Sunshine || Jai Brooks

chapter twenty-one; photogenic

The first thing she did, when Jai opened up the front door, was kissing his lips while she cupped face with both of her hands. This was important, knowing that he was fine with how she had acted this morning and had left him without doing anything to thank him for being there for her. "I'm really sorry how I handled it and I'm sorry for yelling at you. I'm sorry for everything-..."

"No, no. Don't be like that," he shook his head, wrapping arm around her middle to pull her into a hug. He held her for a moment, but let go as he noticed Chris in the door way. It didn't stop him from finishing what he started, though, and looked back at her. "Sunny, you know I was there for you and if that means you have to yell at me, that's totally fine. Not fun, but totally fine. I can handle it."

"Thank you." Aileen changed the subject, grasping for Chris' hand and pulled him inside, so she could close the front door. A smile appeared around her mouth, introducing him to her boyfriend, and her boyfriend to him. "This is Chris, he's dating my sister. This Jai I was telling you about, my boyfriend."

Jai chuckled - probably at how she had called him her boyfriend, meaning he still hadn't regretted it for one bit. And she liked that - and extended his hand to shake Chris'. As they shook hands, or however you wanted to call their little handshake, they nodded. "Hey, mate. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Hey, yeah. You from Australia?"

It wasn't that she didn't want to be there, to support the both of them. Help Chris and act like she would cut him off if he tried to hard and was saying things he would regret later on, and help Jai at the same time. She just was pretty nervous herself and didn't want to stand in the way for them to get along or not to get along at all - the last one was the reason she was worrying. "Oh, my God. Isn't it great? You both come from Australia and that means you have things in common!" she gave them a wave, forcing an overly fake smile. "This is so nice, for both of you to get to know each other and-... Wow. I guess just too nice for me. So, I'll go. Bye!"

And she left, so fast as she could. Kristina and Daniel were standing in the kitchen, trying out their skills at cooking and Beau and James were sitting on the couch. They were watching television, but what was on she had no clue and she couldn't care less, really.

"You know where Luke is?"

"In his room."

"Is he busy? I don't want to disturb."

"No, it's fine," the older brother waved it away, shaking his head. "If he's busy, I don't think he'll mind if you'll hang out there. Where's Jai?"

"Talking to tall and muscular guy, who can be very intimating if he wants to be," she grinned at him, making James look up with a frown of his eyebrow. Of course they were confused, but that was her point. Eventually Jai would explain, anyway. Well, she hoped he would. She waved and also left them, walking past the two guys, up the stairs.

Luke was indeed found in his bedroom, sitting on his bed with his laptop. He chuckled when he saw her, mentioning for her to come over. First she closed the door, but then jumped down on the spot next to him in curiosity, staring at the screen. He was on Instagram. "Are you photogenic?"

"No-..." she stopped herself, thoughtfully glancing at him. It wasn't a surprise that he would question about it, considering photographing was one of his hobbies. But it was just that she hadn't prepared an answer yet. "Well, I don't know. Am I?"

"You wanna try?"

"Try what?"

"Let me take photos of you."

"Why not a video?" Luke didn't quite believe it wasn't her daily fooling around, squinting his eyes as if he expected a grin appear onto her face. He nodded after a minute, considering no sign was shown that this wasn't serious and that he couldn't throw her into the pool again. It made her giggle. "We could do a photo shoot. We should make gifs and such, and I'll get famous."