Infinite (Strange and Beautiful, Book 1)

by Brittney Musick

  “Good,” Jackson grinned. “So we’re official. There is no question that I’m your boyfriend, and you’re my girlfriend.”

  “Understood,” I said in a mocking salute.

  Jackson narrowed his eyes playfully at my mocking as he asked, “Should we seal the deal?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I think that depends on what kind of sealing you’re talking about.”

  “A kiss,” Jackson hissed, but I could see the surprise on his face at my boldness.

  “In that case,” I said, trying to sound official as I blushed, “yes.”

  Before I could say anything else, Jackson leaned forward and claimed my lips with his. His mouth was warm and soft, like I remembered, and he cupped the side of my face gently as our lips moved together. I could feel myself melting into his embrace as his other hand rested at the small of my back.

  The kiss went on until air was necessary. I didn’t want to pull away from him, so I rested my head on his shoulder instead as he drew me closer with the arm wrapped around me.

  “You cut your hair,” he said after a long pause.

  I laughed against his shoulder. “You’re just now noticing?”

  “Well, yes and no,” he replied. “I knew something was different. It just took me this long to figure out what it was.”

  I pulled back so that I could see his face. “Does it look bad?”

  “No.” He shook his head emphatically, and I thought he was being honest. “It looks great.” He looked me over, smiling, as his eyes glittered. “You always look great to me,” he murmured.

  That was harder to believe. I remembered feeling like a snotty marshmallow that day I rode my bike to the mall, and I couldn’t imagine him thinking that was a pretty sight, but I didn’t argue. The sentiment was kind and nice to hear even if it wasn’t entirely accurate.

  “I think you look pretty great too,” I admitted.

  “Why thank you,” he said, cheekily. He tugged at the front of his polo. “I thought this might be more proper attire for meeting the parents.”

  “Better than Cinco de Mayo,” I conceded.

  Jackson put on a show of acting injured. “And what’s wrong with Cinco de Mayo?”

  “Nothing,” I shrugged. “I think it’s great, but my dad sort of has a dry sense of humor, so I’m not sure he can accurately appreciate it the way it’s meant to be.”

  “I see,” Jackson grinned, nuzzling the side of my neck, making me giggle breathily. I felt like I was living out a scene from a Harlequin romance. “I’d say you smell good,” Jackson mused, “but you might tell me to go sniff Tegan, so—”

  “Oh, God,” I cried, burying my head into his shoulder, laughing, “shut up!”

  “I had to,” Jackson laughed.

  I sighed, breathing him in, as I kept my burning face hidden against his shoulder. “You smell good,” I whispered.

  “Ah, but wouldn’t you like to compare my cologne to Mark’s or maybe your dad’s?” I could hear the grin in his voice and slapped him playfully as I lifted my head to show him my sulky glare, but he brushed my hair away from my face, grinning. “Oh, pouty face,” he cooed.

  I started to turn away, but he cupped my face gently and leaned in to kiss me once again. Before his mouth met mine, though, the sound of a throat being cleared froze us both in place. We turned our heads to the left to find Mark and Tegan watching us with their arms crossed over their chests. Mark tapped his foot against the floor impatiently and Tegan raised an eyebrow.

  “I see how it is,” she commented. “The two of you just up and left us so you could come over here and snog.”

  “We were just getting ready to come and find you,” I tried, smiling innocently.

  “Uh huh,” Mark nodded. One look at Tegan and it was clear neither of them bought it.

  “But we were,” Jackson argued. “Silly was going to do a sniff comparison between mine and Mark’s cologne.”

  “Shut up,” I snapped, shoving him lightly in the shoulder.

  Tegan burst into laughter, apparently understanding what he was referring to. Mark, on the other hand, looked confused and worried.

  “Wait,” he said, scratching his head as Jackson and I stood and started to walk back toward the festivities. “Nobody mentioned any weird, kinky sniffing crap when I was invited to this shindig.”

  Monday, January 1st, 2007

  The New Year began in the best way possible: with an amazing kiss at midnight with my boyfriend! Yes, Jackson is now officially my boyfriend. I fumbled my way through clarifying the status of our relationship, and he asked me formally. Teasing, of course, but it was sweet.

