Chapter 13 - Family Dinner

That same day, as he made his way down to the dining room, Logan felt incredibly glad that his parents didn’t know about the BS News app, at least as far as he was aware of, or that constant reporting about his social life could very well throw his attending the Homecoming Dance in jeopardy, if they thought he wasn’t capable of finding a real, meaningful date for it.

Could Lisa be a nice option? He had a lot of fun with her, that was for sure. But did we jump into sex too fast? I always thought that couples meant to last took more time.

Sharon was constantly on his mind as well, though. Especially after that cold shoulder, if it could be called that, in the morning. The young man figured he couldn’t focus on having a good time himself when his old friend was hurting for something they both did. That was not even mentioning Ashley’s sudden weirdness, which got worse during the day at school.

Once he got down to the entrance hall of the Manor, Logan found Heather waiting for him with her usual smirk, leaning against the ornate railing on the staircase. He quickly averted his gaze from her tits stretching the black top and smiled at his cousin.

“BS News strikes back, huh?” She quipped.

He shrugged. “I never minded it too much, but considering my Homecoming situation, it can put a wrench in my plans if Mom and Dad find out what they write about me.”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Did you ever wonder who’s behind it?”

“Eh, I don’t really care,” Logan admitted. “It’s not really hurting anyone, and I guess it can be entertaining for people who want to be on top of everything. If it wasn’t for my little current issue, I doubt I’d be giving much thought to it.”

“Hmm, how mature of you, dear cousin,” Heather teased. “Honestly, I’m considering doing a little digging myself. If only to demand that they get the fuck off your back until Homecoming, you know?”

Logan smirked and put his hands on his cousin’s pale shoulders. “Thanks, I appreciate your concern, Heather, but no need to dirty your sexy hands for me.”

“Oh,” she raised a teasing eyebrow. “So even my hands are sexy now, huh?”

Logan was saved from an answer by the sound of soft footsteps coming down the stairs. Heather, who was facing it, smiled brightly.

“Hey, Joshy!” She greeted, effectively hiding the interaction from their other cousin.

Josh Ravers, who had been walking down the stairs with his head down as he typed on his phone, looked up. “Oh, hi, you two,” he said. “Didn’t notice anyone there.”

Logan chuckled. “That can happen when you lose yourself in that phone, buddy.”

Younger than them, at fifteen, Josh was Paris’ younger brother. With short black hair and the same electric-blue eyes, he often reminded Logan of his old friend Cody, at least in personality, but beyond that, the older boy saw a bit of himself in his younger cousin as well, from before he got confidence in himself and how to act around people. Granted, he had been a couple of years younger than Josh when that happened, give or take, but his cousin was still a high school freshman, so there was plenty of time for him to grow into himself.

“Oh, I was just reading a text from Paris,” Josh informed his older cousins. “She’s not coming for dinner. Apparently, she got tangled with her friends and they ate too much cake.”

“Huh?” Heather chuckled as she threw an arm around Josh’s shoulders, causing a blush to cover the younger boy’s cheeks.

Is that euphemism for something else? Logan asked himself with a grin as he fell into step with his cousins on the way to the dining room. The smaller one, that is.

Ravers Manor had two dining rooms, a large one reserved for when they had several guests over, and a smaller, more intimate one, designed for the usual times when just the family was home and they could sit closer to each other in a cozier environment.

“So, I didn’t get a chance to ask earlier,” Heather started, that teasing smirk in full ****. “How did you like watching cheer practice today?”

“Oh, huh…,” Josh gulped, recalling the memory of his older cousin and her friends, their perfectly toned bodies moving this and that way as they practiced their cheerleading routines in the school’s basketball court. He had been surprised by Heather’s invitation, but then again, he already suspected that high school was much wilder than middle school. “It was… chaotic, I guess.”

“You never invited me to watch cheer practice,” Logan remarked, feigning a hurt expression.

“Well, Sharon invites you enough,” Heather winked at him before turning back to Josh. “I just figured it’s up to us and Paris to make Joshy feel welcome in this new phase of his life. High school is no joke, and since I’m the cheer captain, I can do whatever I want.”

“T-thanks for that, Heather,” Josh managed to say, enjoying the softness of his older cousin’s right breast pressing against his side. “I mean it.”

At that moment, they reached the family dining room, where a few of the older Raverses were already seated. It had a big fireplace behind the head of the table, big windows bringing the moonlight from outside, and a few sofas lining the walls. Logan’s parents, Daniel and Audrey, were chatting about something and gave him nods and smiles as he entered. With them was Heather’s father, Robert Ravers, a handsome man with well-combed black hair and electric-blue eyes. He was forty-one, a year older than Daniel, his younger brother.

