Infinite (Strange and Beautiful, Book 1) (53 page)

“My
dad kind of freaked. I’ve never dated or had a boyfriend before,” I admitted.
“I tried to explain to him that we weren’t, like, officially together.” By the
time I’d finished speaking, my words were little more than a whisper due to my
uncertainty. I hadn’t expected this conversation to head in this direction.

Jackson’s
eyebrows lifted. “Why would you tell him that?”

“Honestly?”
I bit my lip, and Jackson nodded. “Because I wasn’t sure if we were. A couple,
I mean.”

Jackson
grinned, which only served to make me feel more embarrassed. “Why aren’t you
sure?”

I
knew he was teasing, but my face still felt like it was on fire. I stared down
at our hands as I spoke, “I don’t know. I’ve never done this before.” I
shrugged. “I thought you had to ask me or we had to make some sort of spoken
agreement.”

I
ventured a look at Jackson and found him smiling beatifically at me. “Okay,” he
said, sounding more confident than I’d ever heard him. “Let’s clear up the
confusion.”

I
stared at him expectantly, and his smile softened and his voice quieted.
“Silly, will you be my girlfriend?”

My
face split in what I was sure was a goofy grin as I turned to look at him
fully. “Yes!” I blurted. I flushed at my eagerness and covered my face with my
free hand. I took a deep breath before lowering my hand and looking at Jackson
again. This time my answer was—still happy, but—much more subdued. “I mean,
yes, I will be your girlfriend.”

“Good,”
Jackson grinned. “So we’re official. There is no question that I’m your
boyfriend, and you’re my girlfriend.”

“Understood,”
I said in a mocking salute.

Jackson
narrowed his eyes playfully at my mocking as he asked, “Should we seal the
deal?”

I
raised an eyebrow. “I think that depends on what kind of sealing you’re talking
about.”

“A
kiss,” Jackson hissed, but I could see the surprise on his face at my boldness.

“In
that case,” I said, trying to sound official as I blushed, “yes.”

Before
I could say anything else, Jackson leaned forward and claimed my lips with his.
His mouth was warm and soft, like I remembered, and he cupped the side of my
face gently as our lips moved together. I could feel myself melting into his
embrace as his other hand rested at the small of my back.

The
kiss went on until air was necessary. I didn’t want to pull away from him, so I
rested my head on his shoulder instead as he drew me closer with the arm
wrapped around me.

“You
cut your hair,” he said after a long pause.

I
laughed against his shoulder. “You’re just now noticing?”

“Well,
yes and no,” he replied. “I knew something was different. It just took me this
long to figure out what it was.”

I
pulled back so that I could see his face. “Does it look bad?”

“No.”
He shook his head emphatically, and I thought he was being honest. “It looks
great.” He looked me over, smiling, as his eyes glittered. “You
always
look great to me,” he murmured.

That
was harder to believe. I remembered feeling like a snotty marshmallow that day
I rode my bike to the mall, and I couldn’t imagine him thinking that was a
pretty sight, but I didn’t argue. The sentiment was kind and nice to hear even
if it wasn’t entirely accurate.

“I
think you look pretty great too,” I admitted.

“Why
thank you,” he said, cheekily. He tugged at the front of his polo. “I thought
this might be more proper attire for meeting the parents.”

“Better
than Cinco de Mayo,” I conceded.

Jackson
put on a show of acting injured. “And what’s wrong with Cinco de Mayo?”

“Nothing,”
I shrugged. “
I
think it’s great, but my dad sort of has a dry sense of
humor, so I’m not sure he can accurately appreciate it the way it’s meant to
be.”

“I
see,” Jackson grinned, nuzzling the side of my neck, making me giggle
breathily. I felt like I was living out a scene from a Harlequin romance. “I’d
say you smell good,” Jackson mused, “but you might tell me to go sniff Tegan,
so—”

“Oh,
God,” I cried, burying my head into his shoulder, laughing, “shut up!”

“I
had to,” Jackson laughed.

I
sighed, breathing him in, as I kept my burning face hidden against his
shoulder. “You smell good,” I whispered.

