Knowing You (The Jade Series #2) (17 page)

“No. But I know that I want to still be with you. Are you planning on dumping me before then? Finding someone else?”

I can’t imagine being with anyone else. But I also can’t imagine him sticking around that long.
 

“I’m sure you’ll be tired of me in a year and want to date someone else.” There I go again. Saying something that ruins this great moment we’re having. Between last night and this morning, he’s made it perfectly clear that he wants to be with me and then I say something that invalidates it all.

“Why do you say shit like that?” He stops and spins me around to face him, keeping his hands on my shoulders. “I told you I love you. And I meant it. I’ve never said that to a girl. I want you in my life, Jade. Not just for a year or two. For longer than that. A lot longer. But maybe you don’t feel the same way.”

“No. It’s not that. I just . . . I just don’t know why you’d want that. Me. I don’t understand it.”

“You don’t have to understand it. I love you. That’s all you need to know.”

I begin walking again, looking at the houses on each side of the street, noticing how quiet the town is and how peaceful it seems.
 

I notice that Garret is no longer beside me. I turn back and see him still standing there. “What are you doing? Aren’t you coming?”

“What do you think of this one?” He’s pointing to the house next to him; a white two-story with black shutters.

“It’s nice, I guess.”

“You don’t like it. Okay, we’ll keep looking.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was trying to find us a house. You like this neighborhood, right?”

“We’re not looking for houses, Garret. We’re 19. So stop it. You’re freaking me out.”

He catches up to me. “That’s why I said it. It’s funny to watch you get so freaked out by the idea of a future with me.” He pauses. “Well, I guess it’s not that funny.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m not freaked out. I’m just not ready to think about it yet. I just told you that I love you and that was a huge step for me. I never thought I would say that to someone. I have to get used to that before I think about where we go next.”

“So you’d consider a future with me?”

“Of course I would.”
 

Truthfully, I want that more than ever. But every time I want something really bad, I don’t get it. It doesn’t work out and I’m left disappointed. But if I lose Garret, I’ll be more than disappointed. Losing him will hurt. A lot. So I’m not ready to go there yet. I’m not ready to consider a future with him.
 

“We should head back. By the time we drive to your house, my stuff will be ready to pick up.”

“Thanks for suggesting this, Jade. It was good to see everything again. It’s just like I remembered.”

When we get back to his house, my laundry is stacked in white boxes, waiting to be picked up.
 

“They even folded everything,” I say, looking in one of the boxes. “I should go say thank you to whoever did this. That was a lot of work.” I look in another box. “Check out my sheets. There’s no wrinkles. They ironed my sheets, Garret!”

He’s laughing at me. “Yeah. I know. I grew up here, remember? My sheets were always ironed.”
 

We bring the boxes to the car, then drive back to campus. We see Harper as we’re carrying the boxes to my room.

“Jade, I just heard about the break-in. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

She follows us down the hall to my room. “Do you need help with anything? I was just going back over to Sean’s, but I can call and tell him I’m staying here.”

“No. Go ahead. I can handle it.”

“Okay, but if you’re too freaked out to stay in your room tonight, you could stay with me. We could get one of those inflatable mattresses.”

“I’ll let you know. Thanks, Harper.”

She heads back to her room.

“She’s right,” Garret says. “You shouldn’t stay overnight in this room. At least not for a few days. Just stay with me.”

I take him up on his offer. We spend the afternoon cleaning up my room, then Harper stops by again later and I go hang out in her room while Garret goes to the pool. I tell her all about the fundraising event, which seems like old news with everything that’s happened since then. I also tell her how Garret’s dad did a 180 and insisted I stay at his house for Thanksgiving. Harper seems relieved. She really didn’t want me spending Thanksgiving alone in the dorms.

The next week goes by without a single late night call. I begin to get hopeful that the guy is truly gone and will never bother me again. I talk to Frank on Monday and he’s doing well. Ryan is, too. Maybe it’s too soon, but I tell myself that whatever was going on with my mom’s letter is over.
 

With all that finally behind me, I’m getting really excited about Thanksgiving. We have classes Monday and Tuesday but people start packing up and leaving to go home Monday afternoon. Harper heads out Tuesday morning. By Tuesday afternoon, nearly everyone has left.
 

On Wednesday, I pack up some clothes and Garret and I head to his house. His family, including his grandparents, left for the Cayman Islands early this morning. We’ll have the whole place to ourselves. The cook will be there but he lives in a separate smaller house next to the main house.

When we arrive, we take our stuff upstairs. I didn’t count them but there must be at least eight bedrooms up here and Garret says there are more guest rooms downstairs.
 

“So this is where he wants you to stay.” Garret pokes his head in a beige and white room with a four poster bed that’s piled with fancy pillows. The room is very large and has its own bathroom.

I start to walk inside but Garret keeps hold of my hand. “Come on. I’ll show you where you’re really staying.”

We walk to the very end of the hall. He opens the door to a room that looks much different than the guest room. It has deep blue walls and even a blue ceiling. Band posters hang on some of the walls and there’s a giant flat screen TV suspended on the wall across from the king-size bed.
 

“This is
my
room, if you haven’t guessed that already.”

“I can’t believe Katherine let you decorate your room like this.”

“She didn’t get a say in it. When we moved here, my dad said I could do what I wanted with it. Katherine was pissed, but what did she really have to complain about? We have like 16 bedrooms. She can decorate those however she wants.”

“Are you sure I can stay in here? Maybe I should stay in that other room, at least for a night or two.”

