“Get up or I will seriously install permanent damage to your physical health.”
That is such a nice way to wake up, isn’t it? Especially when the threat wasn’t even directed at me, but the mostly-naked guy by my side, who was also dead asleep. Which seemed to be the whole problem here, because Ryder was standing at the doorway, throwing things in our direction from pillows to pencils.
“I’m up.” I groaned, even though I knew he wasn’t trying to wake me up, but Jackson.
“You guys are lucky I’m such a good person.” He told me. “Holly’s looking for you and you are also so lucky that I got to you before she did. She’s searching the first floor now, so you have about point five seconds to get out of here.”
“They know, though, isn’t that what you said?” I grumbled tiredly.
“Holly knows that you’re together, she doesn’t know that you’ve fucked, and you’re making it pretty obvious right now.” He informed me.
I sprang out of the bed, knowing that I was wearing Jackson’s button down white dress shirt and my panties, so I was at least slightly decent. “You could have come over to the bed and woken one of us up instead of just standing at the door throwing things at us.” I mumbled as I hurriedly grabbed my dress, heels, and bra, cupping them all in my hands. I didn't want Holly to know that me and her brother were... I dunno, sexually active until I told her. It would be a weird conversation, but way less weird than having her walk into Jackson's room to see us in such a compromising position as we were in just moments ago.
“No, ew.” Ryder laughed. “Post-sex germs are gross.”
“You are such a girl.” I muttered, passing him in the doorway and hurrying down the hallway towards my room.
“You’re welcome!” He called after me just as I disappeared around the corner and into my own room where I practically tore off Jackson’s warm long-sleeved shirt for one of my own overly sized t-shirts and then threw myself back into bed, still exhausted from the events of last night. Being secretive sure was a lot of work.
“Libby! Libby! Libby Cross!” A voice was piercing through my sleepy morning grogginess as I was woken up once again from my slumber.
“Hmm…” I mumbled tiredly, forcing myself to miraculously sit up in my bed to see Holly shaking me once again.
“We’re having a movie night.” Holly told me. “Are you feeling any better?”
I nodded and I wanted to tell her so much about the date and how perfect it was, but I couldn’t do that yet, so I didn’t tell her anything. “Yeah, I’m fine now.”
“Good, so a movie night tonight, yes?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Why am I being woken up?”
“Oh, because I needed to ask you if you know who you’re walking with in the wedding.” She told me.
“No, I assumed that Andy would tell me though, why?”
“Well, you’re walking with Jackson.” She informed me.
“I thought Jackson was the best man.” I protested.
“No, Ryder is.” She informed me.
“Oh, right.” I sighed, hating the irony that was at play here. Of course I had to walk down the aisle of my best friend’s wedding with my kind-of-secret boyfriend. That won’t be weird at all.
“Okay, well I’ll see you tonight, it’s going to be the whole house- it was going to be just us two, but everyone is being stupid, so it’s everyone, so we’ll have it in the living room. It’ll take forever for everyone to agree on a movie, though. But tomorrow, I swear, we’ll do something just us two.”
I nodded in agreement. “Okay. I’ll see you tonight.”
She gave me one last wave goodbye before she was out the door again and it was time to start my day. A day that consisted of watching the guys play video games in the game room and beating both Jarrod and Tommy at air hockey, but losing to Ryder and Isaac.
“What are you doing in here anyway?” Kale asked once I kicked his butt at foosball.
“I’ve been in here for hours.” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but why aren’t you with the girls?” He elaborated.
“Because I’m in here.” I said in a ‘duh’ voice. “Besides, they’re at the beach and I got super burned the past few days.” Not a lie, I was annoyingly burned and the girls were at the beach right now.
“And what about your boyfriend?” Ryder asked with a smirk on his face. Oh, he’s such a piece of shit. “You know, Damon.”
“Yeah, Holly told us that you’re dating that Damon guy from next door now.” Jarrod added. “How’s that working out?”
“I never said that I was dating Damon.” I protested with an annoying huff as I plopped down on the couch.