Across from them, Josh's parents sat together. Howard Ravers, who was Robert and Daniel's older brother, and his wife, Louise. Both were forty-six, and while Howard was considerably less impressive than his younger brothers, his wife, a woman of French ancestry, was another story altogether. With long black hair, green eyes, and a voluptuous body, she always screamed sultry to Logan. His uncle held a high position at the family's business, Ravers Enterprises, and his aunt was a physiotherapist at the same hospital his father worked at.

“Where's your sister, Joshua?” Howard sternly inquired.

“Uhn…, she's out with friends,” the boy in question released himself from Heather’s arm and walked over to his parents.

While Heather went to join Robert, Logan didn’t even have time to think as he was approached by someone as well.

“So, we were informed of your little… slip-up,” a sharp, yet silky feminine voice spoke. “Couldn’t say I was surprised, really.”

“Uhn…, yeah, sorry about that, Jodie,” he replied to his cousin’s wife, more out of reflex than actual politeness. “Can’t change anything now, though. How was Quartz City?”

The pale woman tossed her long, platinum-blonde hair behind a shoulder and gave him a quick perfunctory smile, bright-blue eyes locked on him. “Fantastic as ever. Herbie loved it, of course,” she drawled. “Poor boy doesn’t see his maternal grandparents enough.”

Jodie Huntley-Ravers was the wife of Bryce, one of Paris’ older brothers. She was twenty-eight, and came from one of the most traditional families of Quartz City, a big metropolis a few hours to the north. She could never hide her distaste for living in a small town well enough, and used every chance she could to mask subtle insults to Sunset Haven and most of its people. The allure of belonging to a clan even wealthier than her own was certainly what made the pill more tolerable to swallow, in Logan’s perspective about the uptight woman. Heather had always hated her from the moment Bryce introduced his then girlfriend to the rest of the family, six or seven years ago, but in Logan’s case, the way she was beautiful and smoking hot with that slender, fit body always put him in a more forgiving mood. Just like now, wearing an elegant black top that left the tops of her creamy medium-sized breasts on display, dark-blue jeans that were so tight they looked painted on her legs, and a pair of knee-length high heeled boots.

“He must be tired from the trip,” Logan replied, smiling at the thought of the three-year-old boy. “Is Bryce still upstairs?”

“On the phone with investors,” Jodie answered in a bit of a bored tone before she assumed a serious, slightly angry expression. “Don’t go changing the subject, though. What were you thinking, Logan? Bringing shame to the family’s name like that?”

Logan stifled a sigh, already used to his cousin’s wife’s haughtiness. “It’s fine, Jodie, it didn’t spread out,” he tried to placate her. At least he hoped so, while the BS article referred to him by the usual nickname they had for him in the blind items, he hoped people other than his close circles of friendships didn’t catch on so easily. “As far as people know, I’m just being punished for something they don’t know exactly what it is.”

“Good, sheep shouldn’t have anything to say about how lions live their lives, even if we need to keep up appearances for their sakes,” Jodie scathingly remarked. “And speaking of sheep, you could definitely do better than that carrot-haired friend of yours. Sunset Haven is definitely lacking in adequate young women, there’s very few I’d approve of if Herbie was in your place,” she droned, causing the younger man to raise an eyebrow. “Maybe you should come with us the next time we visit Quartz City, we Huntleys know several other upstanding families you could get acquainted with. Perhaps your sister and the other kids could come with, what do you think?”

What the fuck is she smoking? Logan asked himself, mentally counting from one to ten so he calmed down. He was used to her remarks, but insulting Sharon was something he absolutely couldn’t take, the thought filled him with repulse. Just as he frowned and opened his mouth to fire off an appropriate retort, he **** himself to swallow it down and decided to humor her instead. “I’m curious, Jodie, what young women in Sunset Haven do you find adequate?”

“Well, I know the Ferraras have at least two girls in your year, not to mention two slightly older ones,” the uppity blonde offered.

“Hmm,” Logan made a show of nodding slowly. “The same Ferraras who currently hate our guts for Uncle Robert’s resort competing with their hotel?”

Jodie narrowed her eyes. “You and the girl could be mature enough to take the first step,” she said before giving him a conspiratory smile. “Who knows, maybe you can be responsible for uniting the two clans? Unless that much responsibility scares you.”

Before Logan could say anything else, a firm, yet comforting, hand landed on his shoulder as his uncle easily stepped into the conversation.

“Jodie,” Robert Ravers softly said. “I’m sure it’s way too early to start marrying off our youngsters. Let the boy live his life first.”

Robert was an example of a failed marriage, having divorced Heather’s mother, Brooke, eight years ago. Logan didn’t know the exact details, but he overheard some family conversations in the past about Brooke asking for a divorce because Robert wanted to bring women into their bedroom and she strongly disagreed with that possibility. Heather had always hero-worshipped her father, so she wanted to keep living at the Manor with him, and the way Brooke fought her ex-husband soured the relationship between mother and daughter seemingly forever.

