Mother F*cker in Law

4. cool as a cucumber

"Tell them I want the French toast with berries."

Keith, phone pressed to his ear, side-eyed Melanie as she leaned uncomfortably close over his shoulder to read the food menu that the Tao could make for them. He jerked away from her and recited her order into the phone grudgingly.

Val was cuddled up on a shell-shaped chair and was flipping through some travel guides provided by the villa. "I want scrambled eggs and—"

"Bacon?" Keith answered for her with a devious grin, knowing exactly what the girl always wanted for breakfast.

She looked up at him in surprise before she slightly smiled and nodded in confirmation. Keith was sometimes easy to get along with, but his moods changed like the tides, their unpredictability often turning torrent.

After telling the Tao what Val wanted, Keith paused for a moment, his thumb stroking over the menu before he pulled the phone away from his ear and said, "What do you think Diana wants?" Her real name came out of his mouth uneasily, but calling her mom had never felt right. She didn't feel like a mother to him, just a vague figure in his life.

Val perked her head up, her eyes hooded from just having woke up. "Um." She closed the magazine she was browsing through and slowly stood from the concave seat. "I'll go ask her."

After Keith nodded, his dusty brown eyebrows arching together in nervousness from not wanting to bother or upset his mother, Val made her way out of the main area and to the walkway in the garden.

She eyed Diana's door on the far left and padded towards it, glancing at the white sand that surrounded the walkway. Her eyes then flickered towards the rolling morning seas, the sound of crashing waves filling the air and bringing about a wind that blew through her loose curls.

Upon arriving at Diana's bedroom, she raised her fist to the wooden door but then paused. Her heart began to beat nervously for a reason unbeknownst to her. She remembered their banter the night before, the way they threw sarcasm back and forth with ease as if they had been doing it together for years. But it was a new day, only the second day of knowing her mother-in-law, and she found herself highly strung amid it.

Her fist lightly padded against the door three times, and she took a step back to allow space. Fiddling with her fingers as she waited, she glanced at the jungle behind the villas and admired it, allowing the warm breeze to soothe her.

The door swung open and incited her nervous brown eyes to snap towards it, instantaneously locking with a set of viridescent eyes. Not wanting to waste time, Val hastily opened her mouth to ask the question she had come there for, but her words were stolen from her throat as her eyes slipped downwards. The tall woman was wearing a silky white robe that clung to her body, clinging especially tight in places where the fabric seemed dampened.

While her body was slim, it also sloped and widened like majestic hills in all the right places, and Val tried to keep her eyes on hers instead of the obvious dip and widening of her waist and hips shown so exquisitely in the robe. Seeing that her dark copper hair was wet, she realized Diana must have just gotten out of the shower. Val could almost feel hot steam emanating from her.

"Yes?" Diana coolly questioned, her smooth voice coming out a little raspy from her recent sleep. She stared down at the girl quizzically, wondering why her lips were so limply ajar and her chocolate eyes widened so.

"Um," Val began, snapping herself out of the daze she had strangely fallen into. She glanced down at her sandals and adjusted the skirt of the yellow sundress that she had donned. "W-we're ordering breakfast from the Tao and wanted to know what you wanted." She immediately bit her lip after she finished her words, not trusting herself not to stutter like a fool in front of the woman.