Beautiful Sky

by Ashley Blake

  “I hope not.” Mr. Hunter’s words were firm.

  Tension hung in the air as we finished dessert and then we all headed home. We dropped Barbi off first and she was not happy about that and tried to lure Jonathan back to her room.

  “Jonny, I was hoping you could help me hang those pictures I told you about.”

  Jonathan’s mom, jumped right in. “Barbara, Jonathan has a big day ahead of him tomorrow with the welcoming committee and all. Surely you can find one of your friends to help you hang a couple of pictures tomorrow at a more appropriate hour when you won’t be disturbing your dorm mates.”

  Well I guess she doesn’t want anyone else to call her son Jonny!

  Barbi’s cheeks were bright red as she mumbled a response. I couldn’t tell what she said but she quickly thanked the Hunters for dinner and told my parents how nice it had been to meet them. She plastered a fake smile on her face and she looked at me.

  “I will see you tomorrow some time, I’m sure Skylar. It was so great to spend time with you tonight, we should definitely do this more often.”

  I plastered an equally fake smile on my face and nodded at her. Um, yeah, that will happen when pigs not only fly, but sing and dance too!

  She gave Jonathan a hug which lingered a little too long in my opinion, and then she was gone. Finally!

  The energy really shifted after Barbi left and the car ride back to the dorm was a lot of fun. My parents and Jonathan’s parents were chatting like they were old friends and it was all pretty surreal to me. Everything felt like a dream as Jonathan casually draped his arm around the back of my seat. The car pulled up to our dorm a few minutes later and I thanked his parents for dinner and told my parents I would see them for breakfast. Jonathan said goodnight to his parents and mine, and the car waited until we were safely in the dorm.

  Jonathan walked me to my room and was really quiet as we walked down the empty hall. When we got my door, he stood looking at me with a pensive look on his face for a minute and I started to feel a little bit uncomfortable and raw. His voice was gentle as he finally spoke.

  “Did you have a nice time this evening, Sky?”

  “I did, your parents are so nice Jonathan.”

  “I could tell that they like you and they like your parents, who are equally as nice.” A small smile touched the corner of his mouth.

  I was on cloud nine and then I remembered Barbi. “So, Barbi is your cousin by marriage. Why didn’t you just tell me that from the beginning Jonathan? That would have saved both of us a bit of heartache.”

  He took a step closer to me and gently held my hand, his eyes searching mine. “Your heart was aching?”

  Oh, I revealed too much. I decided to be honest as I held his gaze. “Yes, it was.”

  He raised my hand to his lips, gave it a gentle kiss, and looked at me. “So was mine. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner Sky, but I tried. You just wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “Well, I’m happy that is all cleared up now.”

  “Me too. I want you to know that I’m not the kind of guy to go after more than one girl at a time. And right now, you’re the only who has my attention. I don’t plan on looking anywhere else.”

  I wanted to melt right there on the spot. What do you say to that? Luckily he kept talking and I didn’t have to say a thing.

  He casually smoothed away my hair that had fallen over my eye and he smiled at me.

  “Thanks for coming to dinner with us tonight. I probably won’t see you tomorrow since I am helping set up a bunch of stuff for the festivities, and my parents and I are going to dinner with the dean and a few other people tomorrow night. But I’ll see you Sunday night, right?”

  Dinner with the dean, must be nice to be rich. Wait, what does he mean Sunday night?

  “Sunday night? Did we have plans?”

  “Yes, that’s when I was going to explain the whole Barbi situation. You’re supposed to meet me at 8:00.”

  I was confused. “But, that’s all cleared up now.”

  “Yes, but I still would like to spend time with you. So, if I don’t see you tomorrow, will I see you on Sunday?”

  I could not have been happier as I smiled at him. “Yes.”

  He eyes lingered on my lips and he leaned down and softly touched them with his own and smiled at me. “Goodnight, beautiful Sky.”

  Butterflies for days. I gave him a small, sweet smile. “Goodnight Jonathan.”

  Chapter Ten

  The rest of parent’s weekend passed in a blur for me. I was still in a fog over what had happened Thursday night, and while I loved having my parents visiting me, all I could think about was my date with Jonathan Sunday night. We were scheduled all day Friday and Saturday with campus activities and I ended up crashing at my parents’ hotel Saturday night because they were leaving the next day. My cot was all set up in their room, Jay was brushing his teeth, and my mom and I were talking about the weekend. She said how nice it had been to meet Jonathan’s parents and how impressed they were with the campus and my professors, and then she wanted to talk about Jonathan.

  “So, I think Jonathan is a really nice young man and I hope we’ll get to see him again soon. He seems to like you Sky, but don’t let that interfere with your studies.”

  I rolled my eyes and smiled at her. “Mom, how well do you know your daughter?”

  “Pretty well, I think.”

