Always There

Chapter 3

I walked out of the bathroom wearing my jeans and a purple basketball tournament t-shirt. I had my hair in a French braid and I was wearing a sparkly purple headband. My eyes were still a little red and swollen from crying, but for the most part they looked normal. I was hoping that none of the boys would notice.

The boys weren’t in my room so I put my I-phone on my docking station and turned on the music. I went into my closet and started cleaning it up because it was a mess. I danced around to the music while inside of my closet. I danced to some Pink, Taylor Swift, and The Wanted before walking out and seeing Hayden standing their with his camera video taping me.

I grabbed a pillow off of my bed and throw it at his camera, but it didn’t make him stop recording. He started asking me questions, like why I chose to dance to those songs, and why I was even dancing. I answered them and then grabbed the camera from his hands and placed in on my desk facing us. I ran behind it to make sure it was recording and that you could see all of my room in the picture. I ran over to my docking station and turned on Single Ladies by Beyonce.

I grabbed Hayden’s hands and started dancing with him. He ripped his hands out of mine and said

“Caroline, I am not dancing to that”

“Please Hayden” I begged, putting on my best puppy dog face. He grabbed my hands and started dancing with me. We danced around my room to a couple songs, laughing so hard that we ended up rolling on the floor. We looked at the doorway when we heard laughing and saw Jeremiah, Conrad. Ace, Weston, and Carter standing there holding their stomachs from laughing so hard.

Hayden and I looked at each other and ran over and grabbed the other boys' arms and pulled them into my room and started dancing with them. They danced along right away without arguing and hesitation. We danced to about five songs before Carter spoke.

“Is that camera recording us?”

The rest of the boys looked at Hayden and I waiting for an answer. I shook my head and then ran for the camera while Hayden tried to keep the boys from reaching me. I grabbed a hold of the camera and then hit the record button, so it would stop recording. I ran into my closet and locked the door before any of the boys could come in with me.

I opened up the slot that held the tape and grabbed the tape out of the camera. I hid the tape inside my secret hiding place. It was behind one of the pictures hanging on the wall. I lifted up the picture and entered the code that opened the safe. I placed the tape inside the safe and shut it and locked it. I placed the picture back on the wall.

I waited a few minutes then opened up the closet door only to be tackled to the floor by all the boys in my room besides Hayden. While I was lying on the bottom of the dog pile, I looked up to see Hayden and mouthed to him that I have the tape hidden and that we can watched it later. I handed the camera over to Ace and then all of the boys stood up relieving me of the pain of five boys on top of me.

Ace handed the camera over to Hayden and they all exited my room. Hayden stayed and asked

“Can we watch the video now?”

“ I think we should wait until they leave and then I will watch it and e-mail it to you”

“Okay, I can't believe they didn’t check for the tape before the gave me my camera back.”

“They obviously trust you Hayden”

“I guess they don’t put too much thought into who they do and don’t trust”

“I guess not, lets go down to the basement” Hayden and I walked out of my room and shut the door behind us. We entered the basement to see the other boys playing video games and pool. I plopped down on the couch between Jeremiah and Zach who were playing each other in a game of Madden. Hayden walked over to the pool table to join the boys in a game of pool.

I sat sideways and leaned my head and back against Zach’s right shoulder and arm and stretched my feet out across Jere's legs. They both gave me weird looks before returning to their game.

“What? I need to be comfortable if I'm going to have to sit here and watch this chaos you call a game” I said before flashing them a wide grin. They just laughed and Jere responded by pushing my feet off of his lap. I turned so my head was near Jere, and then laid my head on his lap and my feet on Zach’s.

“Since you pushed my feet off your lap, I realized that you wanted me to lay my head on your lap, so you could look at my gorgeous face and eyes” I said to Jere with a smirk.

“Awe, Carr you know me so well” he said and then planted a kiss on my cheek. I turned my face away from him and blushed, which normally doesn’t happen. “I made you blush, that’s so cute” he teased.

“Shut up!” I shouted and slapped him across the chest.

“Look at you, making excuses to touch my chest. I mean, I know I'm drop dead gorgeous, but I never thought you liked me like that Carr”

“You only wish, just save me from my misery” I replied with another smirk.

“If you say so” he said before pulling his shirt over his head. He was so cocky, but it made him fun. He went along with these kind of things.

“You might wanna pull your pants up, I can see the top of your Spiderman boxers” once I said that, red flushed over his cheeks. “Jere, I made you blush, how cute!”

“No you didn’t, and I know you like them, embrace them” he said, which made everyone laugh. We continued to joke for a while and that was the last thing I remembered before I fell asleep with my head still in Jeremiah's lap.

I woke up still laying in the same position as I fall asleep in, but Zach’s head was now laying on my legs, using them as a pillow. I looked around the room to see the other boys on the other couches or the floor. I noticed that there were some more boys than usual and realized that my brothers friends Cody, Alec, Cole, and Thor were laying on the floor also. I looked up at Jere and asked.

“Is my brother down here?”

“No sorry Carr, he isn’t” He replied with a sympathic look on his face. I focused my attention on the screen and realized we were watching Remember the Titans. That was one of the boys' favorite movies. I liked it myself. Halfway through the movie, Jere started playing with my hair. I had pulled my hair out of the braid while we were dancing and I guess I forgot to pull it up again.

I looked up at him and he smiled back at me. Not one of his smirks, but a genuine smile. I smiled back at him and a tear escaped my eyes. I was starting to think about it again and it got emotional every time I did. Jere wiped the tear off of my face and pushed my hair out of my face. He went to wipe away another tear, and I grabbed his hand and held it in mine. He used his other hand to wipe away the tears.

When the tears started coming rapidly, he picked me up and held me in his arms, tracing circles on my back with his fingers. When I started to calm down, he released me and I laid my head on his lap again.

I heard someone walking down the stairs, and turned toward them to see my brother. He looked at me and moved his lips like he was going to say something, and I turned my head to face Jere's chest. I heard my brother sigh and turn toward the steps and walk back up them.

Once we finished the movie, I called a pizza place to order pizza. Thirty minutes later the doorbell rang and Tyler and I walked up the stairs to find a pizza guy with seven pizzas. I paid the man and tipped him and then called for the boys. I heard a flood of footsteps behind me and saw the boys come into the kitchen and dig into the food.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Author's Note:  I put some Jeremiah and Caroline time in this chapter for the Jeremiah fans.  I think this chapter is very sweet and really shows the kind of person Jeremiah is.  

Question of the Chapter:  Who is your favorite boy so far?