  It felt so weird to change my relationship status from “single” to “in a relationship” on MySpace, which I did pretty much as soon as we got home from the country club. It seems so surreal, but it’s still very exciting. I feel so giddy and happy. I’m still amazed that he actually likes me, and I can’t figure out what I did to get so lucky, but I don’t want to question it too much. I just want to enjoy it.

  Speaking of, I need to get some sleep. Tegan’s staying over, and Jackson invited us over to his house to watch movies and hang out tomorrow. I think it’s mostly so he has a buffer between himself and his brothers. I suspect he’s about ready for Eric to go back home to Chicago. Even though Eric’s been staying with Jordan at his apartment, Jackson says they’ve been at his parents’ house all the time, razzing him. I think it’s funny, but I’m happy to act as the shield if it means I get to spend the afternoon with my boyfriend and best friend.

  -Silly-

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  If Dad disliked my Uncle Hagen before Christmas, he hated him after. Luke had become obsessed with the guitar Hagen gave him. As far as I could tell, in Luke’s eyes it was the ideal present. The only things that could have possibly competed with it were probably hooking up with Zooey Deschanel or meeting Paul McCartney.

  When Luke wasn’t working, sleeping, eating, or out with friends, he’d been home strumming on the guitar since the day after Christmas. It wasn’t as if it didn’t sound good either. On the contrary, Luke was rather good at it. Apparently, he remembered quite a bit from guitar lessons and teaching himself how to play.

  The problem was Luke had lost all regard for everyone else’s need to sleep, think, and concentrate. If he’d stayed contained in his bedroom, it might have been okay, but he’d taken to bringing the guitar with him practically everywhere he went in the house. We’d be watching television or in the kitchen cooking and Luke would show up and start to play his guitar. It was kind of fun the first few days, and Dad was rather patient about it at first, but by the end of the week, when Luke’s guitar playing interrupted Dad’s nightly viewing of the news, that was the last straw.

  “Lucas, you can play that guitar as much as you want when you’re in your bedroom or when I’m not home, so long as it’s not bothering your mother or sisters,” Dad declared.

  Luke, for his part, just looked completely dumbfounded by Dad’s demands at first, but then he just shrugged and said, “Sure thing, Dad.”

  Then he disappeared upstairs to his room as if nothing had happened. That might have been the end of it for Dad, but he didn’t sleep next door to Luke, so he wasn’t subjected to the strumming all hours of the night. It was nearly as annoying as when he brought Brooke home, which, thankfully, he had not done in a little over a month.

  I complained some about the noise, but it fell on deaf ears.

  “I’m in my room,” Luke pointed out. “Which is well within Dad’s conditions.”

  Mom wasn’t helpful either. “Use that music thing your aunt gave you,” she suggested.

  I didn’t like sleeping with ear buds in at night, but I didn’t bother to voice that since it was clear—unless I could get Toby to come over and squash this guitar with his buns of steel—that Luke’s guitar was here to stay.

  A couple of days after Dad banned the guitar playing around the house, Luke had, as he put it, a brilliant idea. We st
ill had a couple of days before we went back to school—on a Friday of all days—and Stevie had stayed over the night before. She and Skylar were sprawled out on the couch and loveseat, leaving me to sit on the floor at the coffee table to eat my bowl of Froot Loops, while we watched a Project Runway marathon.

  Luke marched in, just as Heidi Klum was about to tell us who was in and who was out, and announced, “I’ve decided to start a band.”

  Skylar only spared him a glance while Stevie sat up, looked at him and laughed and then fell back against the pillow she’d been resting her head on. “Yeah, right,” she snorted. “Who else is going to be in your band?”

  “Well, Toby plays bass,” Luke answered, crossing his arms in a huff. “We only need a drummer and maybe another guitar. Then we should be good to go.”

  “What about a singer?” Skylar asked without taking her eyes off of the television.

  “I could sing!” I offered, brightly.

