It's Saturday morning and I've just woken up. My eyes are rested on the scenery outside my window. The sky is a dull grey color and drops of rain pitter and patter on the landscape. The tree-branches seem heavier in the rain, falling a little. The green grass has pearls of water resting on it and so does the glass of my window. Several drops trail down, growing in size as they reach the bottom of the sill.
I hear Jackson rolling around in the sheets, groaning and moaning about the time. We fell asleep pretty late last night, but nothing happened. We had a movie-marathon instead. I want to see where this leads before we do it.
I know that sounds stupid since we already did it, but it's different this time around.
It's better, in a way.
I hear him getting up. Jackson comes up behind me and pulls me to him. "What're you doing?" he whispers in my ear.
I turn around so I'm facing him, his hands still firmly on my waist. "Just watching the rain."
"Why?" he asks.
"Because I love the rain. It's so..." I pause. Why do I love it so much? I've never actually thought about it.
"Please don't say romantic," he moans.
I scoff. "Why?"
"It's so cliché," he says.
"Well, I happen to love clichés."
A smirk creeps up on his face. "Want to go out and kiss in the rain?"
I smile a little, leaning in. His smirk grows and he closes his eyes. Then I change direction and place a big wet kiss on his left cheek. Jackson opens his eyes and give me an 'are you serious?'-look. I only laugh and give him a quick peck on the lips before sprinting out of the room.
"That's not enough!" he yells, coming after me down the stairs.
"Too bad. I'm hungry!" I yell back and head for the kitchen.
Jackson catches up to me quickly and we stumble inside the kitchen together, laughing and shoving each other playfully.
When I trip on air and almost fall to the floor, Jackson pulls me flush against his chest, both our breaths a little heavier. He brushes a strand of my hair behind my ear. "I'm pretty hungry too," he whispers, a smirk on his face and I feel my own face getting hot.
"Well that's excellent. I'm making pancakes."
We both freeze and Jackson releases his grip on me. I almost fall to the floor again but manage to steady myself. I turn around to face my dad.
His face is pulled into a stern expression. The fact that he's even here surprises me. But the fact that he's wearing jeans, is the most astonishing part. Jeans means no suit. No suit means no work. No work means... I don't know what it means, but I'm certain I don't like it.
I stand up straight and meet his eyes with a neutral expression. Jackson tenses beside me but I can tell he's as pissed off as me.
"What are you doing here?" I ask.
He gives me an innocent look as if he doesn't know what I'm actually talking about. "This is my home."
Home. I scoff sarcastically at the word. This place hasn't been much of a home lately. A house, yes, but not an actual home.
Home is where you're supposed to feel safe. Feel loved. All I've been feeling around here is empty. The only other place I've ever felt loved and safe recently is Jacksons arms, when I fell asleep in them last night.
The epiphany catches me off guard. Love? No, it can't be. It's too soon, I tell myself. But then again, there's no right time to love or fall in love, is there? It's not like I can just say, 'oh, I'll love him in a month or so.' It doesn't work like that.
Feelings don't have a clock.
But how do you know you actually love someone? Is it like a switch? Surely it can't just be a switch. There must be some sort of tell-tale. Right?
I shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts. One discussion at a time, I remind myself.
"You know what I meant," I say. "Why are you here now? Shouldn't you be at work?"
"It's Saturday," he responds.
"And? You've never taken a Saturday off in your entire life, so what's the occasion?" I cross my arms.
Dad looks me up and down and sighs, narrowing in at my- Jacksons shirt that I'm wearing. It only reaches mid-thigh.
"Is he your boyfriend?" he asks instead of answering.
I stiffen a little. "It doesn't concern you," I reply.
Dad takes a step forward, reaching out for me, but I take a step back. At my rejection his face falls a little and I almost regret it.
He sighs again. "Rose wouldn't have wanted this..." he says, voice dejected.
I scoff, annoyance rising.