“Ah,
but wouldn’t you like to compare my cologne to Mark’s or maybe your dad’s?” I
could hear the grin in his voice and slapped him playfully as I lifted my head
to show him my sulky glare, but he brushed my hair away from my face, grinning.
“Oh, pouty face,” he cooed.

I
started to turn away, but he cupped my face gently and leaned in to kiss me
once again. Before his mouth met mine, though, the sound of a throat being
cleared froze us both in place. We turned our heads to the left to find Mark
and Tegan watching us with their arms crossed over their chests. Mark tapped
his foot against the floor impatiently and Tegan raised an eyebrow.

“I
see how it is,” she commented. “The two of you just up and left us so you could
come over here and snog.”

“We
were just getting ready to come and find you,” I tried, smiling innocently.

“Uh
huh,” Mark nodded. One look at Tegan and it was clear neither of them bought
it.

“But
we were,” Jackson argued. “Silly was going to do a sniff comparison between
mine and Mark’s cologne.”

“Shut
up,” I snapped, shoving him lightly in the shoulder.

Tegan
burst into laughter, apparently understanding what he was referring to. Mark,
on the other hand, looked confused and worried.

“Wait,”
he said, scratching his head as Jackson and I stood and started to walk back
toward the festivities. “Nobody mentioned any weird, kinky sniffing crap when I
was invited to this shindig.”

Monday,
January 1
^st
, 2007

The New Year began in the best
way possible: with an amazing kiss at midnight with my
boyfriend
! Yes,
Jackson is now officially my boyfriend. I fumbled my way through clarifying the
status of our relationship, and he asked me formally. Teasing, of course, but
it was sweet.

It felt so weird to change my
relationship status from “single” to “in a relationship” on MySpace, which I
did pretty much as soon as we got home from the country club. It seems so
surreal, but it’s still very exciting. I feel so giddy and happy. I’m still
amazed that he actually likes me, and I can’t figure out what I did to get so
lucky, but I don’t want to question it too much. I just want to enjoy it.

Speaking of, I need to get some
sleep. Tegan’s staying over, and Jackson invited us over to his house to watch
movies and hang out tomorrow. I think it’s mostly so he has a buffer between
himself and his brothers. I suspect he’s about ready for Eric to go back home
to Chicago. Even though Eric’s been staying with Jordan at his apartment,
Jackson says they’ve been at his parents’ house all the time, razzing him. I
think it’s funny, but I’m happy to act as the shield if it means I get to spend
the afternoon with my boyfriend and best friend.

-Silly-

If Dad
disliked my Uncle Hagen before Christmas, he hated him after. Luke had become
obsessed with the guitar Hagen gave him. As far as I could tell, in Luke’s eyes
it was the ideal present. The only things that could have possibly competed
with it were probably hooking up with Zooey Deschanel or meeting Paul
McCartney.

When
Luke wasn’t working, sleeping, eating, or out with friends, he’d been home
strumming on the guitar since the day after Christmas. It wasn’t as if it
didn’t sound good either. On the contrary, Luke was rather good at it. Apparently,
he remembered quite a bit from guitar lessons and teaching himself how to play.

The
problem was Luke had lost all regard for everyone else’s need to sleep, think,
and concentrate. If he’d stayed contained in his bedroom, it might have been
okay, but he’d taken to bringing the guitar with him practically everywhere he
went in the house. We’d be watching television or in the kitchen cooking and
Luke would show up and start to play his guitar. It was kind of fun the first
few days, and Dad was rather patient about it at first, but by the end of the
week, when Luke’s guitar playing interrupted Dad’s nightly viewing of the news,
that was the last straw.

“Lucas,
you can play that guitar as much as you want when you’re in your bedroom or
when I’m not home, so long as it’s not bothering your mother or sisters,” Dad
declared.

Luke,
for his part, just looked completely dumbfounded by Dad’s demands at first, but
then he just shrugged and said, “Sure thing, Dad.”

Then
he disappeared upstairs to his room as if nothing had happened. That might have
been the end of it for Dad, but he didn’t sleep next door to Luke, so he wasn’t
subjected to the strumming all hours of the night. It was nearly as annoying as
when he brought Brooke home, which, thankfully, he had not done in a little
over a month.

I
complained some about the noise, but it fell on deaf ears.

