estrellas~chapter 20

I woke up in my bed, I don't even remember going to bed last night. I guess that I must've fallen asleep during the movie.

When I walk downstairs I see two new people in the kitchen.

"Umm... Good Morning Belly," I say cautiously to her.

"Morning Laur, this is their Aunt Julia and this is Skye," Belly says to me.

I give Skye a little awkward wave.

"Mmm, did somebody get muffins?" Conrad says as he and Jere come back from a morning Surf.

"Hey, Jeremiah, Conrad..." Skye says.

"You didn't tell me she was here," Connie answers rudely.

"It's 'they' not 'she.' God, I guess it's been like a decade since I saw you guys. Um, how are you doing since your mom?" Skye asks the boys.

Jere answers, "It's been rough."

"Rougher now that our Aunt's stealing our house." Conrad interrupts.

Julia slams something down, "I'm not stealing anything, Conrad. Like it or not, I get to choose what happens to this house and I choose to put it on the market. You boys should get on the road. Beat the traffic back to Boston..."

"There's no chance. We're staying for the open house." Conrad snaps back. He even changes the way he stands, now his shoulders are more back. Almost like he was a lion defending his territory.

Jere and I give a look to one another and he just smiles at me, god, I missed that smile.

"I don't have time for this," Julia says as she walks to another room.

"Conrad, she's still your family," I say to him, he is fuming.

"Then why is she doing this to us?"

"This is hard for her too," Skye says to him. That may have just been the thing to set him off.

"Really? Seems like she's doing this all pretty fսcking easily!" He storms out.

I sigh and fiddle with my rings.

I get dressed when I hear the doorbell ring, naturally, I answer it.

"Hi, can I help you?" I ask some lady holding folders in her hand.

"Sandy Denati, I'm looking for Julia."

"Right, yes, uh, for the open house," I had to think quickly on my feet, "Sadly, she ultimately decided not to sell, she wants to keep the house in the family, you know?"

"Sorry, who are you?"

"She's my girlfriend," Jeremiah suddenly appears.

"She's having some second thoughts. The house is not for sale."

"I take it you're Conrad Fisher?"

"I'm Jeremiah, his brother."

"My apologies, It's nice to see you. I am sorry about your mom."

"Well, clearly not sorry enough to pass up the opportunity to sell her house."

Unfortunately, Julia appears, "Ignore them!" She yells, "There will be an open house today. But there does seem to be a minor problem with the AC. It died."

Jere and I walk back into the kitchen.

"I thought our plan would work," I say.

"Um...I'm sorry. I didn't mean to call you my girlfriend."

"Oh, uh it's fine. We just had to play the part." I laugh.

"Hey, is everything okay?" Conrad asks as he walks in.

I shake my head, "No, the realtor just got here."

"It's so hot. It's like 2,000 degrees in here." Taylor says to announce her presence.

"Aunt Julia said the AC is broken," Conrad says.

"Oh, what? No way." Steven acts all shocked, I knew my twin had something to do with it. I give him a thumbs up and we high-five.

"Today's open house has been canceled. So I need you all out of the house while I get the AC guy here to do some work." Julia says when walking into the kitchen. I feel everyone gives her death eyes.

"Let's go to the beach," I suggest. Staying here in the heat would just make everyone more miserable.

"I'm not leaving," Conrad says to me, he is stubborn.

"We've won this round. Let's just get out of here."

~

We all decide to go to the boardwalk, Skye even comes with us. It may not be much but I have a little hope, maybe we could convince Skye to tell their mom to not sell.

I ride shotgun in Jeremiah's jeep as we drive to the Boardwalk. As usual, I stole his aux cord. I play a classic Taylor Swift Song.

"I was ridin' shotgun with my hair undone, in the front seat of his car," I screamed into his ear.

"He's got one hand on the steering wheel, the other on my heart..." He acts this out. I roll my eyes out at him and just smile.

"Car Rides are the best," I say.

"You make them fun," he says. I feel a blush come across my face.

"Are you blushing Lauren?" He says smoothly.

I try to cover my face because I can't stop.

We're at a red light and he faces me, "I'm happy I can still make you blush."

I feel myself leaning over closer to him but then the light turns green.

We're in the parking lot and I feel my heart pounding.

"Let's take our time, okay?" I ask.

"What do you mean?"

I take my seatbelt off and completely turn to face him, "Jere... you hurt me. I tried to stay strong but I couldn't."

"I'm never going to leave you again," He reaches for my hand, "I realized that I hated everything, well everything except you. I felt as though I didn't deserve to be happy, so, I took out my only source of happiness."

I felt tears soak up my eyes.

"Jere... if I knew that I would have tried harder to convince you that..."

Suddenly, his lips were on mine.

I was surprised, I never wanted him to stop. I cupped his face and kissed him longer. We started to have a makeout session when Steven banged on the passenger window.

"Stop making out! Let's go have fun."

Jere and I just giggled and got out of the car, hand in hand. Cousins does make everything better, to bad we won't be able to stay longer.

~

We all got ice cream and walked along the boardwalk.

Jeremiah kept trying to steal bites of my ice cream.

"Stop!" I said while laughing, "You have your own!"

"I like yours better," he said.

I kept laughing, "Oh really?"

"A lot."

We leaned in to kiss.

"Is that the new thing?" Conrad said, "You two making out whenever you're near?"

I pretended to think long and hard, "Uh, yeah, it is." I smiled and kissed Jeremiah again. This time a groan from Conrad and Steven occurred.

"You two are disgusting."

"No they're not, they are so cute," Belly said to defend us.

"Thank you Belly!" I said while laughing.

"You know, I'm kind of a natural introvert, so I can't tell if this place is horrifying or if it's just, like, my lizard brain in action," Skye said.

I liked Skye, they just seemed a little quirky.

"Susannah used to force my mom to come here when they were kids. My mom always hated it, but Susannah loved it so much, so..."

"You know what else my mom loved?" Conrad started, "The beach house."

Of course, we couldn't have one afternoon without Conrad getting petty.

"My mom's not evil, Conrad. And your mom wasn't a saint.

We all stay silent. No one has any idea what to say.

So Belly says, "Skye, have you ever played shoot your shot?"

"No, and I'm fine keeping it that way."

"Want to watch Belly and I kick Conrad's ass," I say while flipping him off.

"I wouldn't hate watching that."

So, it's decided. It is time for the annual Shoot Your Shot Competition.

Team Belly vs. Team Conrad.