“Why? Don’t you want to be with me?”

“Yeah, but your dad was nice enough to let me stay and I feel like I should use that room for at least one night. Besides we sleep in the same room all the time.”

He sprawls out on the bed. “But this is a king-size bed. So much better than a twin. We can actually move in this one without falling off.”

“Still. I think I should stay over there tonight. I’m gonna go drop my stuff off.”

He follows me back down the hall. “Jade, wait.” He stops and opens the door to another room. “This is Lilly’s room. Don’t tell her I showed you it. She wants to show you herself. She keeps asking when you’ll be over again.”

“She does?” I go inside the all-pink room. It has a canopy bed and a sitting area with a tiny white table and chairs. A teapot and cups are set up on the table and stuffed animals sit in the chairs.
 

“If you come in her room, she’ll make you go to her tea party,” Garret says. “All her guests have to sit down for tea.”

“Have you been to one of these tea parties?”

“Only like a million times. I can’t fit in those chairs. I have to sit on the floor.”

“How did she even get you to do that? I mean, come on Garret. You’re not really the tea party type.”

“She’s my little sister. And she’s adorable. I can’t say no to her.” He leans down and kisses me. “Kind of like I can’t say no to someone else.”

“You say no to me all the time.”

“I never say no to you. Now let’s get out of here. All the pink is starting to get to me.”

I laugh, still imagining Garret sitting on the floor next to the stuffed panda bear, pretending to sip tea.
 

It proves that he’s not just a nice boyfriend. He’s a nice big brother, too. It only makes me love him more.

16

Garret puts my bag of clothes on the bed in the room I’ve decided to stay in. “I need to get you a suitcase, Jade. These garbage bags just aren’t working.”

“They work just fine.” I notice a piece of paper on the nightstand. “What’s this?”

“It’s from Lilly. She made it for you. It’s a drawing of you and me that night of the fundraiser. We’re holding the pink punch she gave us.”

I look closer at the drawing. She used a bright purple crayon for my dress and gave me really long hair and bright red lips. She made Garret twice as tall as me but extended his arms so we could hold hands.
 

“This is so sweet. Damn, if Lilly keeps this cute thing going, she’s going to make me want to have kids someday.”

“I told you she has a way of making you do stuff you never thought you’d do.” He lies down on the bed. I set the drawing down and lie next to him.

“So what should we do first?” I realize as I say it that I sound overly enthusiastic. “We have all this free time from now until Sunday. No tests. No homework.”

He flips on his side to face me. “Is that why you’re so excited right now?”

“I’m excited because I’m staying here in your house without your dad getting mad. And I get to spend Thanksgiving with you.”

My comment brings a grin to his face. “I thought you didn’t care about Thanksgiving. It’s just another day, right?”

“Yeah. I guess it is. But I still like spending it with you.”

He kisses me quick. “So here’s what we’re doing tomorrow. I talked to Charles, our cook, and he wasn’t going to make food just for himself but when he heard we were staying here, it gave him an excuse to make Thanksgiving dinner. That means you should get your appetite ready because he tends to make a lot. I told him not to get too fancy but to stick with the traditional stuff. Turkey. Sweet potatoes. Stuffing.”

“Then I won’t eat anything tonight so I’ll be really hungry tomorrow.”

“You have to eat. Charles is making dinner for us tonight. When someone new comes over, he has to show off his cooking skills. But I told him no fish or seafood. And nothing Katherine would eat.”

I laugh as I get up from the bed. “Show me the rest of your house.”

“Up here is just a bunch of bedrooms that look like this one,” he says as we walk into the hall. We go downstairs to the main level. “My dad’s office is over there just off the foyer. Across from it is the study. And the kitchen’s in the back, off the dining room. And down that hall are the rooms you were in the night of the fundraiser. Those are just used for entertaining. Let’s go to the other wing.”

“You have wings here?” I follow him down a long and narrow hallway.
 

“This is the movie room.” He goes in a room that looks like a mini movie theater. It has four rows of tiered seating and a massive screen on the wall and there’s a projector mounted to the ceiling.

“You have your own movie theater?” I have to lift my jaw off the floor to say it. I didn’t even know you could put a movie theater in a house.

“Check this out. It even has a concession stand.” He walks to the back of the room where there’s a popcorn machine, a soda machine, and a glass cabinet full of boxes of candy.

“This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen!”
 

“If you want, we can watch a movie later.”

“Are you kidding? We’re definitely watching a movie. I might just live in here.”

“You’re funny.” He grabs my hand, dragging me out of there. “Next is the game room. If you haven’t noticed yet, this is the fun part of the house. The other part is the stuffy, boring part. My dad had this section built for me because he knew how much I hated Katherine. It was his bribe to get me to be nice to her when they got married. But I think he secretly likes having all this stuff himself. He just used me as his excuse to have it.”

The next room he takes me in has a pool table, a pinball machine, and some game machines like they have in an arcade. There’s a huge TV hanging on the wall with odd shaped chairs in front of it.
 

“Do you like video games?” Garret asks.
 

“I don’t know. I’ve never played any.”

“Then I’ll have to teach you. We have all the game systems and tons of games.”

“What’s with those chairs?”

“You sit in those to play the games. They have speakers in them.”

“Seriously?” I sit in the goofy chair. “This is so great. Look at all the stuff we could do. Play pool. Pinball. Watch a movie.”

“Come on. We’re not done with the tour yet.” He takes me farther down the hall where there’s an indoor basketball court and a large indoor pool. They also have an outdoor pool.