looking back towards the screen, signalling that the conversation was over.
They came faster than expected. It only took about 15 minutes for all 10 of them to pack both Nova and I's belongings like toiletries and clothes.
On the way to their house the silence in the large car was in an awkward, deafening silence that filled the air, when suddenly Marco got out a bag of chips crinkling the bag loudly. As he chewed loudly, the crunching of the deep fried potatoes eased the tension slightly. We were almost there and the crunching still hadn't stopped when Amalia let out the loudest laugh causing almost everyone, excluding Luca and Santo, to snicker at his childish antics.
As we pulled up towards their home. I could no longer just call it a house as it was as big as a palace and almost uncomfortably large. Along with the other mansions on their street, that one was no doubt the biggest and most extravagant with 6 viewable floors. It looked as if it had been cut out of an architecture magazine. It was beautiful although it had as much personality as a blank page. The square windows were impossibly large, maybe almost alien looking, leaving a large amount of space for anyone who had eyes to see into the house from a far distance. From there I could see the surfaces of white, grey and black matte plastic encasing the kitchen and cold granite walls causing it to feel clean and barely used. There wasn't one plant or even plank of wood that could imitate any kind of warmth of any kind.
I stood gaping at the house for a while longer, but quickly snapped out of it as Santo was the only one left waiting for me impatiently, probably forced by Amalia or Marco. I knew it wasn't Luca as he didn't seem to like me very much.
"Are you going to come or not?" he asked exasperatedly.
"Yeah, sorry" I apologised.
"You should be," he said as I glared at him behind his back, "I have a meeting in half an hour so you can do what you want until I call you to my office. I'l give you a tour and tell you the rules, you can pass them along to Nova, just don't go bothering anyone until I introduce you as their new trainer."
"That's fine. What happened to your last trainer?" I asked in confusion.
"He had to be dealt with" he said hesitantly.
"Oh." I replied as we stopped in front of an elevator. They killed him.
"Take the elevator to the top floor, go straight, take a right and your room is at the end of the hall to the left. My room is opposite yours and Nova is down the hall two rooms across." he said pushing me into the elevator and pressing the 6 on the side of the wall. He waved once and turned as the doors closed silently. Jerk.