“Really?” Brendon asked, feigning shock. Ugh, boys are so stupid. Why do they even exist? I need to talk to somebody about this.
“Yes, really.” I snapped at him.
“But you are dating somebody, isn’t that right?” Ryder asked teasingly.
I glared at him. “It’s none of your business and you shouldn’t even care.”
“I’m sorry,” Kale interrupted. “But are we not supposed to know that you two are a thing?” He asked, motioning between me and Jackson.
“What?!” I shrieked, standing to my feet in a huge panic. How did he know?! Oh, of course, Holly probably told him.
This made Kale chuckle. “What? If you wanted to keep it a secret, you probably should be more careful when your leaving his room half naked at nine in the morning.”
I blushed at that and sat back down on the couch, giving up any chances of dignifying that with some lie. Even I couldn’t dig myself out of that hole. “That’s just great.”
“Holly doesn’t know- not all of it, anyway.” He told me. “And I’m not even getting in the middle of it, so don’t worry about us knowing.”
“Thank you.” I sighed before standing up, yet again, when I realized that now that every single guy in the house knows about our not-so-secret relationship, they’ll probably start to tease the poop outta me, and probably Jackson, so I need to get out before they started up on that. “Anywho, we only have like an hour before we should be in the living room for that movie, so I’m just going to go shower.” I mumbled quickly before hurrying towards the door to the game room.
“You can’t get away that easily.” Ryder informed me.
“EARTHQUAKE!” I screamed in a panic before swinging the door open and running down the hallway towards my room.
Once in my own room, after I’d taken a quick shower, I decided to dress cozy, since we were going to be watching a movie and such, so I pulled out a black sweatshirt that said “Nerd” in big white bold letters across the front, short jean shorts, and a pair of black Ugg slippers, they were soft and cozy.
I was dressed in only my bra and underwear when there was a knock on my door.
“I’m getting dressed.” I informed the knocker, but that didn’t stop the person from swinging open the door and walking in. I looked up to see Jackson walking into the room and closing the door behind him.
“Hey.” He chirped, obviously looking over my exposed body with his pervy eyes. He didn’t even try to hide his wondering eyes because he’s such a pervert. My pervert nonetheless.
“You don’t listen very well, do you?” I inquired.
“No, I heard you.” He chuckled, sitting down on my bed- and strategically sitting on my clothes as well.
“Well you’re sitting on my clothes.” I stated, motioning towards my bed where his big butt was sitting on my sweatshirt and jeans.
“Yes, I did that on purpose.” He smirked.
I blushed deeply, of course and I’m thinking that he knew that I was going to blush. Stupid boys. “You need to get up so I can get ready so we can get downstairs, we only have thirty minutes left.”
“I think you can spare just a little bit of time.” He smirked.
“Is that why you came in here?” I asked him with raised eyebrows. “For a quickie before movie night? Because it’s not happening.”
“No.” He laughed. “But I also didn’t plan on you being in your underwear.”
“I wouldn’t be in my underwear if you’d give me my clothes.” I told him. “What’d you want?”
“I wanted to know if you are afraid of heights.”
“Why are you asking me that? I asked him with an attempt to push his shoulder to get him off of my clothes. I felt incredibly exposed and he knew this and he was enjoying me suffering. Sure, he’s seen me in less than what I was wearing now, but it still felt weird.
He shrugged and laughed at my pathetic attempts to get him up. “I don’t know, are you?”
“I want you to get off of my clothes.”
“They’re not important.”
“They’re very important!” I exclaimed. “I can’t just go downstairs in my underwear and watch the movie like this.”
“Well then don’t go downstairs yet, and give me a few minutes.” He tried to reason.
“A few minutes?” I asked with raised eyebrows.
“Maybe longer, it doesn’t matter.” He grinned such a beatiful grin.
“Get off.” I told him with a threatening huff. “Now is not the time.”
“You seem stressed.” He muttered, finally standing from my clothes when he saw that I really wasn’t going to give in. I almost did, but thankfully, I stayed strong.