“I’m
in my room,” Luke pointed out. “Which is well within Dad’s conditions.”

Mom
wasn’t helpful either. “Use that music thing your aunt gave you,” she suggested.

I
didn’t like sleeping with ear buds in at night, but I didn’t bother to voice
that since it was clear—unless I could get Toby to come over and squash this
guitar with his buns of steel—that Luke’s guitar was here to stay.

A
couple of days after Dad banned the guitar playing around the house, Luke had,
as he put it, a brilliant idea. We still had a couple of days before we went
back to school—on a Friday of all days—and Stevie had stayed over the night
before. She and Skylar were sprawled out on the couch and loveseat, leaving me
to sit on the floor at the coffee table to eat my bowl of Froot Loops, while we
watched a
Project Runway
marathon.

Luke
marched in, just as Heidi Klum was about to tell us who was in and who was out,
and announced, “I’ve decided to start a band.”

 Skylar
only spared him a glance while Stevie sat up, looked at him and laughed and
then fell back against the pillow she’d been resting her head on. “Yeah,
right,” she snorted. “Who else is going to be in your band?”

“Well,
Toby plays bass,” Luke answered, crossing his arms in a huff. “We only need a
drummer and maybe another guitar. Then we should be good to go.”

“What
about a singer?” Skylar asked without taking her eyes off of the television.

“I
could sing!” I offered, brightly.

Luke
seemed to force himself not to cringe, which I resented. “I don’t think so,
Sil.”

“Your
loss,” I shrugged and went back to my cereal.

“I
think you’d actually have to have
something
to sing anyway,” Stevie
commented, rolling her eyes.

“Could
you possibly just butt out?” Luke glared at her from his spot behind the couch
Skylar occupied. Stevie raised her right hand and lifted her middle finger. “No
thanks,” Luke scoffed. “Been there, done that, and it wasn’t that great.”

“Excuse
me, limp dick!” Stevie exclaimed, sitting up quickly, electric fire burning in
her bright blue eyes. “I’ll have you know it was the worst ten seconds of my
life!”

“Could
you two please shut up about your sordid affair?” Skylar asked, glancing
between them. “I don’t want to hear all the gory details.”

“Me
either,” I commented, pouting at my half eaten bowl of cereal because my
appetite had, understandably, vanished.

“Shut
up,” Luke and Stevie spat in unison, their heads snapping to look from Skylar
to me.

I
glanced at Skylar, who simply rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the
television. I sighed and stirred my cereal apathetically while Stevie and Luke
continued on with their usual crude banter. This was the first time I’d
actually heard either of them admit that they had, in fact, slept together.
Even though it proved my suspicions were correct, I kind of wished they’d kept
it to themselves.

After
officially giving up on my sad cereal lunch, I took the dish into the kitchen
and poured what remained down the garbage disposal. As I was putting the dishes
into the dishwasher to be washed with the next load, a thought struck me. Why I
hadn’t thought of it immediately, I wasn’t sure, but after closing the door to
the dishwasher, I hurried back into the living room.

Luke
and Stevie were
still
bickering. I could easily see why things were
purely physical, and also why they usually just ignored each other, because it
was clear they couldn’t carry on a normal conversation without ending up at
each other’s throat. The words “angry sex” flickered through my mind, but I
shuddered away from that thought.

“Luke,”
I said, cutting Stevie off from yet another crude jab at my brother’s manhood. 
“I know someone who plays the drums.”

That
caught his attention. Luke spun toward me anxiously. “Who?”

I
smiled proudly. “Mark.”

Some
of Luke’s excitement fell from his face. “Moses?”

I
nodded, but some of my pride had faded as well.

“I
don’t know, Sil.” Luke looked as if he were reluctantly considering it. “That
guy’s a loose cannon.”

“He’s
really not that bad once you get to know him,” I tried.

“Says
the girl he stole lunch money from,” Luke replied.

Skylar
sat up to look at me, horrorstricken. “He stole your lunch money?”

“That
was a long time ago,” I shrugged.

“A
month ago.”

It
was more like five weeks, but I didn’t bother to point that out. “If you
recall, you knew about it and didn’t do anything, so you’re just as bad,” I
said instead.