  Luke seemed to force himself not to cringe, which I resented. “I don’t think so, Sil.”

  “Your loss,” I shrugged and went back to my cereal.

  “I think you’d actually have to have something to sing anyway,” Stevie commented, rolling her eyes.

  “Could you possibly just butt out?” Luke glared at her from his spot behind the couch Skylar occupied. Stevie raised her right hand and lifted her middle finger. “No thanks,” Luke scoffed. “Been there, done that, and it wasn’t that great.”

  “Excuse me, limp dick!” Stevie exclaimed, sitting up quickly, electric fire burning in her bright blue eyes. “I’ll have you know it was the worst ten seconds of my life!”

  “Could you two please shut up about your sordid affair?” Skylar asked, glancing between them. “I don’t want to hear all the gory details.”

  “Me either,” I commented, pouting at my half eaten bowl of cereal because my appetite had, understandably, vanished.

  “Shut up,” Luke and Stevie spat in unison, their heads snapping to look from Skylar to me.

  I glanced at Skylar, who simply rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the television. I sighed and stirred my cereal apathetically while Stevie and Luke continued on with their usual crude banter. This was the first time I’d actually heard either of them admit that they had, in fact, slept together. Even though it proved my suspicions were correct, I kind of wished they’d kept it to themselves.

  After officially giving up on my sad cereal lunch, I took the dish into the kitchen and poured what remained down the garbage disposal. As I was putting the dishes into the dishwasher to be washed with the next load, a thought struck me. Why I hadn’t thought of it immediately, I wasn’t sure, but after closing the door to the dishwasher, I hurried back into the living room.

  Luke and Stevie were still bickering. I could easily see why things were purely physical, and also why they usually just ignored each other, because it was clear they couldn’t carry on a normal conversation without ending up at each other’s throat. The words “angry sex” flickered through my mind, but I shuddered away from that thought.

  “Luke,” I said, cutting Stevie off from yet another crude jab at my brother’s manhood. “I know someone who plays the drums.”

  That caught his attention. Luke spun toward me anxiously. “Who?”

  I smiled proudly. “Mark.”

  Some of Luke’s excitement fell from his face. “Moses?”

  I nodded, but some of my pride had faded as well.

  “I don’t know, Sil.” Luke looked as if he were reluctantly considering it. “That guy’s a loose cannon.”

  “He’s really not that bad once you get to know him,” I tried.

  “Says the girl he stole lunch money from,” Luke replied.

  Skylar sat up to look at me, horrorstricken. “He stole your lunch money?”

  “That was a long time ago,” I shrugged.

  “A month ago.”

  It was more like five weeks, but I didn’t bother to point that out. “If you recall, you knew about it and didn’t do anything, so you’re just as bad,” I said instead.

  “Hey, I—” Luke couldn’t seem to find an answer for that, so I rolled my eyes and went on. “Besides, things are different now.”

  Luke didn’t look convinced, and Stevie and Skylar didn’t say anything either, so I pressed on to the point. “What’s it going to hurt to just give Mark a chance? You don’t have any other prospects lined up, do you?”

  “Well,” he hesitated, obviously hating to admit it, “no.”

  “You could at least listen to him play,” I shrugged.

  Stevie smirked, unable to stay quiet. “As if he’d know anything about it anyway?”

  “Fuck off,” Luke said, glaring at Stevie before turning back to me. “Fine. Call him and see if he’s interested, and if he is, see if we can get this done today. I have to work tomorrow, and I know Toby’s off today.”

  I agreed readily and headed toward the stairs. “See if we can do it at his place,” Luke called after me.

  “Okay,” I yelled back, climbing the stairs two at a time to get to my room. I dug around on my desk until I found the paper where I’d jotted Mark’s number. After finding it, I dug the phone out from under a pile of papers.

  I dialed the number and listened as it rang. I checked the time on my computer and saw it was just after noon. I wasn’t sure if that would be considered calling too early because I had no idea how late Mark usually slept, but the phone had rung several times already. Just as I was about the hang up, Mark picked up.

  “Hello?” Mark sounded kind of groggy and confused.