“Well, if dating secretaries is the example he has, it’s no wonder he’s getting caught with skanks in the school’s bathroom,” Jodie hissed in return. The fact that she worked at the resort herself, as an assistant of Audrey, didn’t deter her in the slightest. After all, since she was family, it wasn’t like her husband’s uncle could fire her.

Logan narrowed his eyes and was about to answer very rudely. Sexy or not, Jodie couldn’t keep insulting Sharon freely like that. However, his uncle’s hand squeezed his shoulder in warning.

“Everyone else in this family has a healthy relationship, Jodie. Logan has no shortage of good examples to follow, especially his father,” Robert smirked, his low and firm tone of voice ensuring he didn’t disturb the other conversations taking place in the dining room, just as Isabella entered and made a beeline toward Heather and Josh. “Unless you have something to share with the class? No bed of roses between you and my nephew?”

Jodie frowned deeply and entered a staring contest with the calm Robert until her husband, Bryce Ravers stepped into the room accompanied by their young son, Herbert Ravers II, and she wordlessly trotted over to them, her round ass stretching the jeans. Logan released a breath that he didn’t know for how long he had been holding. It was for moments like this that he admired the hell out of his uncle. Sometimes he didn’t understand why his parents were so afraid of him turning into another Robert, but Jodie’s attempted insult about the man’s personal assistant and girlfriend, Leah Green, was a good example of why that fear existed.

“Thanks for the assist, Uncle Robert,” he whispered to the man, a grateful tone in his voice.

The older man just smiled fondly at his nephew. “Don’t mention it, Jodie can be a handful sometimes,” he lightly chuckled. “I’m just glad I’m not Bryce.”

Logan laughed at the thought. “I don’t know how Mom puts up with her,” he said. “Speaking of which, how were things at the resort today?”

Despite the main family business being the powerful Ravers Enterprises, commanded with iron hands by the patriarch, Herbert Ravers, Robert had gone into a path that he considered more suited to his personality and opened up a resort shortly after graduating college, aptly naming it Ravers Resort. Despite his father’s doubts, it turned out to be very successful under Robert’s business prowess, and only added to the family’s wealth and prestige.

“Same old, you know, it gets a bit stale in that period immediately after the end of summer,” Robert explained. He had an inkling that either his daughter or Logan would end up being his successor at the resort someday, so he was happy to share any insights he could whenever they asked. At that moment, his phone pinged and Robert pulled it out. “It’s your grandpa, wants to talk to me before dinner,” he patted his nephew on the shoulder and began leaving the room. “Catch you later, Logan.”

Logan nodded and made his way to the couch behind the chairs his parents were occupying. He figured there was no need to take up a chair himself until dinner was served. Audrey turned sideways to face him and smiled.

“You don’t seem to be in a bad mood,” she remarked. “I take it that the first day of community service went well?”

“Huh?” He looked up and saw that his father had also turned in his seat to catch his answer. “Oh, yeah, they had me helping in the soccer field. Paris was there too for practice, it was… eventful,” he recounted, remembering his fun conversation with Lisa, as brief as it had been. Grace Smith being confrontational frustrated him a bit, but there wasn’t anything he could do in that regard. “I met that guy from your family, Mom. Been meaning to talk to him for a while, finally got the chance today.”

“Oh, the one from the Bishop Ranch?” Audrey inquired, interested in the outcome of it.

“Yeah, Zachary Bishop,” her son clarified with a small smile. “He seems to be a cool guy. It’ll be nice to have yet another cousin around.”

“It’ll be good for you to have contact with your mother’s family as well, even if it’s a distant part of it,” Daniel grinned at him. “You could have approached the girl before, she never moved, but I’ll grant it to you that it’s easier for boys to get along.”

Audrey nodded in agreement. “I love that too. I lost my parents way too young, it always made me sad that you and Bella never had other Bishops to talk to,” she admitted. At that, her husband put a comforting hand on her shoulder while her son took her hand in his.

“Speaking of family,” Logan turned to his father. “No Lori and Zane today?” He referred to Paris’ other siblings. Older than her and Josh and younger than Bryce.

“Nope,” Daniel shook his head. “Lorraine is out of town and Zane’s with his fiancée.”

At that moment, the doors to the dining room opened and Robert returned, accompanied by a couple in their mid-sixties. An imposing man with receding silver hair, but the same sharp electric-blue eyes of his descendants, and a sophisticated, beautiful woman with long dark-brown hair and blue eyes, who still had a shapely body despite her age. Herbert Ravers and his wife, Lillian, the heads of the family.

“Alright, I apologize for the slight delay,” Herbert Ravers briskly said as he walked up to the head of the table and everyone else who was present began taking up chairs around it. “Roger, my friend!” He called out to the butler, who was waiting outside the room. “You can tell Marianne to serve it.”

Logan and Heather exchanged a glance, across from each other at the table. It was time for another busy Ravers family dinner.