Sometime during the past school year, Levi had broken up with his girlfriend, Camille because of some misunderstanding Liliana didn’t quite understand herself and thus he decided to spend the little time Liliana had in England before going to France with their grandmother, moping around. As a result, she wound up hanging around Joseph and Isaac a lot more. Growing up, Joseph and Isaac had both been only a year older than her, but as twins they had always paired off, so Levi (the cousin next closest in age to her) had always wound up spending time with her. But Levi’s general mopeyness around the estate infuriated Liliana since she only got to see the family a few months out of the year.
Fortunately, the time with Isaac and Joseph, however, served to be eye-opening. Hanging around Atlas for the past four years she had gotten a good insight into the mind of a developing teenage boy, however like Levi, Atlas seemed to hide certain emotions from her as though he thought she was some innocent child who didn’t understand the grown-up world of dating. Isaac and Joseph, however, didn’t hold back as since they hadn’t been as close when they were younger understood the type of relationship she had with Vetil to be the sort of summer fling that all the other cousins had enjoyed at one point or another. And even though everyone knew that Joseph was the most delicate-minded of all the cousins, Liliana had still been appalled to hear some of the things he thought of especially since he was enamored of one of her schoolmates.
They were sitting on the front porch of the main house, lounging around in the wicker chairs that Grandmère had imported from an antiques shop in the U.S. on cushions that had been upholstered in fabric she’d imported from France, when Joseph first realized that Liliana and Portia were not actually friends like he’d thought they were this whole time. “What do you mean you’re not really friends with her?” he asked incredulously after Liliana admitted that she didn’t really communicate with Portia all that much beyond pleasantries. “It’s a small school, you’re both purebloods. You’ve had classes together for the past two years. How are you not friends?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she replied flippantly, shrugging and continuing on in a rather sarcastic voice. “I’ll definitely try better next year to not inconvenience you. I should have known better, I mean, really what was I thinking? Why didn’t I befriend a girl who has nothing in common with me, is not even in my year or house? I should have known that you’d develop an unhealthy crush on the poor thing so I could have warned her off before it became more serious.”
The innocent wide eyes and good-natured grin that accompanied this elicited a chuckle from Isaac and a glare from Joseph. Though she was happy for her gentle cousin that he had found someone who seemed to appreciate the same things in life as he did, Liliana made a face in return and the silent battle likely would have continued if Levi had not slumped by just then on his way to the gardens. Every day just before teatime the oldest of the cousins currently visiting the Rosenthal estate made his way to the gardens to sulk, completely ignoring the calls of his three younger cousins. Since Levi, Isaac, Joseph and Liliana were the only four cousins left still in school, they were also the only ones who still stayed with their grandparents over the summers. The others all had their own places now, their own jobs, and their own lives, and frankly couldn’t be bothered by the usual summer gathering at the grandparents. “No matter,” Isaac had said gleefully when they arrived. “All the more teacakes for us!”
“Hey, Levi,” he yelled now, after his cousin’s retreating back. “Daniel floo’d, he wants his attitude back!” Without turning around, Levi made a rather obscene hand gesture at the three cousins who burst into laughter and ran off to join Grandmère for tea.