  “Hey, Mark. It’s Silly,” I said. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

  I heard him yawn. “Yeah?” he grunted. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I have a proposition for you.”

  “Isn’t it a little early for that?” he chuckled. “Besides I thought Hart had staked his claim on you. What would he think?”

  I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me. “Not that kind of proposition, you perv.”

  “Oh, good, I wasn’t sure how I was going to let you down easy.”

  “Thanks for the consideration,” I muttered. The conversation was getting a bit out of hand, so I redirected it back to my original point. “My brother has decided to start a band.” Mark grunted. “He’s looking for a drummer. I remembered you said you played the drums. I thought you might be interested.”

  “In playing in a band with a bunch of jocks?” he snorted. “Not likely.”

  “Oh, come on,” I coaxed. “Luke isn’t that bad.”

  “Of course you’d say that,” Mark laughed. “He’s your brother.”

  “Don’t you think I should know what I’m talking about? I’m his little sister,” I argued. “I grew up with him, so I know how much of an asshole he can be, so why would I lie?”

  “You’re biased,” he commented. “Whether or not he’s an asshole, he’s still your brother.”

  “Okay, maybe I’m slightly biased,” I said. “But why does it have to be jocks versus the rest of the world? My brother’s life doesn’t revolve around sports.” I didn’t voice that I almost wished it did. “Right now it mostly revolves around playing guitar all hours of the day, and I know you like music. Anyone who doesn’t is, obviously, just as uptight and slightly boring as my dad. Besides, I thought it was pretty much every teenage guy’s dream to be in a band, so why not give it a chance?”

  “I don’t know where you come up with this stuff.” Mark still sounded sleepy, but it was also clear he was amused. “I’m just going to save myself the trouble of having to listen to you try to convince me in whatever sort of twisted logic you use and say yes, I’ll give it a try.”

  I refrained from clapping happily like a moron. “Great,” I said instead, unable to keep the cheer from my voice. “Can you do it today? Luke and Toby, the other guy in the band, both have the day off from work and want to do the audition as soon as possible.”

  “So now I’m au
ditioning?” Mark huffed.

  “It’s just a stupid technicality,” I assured him. “So, is today okay?”

  He sighed, resignedly. “Fine.”

  “So should we come to your house then?”

  He was immediately awake and serious. “Why would you do that?”

  “Are you planning to tote your drum set over here?”

  “No . . .”

  “Then your place is okay?”

  “Um,” he cleared his throat uncertainly, and I realized just how pushy I was being. I remembered his reluctance to have people over to his house. Jackson had mentioned the other day when Tegan and I came over to watch movies that Mark didn’t live in the best neighborhood. Adding that to his dad’s less than pleasant demeanor, I could see why he was reluctant to have us over. I was trying to think of an alternative when Mark finally said, “Yeah, I guess we can do it here, but you guys will have to be out of here by five.”

  “No problem,” I agreed quickly. After Mark explained how to get to his house, I hurried back downstairs and told Luke the “audition” was on. I pulled him away from Skylar and Stevie to tell him about having to be out by five. He shrugged it off easily and said he’d call Toby.

  “I’m going to go take a shower,” I said. “Don’t leave without me.”

  “What makes you think you’re going?”

  “Aren’t you the one who’s afraid of the big bad bully?” I arched an eyebrow. “I thought I’d go and keep the peace.”

  “I’m not afraid of Moses.”

  “So should I not go then?”

  “No, you can come,” Luke sighed, as if it pained him to allow me along, and rolled his eyes. “Just don’t take too long getting ready.”

  “Whatever.” I briefly considered taking my sweet time to get ready out of spite, but I remembered we were under something of a time crunch. At my usual pace, it usually only took me forty-five minutes to shower, dress and do my hair and makeup, but I managed it in half an hour out of fear that Luke would leave without me just because he could.

  When I got back downstairs, Toby was there and, to my surprise, so was Tegan. For a minute I worried I’d forgotten about some plans we made, but she saw the panic on my face and quickly explained she was bored at home and walked over, deciding to leave babysitting Tanner and Tatum to Tierney.