The princess thought that she would be able to enjoy sleeping for a while. It was warm on the sand and the shade was nice enough under the umbrella that she knew she wouldn't have to worry about getting sunburnt.
She didn't feel like she had been sleeping for very long before voices caught her attention and cut through her sleep-hazed brain. She knew that she couldn't have been imaging it because one was very clearly Samuel's voice. The second sounded oddly familiar to her too, but she couldn't quite place it...
She wasn't ready to wake up though. Her body still felt heavy and exhausted. She knew though that she must've stirred or made a noise because she felt as a soft hand brushed through her hair. She was familiar enough with the warm touch by now to know that it belonged to Samuel.
"She really does seem that much different when she sleeps." the other voice said.
"I keep telling you that. She isn't as bad as you think. You just like to try and annoy her too much." Samuel responded. She figured that the touch was supposed to help relax her. It was failed attempt though as the voices were too close and loud for her to be able to go back to sleep.
As she slowly began to wake up, she also became aware of the fact that it felt like her head was resting on something that wasn't the sand under the towel. Whatever it was felt too soft.
"Or maybe it's just you she's like that with and hates everyone else." The second suggested. The more she listened, the more she realized that the only person that voice could belong to was Jovani.If that was true though, what did he want and how did he know where to find them? It was their day off, he shouldn't have been there to bother them.
"Go away." Lena knew her voice likely sounded exhausted and somewhat husky since she had just woken up and her throat was slightly dry. She didn't care though. She didn't want the other there.
"Really? You just wake up and that's the first way you decide to greet me?" Jovani asked in an exaggeratedly offended tone of voice.
"I'm sorry, did we wake up?" Samuel asked brushing his hand through the other's hair again. The princess couldn't help but wonder why such a simple action could feel soothing at times like these.
"He did not you." She replied softly. She was still so tired that it took her extra time to think of what she was trying to say. Words weren't coming to her easily and that made her annoyed.
"I don't even know what he's doing here in the first place when it's our day off." She added, slowly opening her eyes. Though the sun was blocked by the umbrella, it didn't completely keep the glare out of her eyes which caused her to winch as she tried to adjust her eyes to see what was going.
"I can make him go away if you want to sleep more. There's still time before we have to leave." Her fiancé told her glancing over at his cousin was watching their interaction intently.
He couldn't deny that Lena did seemly oddly softer as she woke up. Did sleep do some kind of weird magic to her or was it just because of the way his cousin was interacting with her?
"If I had known that this was the kind of reception I was going to receive, I wouldn't have even bothered coming in the first place. Jovani scoffed as he kicked the sand. Samuel motioned with his hand for his older cousin to be quiet. It wasn't the place for his nonsense right now."It's fine. I can't sleep any longer now that that annoying person is here." The princess replied as she slowly sat up. She would just have to make up the sleep later.
"How did you even know to come here in the first place?" When the princess turned her attention to Jovani, they didn't hold the same softness he had seen in them when she was interacting with his cousin.
"That's a mafia secret," Jovani replied with a smirk as he pressed his left index finger against his lips.
"Isn't it just because you track me through my phone?" Samuel asked catching the other completely off-guard by his guess.
"That isn't something you're supposed to know. How did you even find that out?" His cousin asked in complete shock that the other would know such a thing. He never told him that.
It was Samuel's turn to smirk in response to this.
"Just a good guess. A guess you could say comes from the idea of being safe at all times." He replied.
"Not to mention the fact that you did have my phone for a while before you gave it back to me. It wasn't like you wouldn't have had plenty of chances to bug it before you gave it back." He wasn't wrong, but he didn't expect that his younger cousin would be so quick to put those pieces together. He truly was a sharp one when he wanted to be.
"I guess it isn't such a secret now." The princess said as she moved her position so that she could stand up. Now that she was fully awake she could see that the thing that she had been laying her hand on was the second beach towel. Samuel must have rolled it up for her to be able to rest her head on it. She felt an odd mixture of concern and confusion flutter through her stomach when she realized that him doing that hadn't woken her up.
"You didn't say yet what you're doing here or what you want from us. We are still on our time off so it better be something really important." The princess told Jovani who still seemed upset about the fact that Samuel knew his secret.
"I am actually here for something important or rather to ask about an important thing." He replied.
"I know that you still have one more day off and that's why I wanted to ask about when you wanted to do the initiation process? We can do it after you're off your break if you want or we could do it tomorrow evening so there's a few hours for you two go after things."
Until Jovani had said something, she had almost forgotten about the fact that Samuel still needed to through that.