  “Have you ever known me to let a boy get in the way of any of my goals?”

  She smiled at me. “No, I suppose you have never allowed that to happen.”

  “Exactly. Trust me, it’s not going to start happening now. Besides, Jonathan and I are just friends, nothing more.”

  She gave me a knowing look but dropped it just as Jay came out of the bathroom.

  “Okay ladies, lights out, we have an early day tomorrow.”

  He was right, there was a farewell breakfast for the families the next day and my parents were flying home after that. As I lay there in the dark, my stomach did flips as I thought about seeing Jonathan the next night. I had only seen him briefly across campus once because he was busy helping out. I couldn’t wait to see him the next night.

  The next morning we ran into Jonathan and his parents after breakfast and we chatted for a few minutes about the weekend. Jonathan’s mom really liked my mom and they were chatting like they were old friends. I guess what still surprised me about that was that they seemed to be so different, at least on the outside. My mom was very simple in her appearance, she was pretty but wasn’t really into fashion that much, and Jonathan’s mom was dressed in designer stuff from head to toe. She looked like the kind of woman who you would see in a high society magazine or something. But she was so cool and down to earth, not at all what I thought she would be.

  Anyway, they were chatting away, Jay and Mr. Hunter were talking about golf and Jonathan couldn’t take his eyes off of me.

  “I have to help clean up after all of the parents leave but we’re still on for tonight, right?”

  “Definitely. I’ll meet you in the lobby?”

  “Actually, change of plans. Come down to my room instead.”

  His mom must have heard him because she glanced at him and gave him a disapproving look and Jonathan quickly explained.

  “I’m having a quick floor meeting and sometimes the guys like to linger and hang out, but when they see you they’ll know to leave. We can go to the student union to grab a quick snack.”

  His father must also have been listening because he chimed in.

  “Jonathan, if you have plans with Skylar it is much more appropriate for you to go to her door to pick her up rather than have her come downstairs to your room, we’ve raised you better than that. I’m sure her parents would appreciate you behaving like a gentleman.”

  The words were firm as he gave Jonathan a knowing look, and Jonathan looked sheepish as he looked from his dad to his mom to me. I could see that he really respected his parents.

  “My dad’s right, I�
�m sorry about that. I will come upstairs to your door at 8:00 and then we can go to the student union.”

  My mom smiled and I knew that she liked that he was going to do what she considered “the proper thing.” My parents were very old-fashioned like that and apparently so were Jonathan’s parents. Adults could be so stuffy sometimes.

  “Okay, great. I’ll be ready at 8:00. Mom, Jay, we better get back to the hotel to check out and get your bags. You don’t want to miss your flight.”

  “Oh, she’s right Sarah, we better get going. It has been so nice getting to know you, and thank again for the wonderful dinner Thursday night. And Joshua, so nice to meet you as well. We hope you have a safe flight back home.”

  My mom and Jonathan’s mom hugged each other goodbye and said that they hoped to see each other again very soon. Joshua gave my mom a side hug and I thought she was going to faint right there. She was swooning over him like a teenager, it was so cute, and thankfully Mrs. Hunter was not fazed at all. I think Jay was a bit jealous but he played it off. I had to agree with my mom about Mr. Hunter, though. He was drop dead gorgeous.

  “Skylar it was lovely to meet you and hopefully we will see you again soon.” His mom gave me a quick hug which was very sweet.

  Mr. Hunter leaned down to whisper to me loud enough for everyone to hear. “Keep an eye on him for me. Clearly, between the two of you, you have more common sense.” He winked at me and smiled and I could feel my cheeks burning. Oh yeah, Jonathan definitely gets his charm from you.

  “Dad, you’re embarrassing her. Don’t listen to him Sky.” Jonathan was the one who seemed embarrassed and it was cute.

  “Okay, Joshua, now that you have thoroughly embarrassed our son, that is our cue to leave.” Mrs. Hunter playfully tugged on his arm.

  We all said our goodbyes and I went with my parents back to their hotel.

  “You know, honey, there is something very special about that family. I really like Sarah, she’s so nice and so easy to talk with. I do hope I see her again. It’s not as easy to make new friends at my age.”

  “I’m happy that you guys got along so well, it made the weekend even more fun.”

  Jay chimed in. “I liked Joshua a lot too. He wasn’t at all what I expected from someone with so much money and power. Good people, those Hunters.”

  We got their luggage and I said goodbye to them as the airport shuttle pulled up. Sadness fell over me as I realized that they were leaving and I choked back tears as I hugged my mom goodbye.

  “Thank you so much for coming, it meant so much to me.”

  “Of course honey. Good luck with the rest of your classes and have fun with Jonathan tonight.”

  Jay gave me a hug goodbye. “But not too much fun. I don’t want to have to come back here!”