"Rose? Don't you mean my mother? Your wife? Well, I guess she's lost that title already, hasn't she?" My voice is harsh even to my own ears.
Dad looks caught off guard for a moment. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
I glare. "You know what it means. I'm surprised you're even sober enough to understand it..." I mumble the last part and I'm not sure if he heard it or not. Either way he ignores it.
His lips pull into a thin line, eyes cast down for a second. When he looks up again his yes flitter between me and Jackson several times.
He walks forward, extending a hand to Jackson. "Ivan Benedetto."
"Jackson Park," Jackson says, shaking hands with my father.
Jacksons posture is rigid but he's acting civil in front of my dad. When he declares his name my dad freezes. His eyes become one of a hawk and he is now basically studying every inch of Jackson, clearly trying to intimidate him. Jackson doesn't take the bait though and keeps his posture squared.
"Jackson Grey Park?" dad repeats.
Jacksons eyes meet mine for a split second, confused. He nods.
My dads posture stiffens and he takes a step back.
"Adeline," he says. He looks between me and Jackson. "You are not allowed to see this boy ever again."
My mouth falls open. Does he really think he has that kind of authority over me?
"You're kidding, right? You don't really think I'm going to listen to you, do you?" My voice is a mixture of anger, sarcasm and surprise.
"I'm your dad," he replies, as if it actually still means something.
I let out a sarcastic laugh. "Then where have you been for the past weeks? Hell, where have you been for the past years, dad?"
Then he loses his temper, like predicted. "I've been working day and night, providing for this family! Ros- your mom, didn't want to work. Would you've liked to trade our family trip to Disneyland for paying rent? Or those upgrades we did on your room for electrical bills? I needed to work hard because I needed to provide for your guys!"
He's talking as if his arguments are actually good, and then I lose my own temper. "I wanted a dad who would tuck me into bed! I wanted you to teach me how to ride a bike and tell me to eat the rest of my dinner when I was being stubborn! I didn't want to live in luxury. I wanted a dad who would actually be here."
"Well I'm here now and all you're doing is fight with me!"
I shake my head slowly. "There comes a time when you realize some things aren't worth waiting for. I already have all the people I need in my life... Come on Jackson, let's go."
We both turn and head out while my dad stands there in silence.
"And your pancakes are burning!" I yell once we're out of sight.
When we're inside my room again Jackson takes my hands. I didn't even realize I had them clenched the whole time and it feels relieving when Jackson slowly pries them open. He kisses the palms where my nails have dug red marks in the skin.
"Let's paint your sky," he whispers.
I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. What? "Huh?"
He laughs. "Your sky," he repeats and nods to the blue square on my wall. "Let's paint the rest of it."
My face lights up in realization. "Oh! Yeah, sure. But I don't have any paint."
"Then let's get to the hardware store," he says.
...
It took over half an hour to pick out the painting. But I mean, how am I supposed to know what color is already on my wall when they literally have 5000 shades of blue?
In the end, we walked out with four cans of paint. All different tones of light blue.
Luckily though, dad was nowhere in sight when we got home. Neither was Tyler, which worried me a bit, but I decided to ignore it. He was a big boy. He didn't need me to parent him.
"Uh, I don't think we thought this through. What do we do with all my furniture? And where am I supposed to sleep tonight?" I voice my worries out loud as we stand in the middle of my room.
Jackson looks around the room for a while. "We'll push all the furniture to the middle and cover them up. You can stay at my place tonight. And tomorrow night. And the night after that."
I laugh a little stand up on my tippy-toes, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. I see him faintly blushing and the sight makes me laugh.
"Are you actually blushing?"
He scowls. "No."
I raise my brows teasingly and fake a gasp. "I think you were," I say. "But hey, it's cute."
He continues to scowl. "I'm not 'cute'."
I laugh again. "Sure you're not." I walk around to my desk and start shoving one side to the middle of the floor.
"Are you just gonna stand there?" I tease.
