"Don't make promises you can't keep."
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Noah Reed is lost. Fed up with his constant attitude and need for self-destruction, his mother sends him to live out the rest of the year with his father in hop...
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"You don't have to be nervous," Blake tells me as we stand on her front porch, about to enter her house. "You know my family already likes you."
"I'm not nervous," I scoff, trying to sound nonchalant. Instead, I sound extremely nervous, contradictory to my statement.
I don't know why I'm so anxious. I suppose it's because I want Blake's parents to like me; I want them to trust me with their daughter. I want to make her proud tonight. I've never felt this way about a girl before, and it's all new and unnerving.
"Besides," Blake says, interrupting my thoughts, "if either of us should be nervous, it's me. My family is . . . a lot."
I take Blake's hand in mine as I say, "If you want to have this dinner, then we'll do it. And if you want it to be perfect, I'm going to make it perfect."
"Yeah?" Blake teases, raising an eyebrow at me. Stepping closer to her, I wish we were back in my room or making out in her car the way we were seconds ago.
"And if you want me to be a polite gentleman," I continue, striving to make her laugh, "then I'll be a polite gentleman. I'll be all proper and brag about how I have a five-point-oh GPA and I'm applying to Harvard and—"
As I was hoping, a giggle escapes Blake, the sound warming my heart.
"I just want you to be you," Blake whispers, rising to her tiptoes to cup my face in her hands. When she kisses me, I swear I see fireworks.
Blake pulls away, though not before I press a kiss to her cheek, which makes her smile. In this moment, I know that there is nothing in the world I wouldn't do to make her smile, and the thought is as scary as it is true.
The nerves I'd previously been feeling return as Blake steps forward and opens her front door. Our hands intertwined, Blake pulls me after her into her house.
We're instantly met with a state of commotion.
Jackie stands in the living room, dressed in a sparkly leotard, her mother's (I'm assuming) heels, and a pink feathered-boa. She holds a purple rhinestone microphone in her hands, and she struts up and down the carpet singing the Sesame Street theme song at full volume as the show itself plays on the TV. The sight is so adorably entertaining, I'm hardly able to refrain from bursting into laughter.
Before I have the chance to get over Jackie's concert and attire, a loud bang resonates from the staircase. One of the twins releases a piercing screech before sliding down the stairs on a giant couch cushion.
Seconds later, the other twin—Grayson, I'm not sure how I can tell the difference—follows after Reeve with his own couch cushion, heading for his brother, who has already reached the bottom of the stairs and is heading for—
I grab Blake's arm and pull her into me, wrapping an arm protectively around her waist as Reeve flies from the last step to the ground, landing in the exact spot Blake had just been standing. Grayson lands on top of him and they fall into a fit of laughter.