  He was joking but there was an element of seriousness behind his words.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine!”

  “We love you honey, we’ll call you when we land.”

  I waved goodbye as the shuttle took off and wiped away the tear that was falling down my cheek. I missed my parents already but I would be seeing them in a few weeks for Thanksgiving so I thought about how quickly the time would fly and that made me feel better.

  Chapter Eleven

  I went back to my room and Katie was still out, so I took advantage of the quiet and studied at my desk for a couple of hours. My stomach started to growl halfway through reading about Pavlov’s dog and I couldn’t focus anymore. I walked down the hall to see who was around to go eat dinner and found Jenn who was just getting ready to find someone to go eat with. We chatted about the weekend as we ate dinner and she told me she didn’t realize that she missed her parents as much as she did until she saw them.

  “I know, it was the same for me. Weird, right?”

  “Yeah, totally. So, did I see you and your parents talking to Jonathan and his parents?”

  Jenn was a no nonsense kind of girl, and normally I liked that, but not when the conversation was about me. I didn’t want her to blab all around so I downplayed the whole Jonathan thing.

  “Oh, I guess so. My parents chatted with a bunch of different people this weekend, so I guess you could have seen them talking to the Hunters.” Please don’t ask me anything else.

  Thankfully my answer seemed to satisfy her so she changed the subject to Jonathan’s band.

  “They’re playing this Friday in town and a bunch of us are going, do you want to come with?”

  I tried to hide my excitement of seeing him on stage again, of course I wanted to go!

  “Yeah, they were so awesome! I’ll let Katie, Brenda and Amanda know so that they can join us.”

  “Um, I don’t think Brenda and Amanda will want to be in the same room together let alone go to a concert together.” She raised her eyebrows as she looked down at her nails.

  “Why not?”

  “You didn’t hear about this?”

  “No! I’ve been buried in books at the library every day, what have I missed?”

  She leaned in to whisper and I knew some juicy gossip was coming my way. “Well, you know how Brenda and Jake coupled up, like the first week of school?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I guess Jake and Amanda were leaving the library at the same time one night and one thing led to another.”

  “What?! He cheated on Brenda?”

  “That’s what the rumor is, and Amanda is not hiding the fact that she is into Jake but Jake is totally blowing her off.”

  “Does Brenda know?”

  “Yeah, and Jake supposedly was on his knees crying and begging her to forgive him, and she did.”

  “Stupid girl.”

  “Yep, I agree. Once a guy cheats on you, you can never trust him again. So, like I said, I don’t think those two will be going anywhere together.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Wow, I really have been living under a rock. I need to get out more so I’ll definitely go to the concert this Friday.”

  “Awesome, it’ll be so much fun!”

  We went back to the dorm and I grabbed my books and headed off to the library for the afternoon. I was able to get in a good, solid four hours of studying and then I went to grab a quick dinner. At about 7:00 I went back to my room to get ready for my date with Jonathan.

  Chapter Twelve

  Katie still wasn’t back in our room so I was able to get ready without being interrogated. I was all ready at 7:58 and I checked my lipstick in the mirror, expecting to hear his knock at any minute. I had known him to be nothing but punctual. At 8:10 I started to wonder if I had somehow confused the night we were supposed to get together. At 8:25 I started to get annoyed, and at 8:40 I was downright pissed.

  Is he blowing me off?

  I could feel myself getting more pissed and I decided to go downstairs and confront him because I was not going to let him get away with treating me like this.

  His door was open and there were about six or seven guys in his room and I instantly felt shy because I had only expected to see him. I didn’t want all of those guys to see me all pissed off at him so I had to keep my emotions in check.

  I stood in the doorway and lightly tapped on the doorframe. Jonathan looked my way and I could see a small grin begin to spread across his face.

  “Guys, we can talk about this more tomorrow, okay?” He had a serious look on his face and that’s all it took for everyone to leave the room and close the door. Jonathan had a sexiness and masculine authority that was way beyond his young years and I liked it.

  “Did I get the day and the time wrong Jonathan?” There was an obvious edge of irritation on my voice.

  “No, I’m really sorry Sky, one of the guys is dealing with some really heavy stuff at home so we were all trying to help him.”

  I instantly felt bad for being so upset. If someone was dealing with heavy stuff at home, that was more important than our silly little date.

  “Oh, I feel bad now that everyone left. We can hang out another time, you reall
y should go talk to this guy.”

  “No, no, he’s alright now. We gave him some great advice and he called home tonight and things are on the mend. The guys that were here when you came in were just making sure there wasn’t more we could do for him, and there really isn’t except be an ear for him to listen when he needs someone to talk to. Most of the guys are good guys so he has a solid bunch to choose from, including me, of course.”

  “Oh, okay, well I’m glad things are better for him. You said most of the guys are good guys…who’s the bad apple?”