I grabbed my sweatshirt and quickly put it on. “I am stressed.” I muttered as I shuffled into my shorts.
“About Holly?” He asked me, now serious with his tone of voice and a concerned frown on his face.
“Yes, about Holly.” I admitted, putting my slippers on. “I just feel like every day that I don’t tell her, there’s more of a possibility that she’ll never want to talk to me again and I can’t deal with that, I really can’t. I mean Holly’s my best friend, we’ve been best friends since forever and I can’t lose her, I don’t know what I’d do.” I continued to vent all of my emotions and towards the end, Jackson stepped forward and wrapped me in his arms, tightly. “And I know she knows some stuff, but I don’t know what she knows and everything just got so complicated.”
“We’ll figure it out. And Holly will not stop talking to you, she’ll get over it.” He murmured softly as he calmed me down. His arms were so warm and comforting that I allowed them to calm me down dramatically.
“How do you know?” I croaked softly.
“I just know, okay?” He chuckled. “I remember at one point you used to think I had all the answers.”
“You do.” I mumbled.
“Yeah, well this is the answer. Everything will be fine.” Jackson assured me.
I sighed and nodded, pulling him close to me and taking in his Jacksony smell. He smelled so good and so comforting. “I’m not afraid of heights.”
“Good, so can I kiss you now?” He asked.
“Are you going to attack me?” I mumbled into his warm chest that was now rumbling with soft laughter.
“I’ll try my best not to.”
Finally, I pulled away just far enough to plant my lips on his.
We only kissed briefly before we walked into the living room where we got situated on the couch with everybody else. I was sitting between Jackson and Isaac on the large couch with Isaac sitting on the other side of Elle. Kale and Holly were sitting together on the love seat to my left and Tommy and Ryder were sitting on the loveseat to my right. Andy was sitting with the twins on the floor in front of the couch with pillows and blankets. Actually, we all had blankets and pillows and we were all kind of one big cuddly mess, which is how I got away with nonchalantly putting my hand in Jackson’s under the blanket. Even if everybody knew, I didn’t want to display it like holding hands publicly.
We all agreed on The Dark Knight Rises because you really can’t go wrong with Batman, it’s impossible.
For the majority of the movie, we were all silent and we passed around buckets of buttery popcorn as we watched the movie. It was fun, really, even if we weren’t actually talking at all, it was fun to just spend time with everyone in one room.
When the movie ended, we all decided that we should go for another one, since nobody really wanted to get up because it was so comfortable in the positions we were in already. My hand was still encased in Jackson’s and it felt so nice and nobody noticed because it was under the blanket.
“I’ll put it in.” Holly announced, standing up from her spot beside Kale. “What are we going to watch next?”
This started a huge debate that came down to either Hangover 2 or Silver Linings Playbook. I guess you can’t go wrong with Bradley Cooper either.
“You know what, we’ll just watch the news until you guys make up your mind.” Holly huffed when she gave up on us actually agreeing on another movie. I mean, everyone agreeing on one movie was hard enough. We all watched as Holly switched to the news station and right when she did, I really wish she hadn’t.
Because there, displayed on the screen, was a nicely sized picture of last night, of me and Jackson at the pier, kissing. We were kissing. On Australian news. Kissing. Me and Jackson. On the news. In front of everyone, including Holly. I wanted to die. Right then and there, I was ready for Lord to take me.
Everyone stared at the TV in stunned silence with dropped jaws as we all listened to the news lady’s accented words, they were like needles in my ears and I cringed with every word that she said.
“Jackson Thorne, the American heart throb actor who is said to be vacationing here in Sydney, along with Tommy Kidder, the country singer, and Ryder West, another heart throb actor, was spotted on a date last night. Yes, a date! Pictures here show him and his girl getting cozy by the ocean and our sources say that Jackson and this mystery girl have been spotted in various places looking like a lot more than just friends. So, who is this mystery girl?”
Something about the look on everyboy's faces as they turned and looked at me told me that they knew exactly who the mystery girl was.