We push all the furniture to the middle and when that's done Jackson places tarp all over it. Then we cover the floor with tarp as well, and mask the windows with masking-tape.
I place all the cans pf paint next to each other under the blue square.
"I think number two," I say.
Jackson shakes his head. "No way, number four is much closer in shade."
"Are you blind? Number two is clearly the closer one."
"Are you blind? It's number four."
I roll my eyes. "This isn't helping. Let's just mix them."
Jackson sighs. Crybaby. "Fine."
After mixing the color we end up with a shade that is a little lighter than the one on the wall, but it's fine.
Jackson goes to grab the paint rollers we bought and hands one to me, and then we start painting, the smell of various toxic ingredients filling the air.
I expected this to be a lot more fun than it actually was. I mean, it was fun for the first wall, but when we moved on to the second one it was just starting to get tiring.
I always imagined painting was fun and kind of romantic because it would lead to a cute paint fight. But neither Jackson nor I were too keen on getting blue paint all over ourselves, so no one took the initiative.
"Ugh, I'm tired," I moan as I let my hand fall down to my sides. I thought I was somewhat in good shape, but the way my arms ache from the painting tells me otherwise. We've only got one wall left, and it's the one with the windows.
Jackson laughs a little, walking over to me from the other wall and placing his hands on my shoulders, rubbing. I almost moan at the pleasure, letting lose the tension in them.
"Should we finish the last wall tomorrow?" he asks, voice amused.
He's still massaging my shoulders and all I manage to get out is "mhmm...", while I give a barely visible nod of my head. How does he not feel like his arms are about to fall off?
When he takes his hands of my shoulders and place them on my waist instead, pulling me towards him, I open my eyes.
He has a spot of blue paint right above his right eyebrow, making me smile a little. He could've done a thousand other things on a Saturday. He's not though, and the thought broadens my smile. He's here instead, painting my sky.
But the happiness is short lived when I notice how neutral his expression is.
"What's wrong?" I ask as my smile falters.
He purses his lips together for a short moment before opening it to say something. But then he just decides to not ay it anyway as he shakes his head. I'm about to protest but then his face softens a little and he leans in, giving me a peck on the lips. "Nothing. Just a little tired," he mumbles, rubbing his hands in circular motions on my back. But he won't meet my eyes.
I start to become worried. "Jackson, if it's about my dad telling us-
He interrupts me with a kiss that silences me but wakes up the butterflies in my stomach.
"It's not that, it's..." he starts after slowly pulling back. "I'm not going anywhere."
Then he leans in again and I close my eyes, letting my body take over. The kiss is slow and passionate, and everything that needs to be said is communicated through that one kiss.
He won't leave. I know he won't. And I won't leave either. And I hope he knows that.
When we pull away we're both out of breath. We stay like that for a while though. Just breathing, his hands on my waist, mine around his neck, our foreheads resting against each other, hearts beating in sync.
This is really nice, I think. This feeling of being close to him, both physically and mentally. And then I realize I really do have everything I need in life.
I have an amazing best friend who gives me headaches and laughs at the same time.
I have a brother who, despite all his annoying faults, will be all the family I'll ever need.
And now I have Jackson.
A guy who makes my heart beat faster and my breath become shallow and my body ignite in flames. All in the best way possible.
I look him in the eyes and he looks into mine, and for the first time I'm not scared if he'll see right through me. I'm not scared if he'll find out how messed up I really am. I'm not scared if he actually will leave me one day because I know that if he does, it would have been worth it.
I think I'm falling in love.
I think I'm falling pretty hard and pretty fast too.
But it's okay.
Because this, this is not just falling.
This is what flying feels like.
---
A/N:
Mid-week update, yay! Happy Wednesday everyone :)
I hope you're having a great week so far.
Thank you so much for reading! U da best ;)
Comment and vote if you enjoyed Adelines' epiphanies in this chapter ;)
xoxo