Perfect Kisses

by Maine, Miley

  It was unfair. Why couldn’t he just accept that Grayson and I were happy together?

  I yawned, and decided that that was a question for another day. For the moment, I needed some rest, and badly.

  I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  20

  Grayson

  I should have realized that Serenity was gone when she didn’t come to me in the middle of the night with a nightmare asking to sleep in my bed. I should have realized that something was wrong when she didn’t ask to sleep in my bed again. But I was a fool, and so terribly oblivious.

  So it was only when I went to her bedroom to get her up in time for work that I realized something was wrong. She wasn’t in her bed, not in the bathroom, and none of the other places that I looked. She hadn’t left a note, or a text, or a call, and I was about ready to call the police out of panic by the time I had finished scouring the house.

  Instead I dialed her number, praying that she would pick up, praying that nothing had happened to her.

  She didn’t. Instead my phone went to the voicemail box after two rings, which meant that she had declined my call.

  “Serenity, please call me back and tell me what’s going on, I’m really worried. I just want to know that you’re okay.”

  I hung up, and sent her a text along the same lines, but there was no answer.

  Was there a chance that she had been kidnapped? It didn’t look like there had been any sort of break in, my alarm system hadn’t been tripped, nothing had been taken, and there was no ransom note.

  I went back up to her room, to find that all of her things had been taken, packed away. So she must have left voluntarily.

  If she was declining my calls, then I had to at least make sure that she got back home safely.

  I dialed up Sebastian without even thinking about it, forgetting in my panic that the two of us were no longer on good terms. Thankfully, my call went through and not to straight to voicemail and he picked up after a few rings.

  I could tell he was angry, even without him saying anything.

  “Sebastian—”

  “She’s back here if that’s what you want to know, came in early this morning.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No, don’t thank me. You don’t have any right to do that. You know what, I don’t even know why I bothered to answer you in the first place.”

  “Sebastian, why can’t we talk about this?”

  “Oh, you want to know why we can’t talk about this? Because the situation’s even worse than I first thought. How dare you do that to my sister? She came home crying to our mom, because you used her and got her pregnant and now she’s the one who’s suffering. And she’s right, you don’t deserve to be in hers or her baby’s life. Goodbye.”

  “Se—” He hung up on me before I could stop him, ask what was going on, demand some sort of explanation.

  Serenity, pregnant? Was that why she had gone home?

  But that was preposterous. The two of us had always used protection, and even if we hadn’t, could she really have gotten pregnant in that short of an amount of time?

  On a hunch, I headed to her bathroom, looking in the trash can. Sure enough, right at the top, there was the discarded strip of a pregnancy test, with two stripes, marking it positive.

  So she was pregnant then.

  I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, not without talking to her first. But how had Sebastian wound up thinking that I had gotten her pregnant? And what was I supposed to do to fix this?

  I couldn’t very well just leave things the way that they currently were, with misunderstandings all over the place and the woman that I loved six hours away from me and pregnant with someone else’s baby. There had to be something that I could do.

  But I couldn’t do anything right now. It was getting late in the morning, and I knew that Ryan had to be worrying since I hadn’t shown up yet. I would deal with these things later.

  21

  Serenity

  Grayson wouldn’t stop calling me.

  I didn’t want to talk to him, not right now, not with the way that I was feeling. So I kept declining them or letting them ring until they went to voicemail.

  I got his texts, but I deleted them. I didn’t listen to his voicemails. Just the thought of hearing his voice made me want to cry. I knew that my mom said she had a plan to deal with things, but everything seemed so broken at the moment. I didn’t know if it would work at all.

  I had ruined everything. Grayson and Sebastian’s friendship. My chance at a relationship with Grayson. Even now my relationship with my brother felt incredibly strained. I wanted to go to him, but I feared that he would judge me, that he wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say.

  So instead I sat in my room, too tired to read anything, too sad to play my harp.

  My mother noticed this, and I knew that she had to be concerned about me. But she didn’t know how to make it any better and I didn’t know how to relieve her concern, so she came up to check up on me every once in a while.

  This time she came in balancing a plate of freshly-baked gingerbread cookies in one hand and a glass of orange juice in the other. She set them down on my desk and then closed the bedroom door behind her, pulling over my chair to sit near to me.

  “Can I get you to eat anything?” she asked.

  I sat up to look at her, wondering why she continued to put up with me and this behavior. “Maybe in a few minutes.”

  “Alright. As long as you’re eating.” She reached out one hand and tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. “You know I love you, darling.”

  “I know.” I looked down at my hands. I hadn’t been feeling that recently from my father or my brother. My relationship with Grayson seemed to have created an unbearable tension in the house, something I didn’t know how to fix. I felt judgment from my brother and my father at every turn, even if they didn’t mean for it to be that obvious.

  “Here.” She got up, grabbed the plate of gingerbread cookies, and brought them back over. She took one and began to eat it. “I think I really got the batch almost perfect this time. Won’t you try one and tell me what you think?”

  I shrugged, grabbing a cookie from the plate to indulge her. “Why not.” She was right, I realized as I bit into it. The cookies were almost perfect now. She had been working tirelessly recently to create a new gingerbread cookie recipe with an orange zest flavor. Part of me suspected that it was to get my mind off of the things that were happening, but I also knew that it could very well be that she just wanted to try some new things out.

  The ginger and the orange flavors were balancing really well this time, but there was still...something missing.

  “Have you tried adding a bit of cacao powder?” I asked.

  She stopped, bringing her hand to her chin and thinking for a moment. “No, not yet. You know, that might actually work.” She smiled at me, setting the plate of cookies down. “Maybe you should help me with the next batch. It’ll get your mind off of things.”

  I groaned. “I don’t know if anything will get my mind off of things. It’s always there, in the back of my mind, reminding me that I messed up.”

  “Hey.” She grabbed my hand, forcing me to look up at her. “This isn’t your fault, never has been. There was wrong all around, but it was never about you. Do you mind if I sit next to you?”

  I shrugged and let my mom come sit next to me on the bed, pulling me into her arms.

  She smelled like the kitchen. Like winter nights and sunlight and flour on a handmade apron. It was one of my favorite parts of home, the way my mom smelled.

  “Listen to me, everyone fights, especially friends. It’s just an unfortunate part of life. The fact is that Grayson and Sebastian were bound to have a fight at some point, it just so happened that you got involved. They’re strong friends, always have been, so it’s not like a fight is going to break them apart forever. There were wrongs on both sides, which is why I’m confident that they’ll be able t
o work things out.”

  “But I don’t think that they want to,” I said, suppressing a sniffle.

  “Don’t worry about that.” My mom tapped my nose and gave me a small smile. “I have a plan. They’ll be friends again before the year is over, I can guarantee it.”

  I wondered if she was right, if her plan would work. The way that I saw things, Sebastian was very adamant about maintaining his ground. How would my mom get him to listen and realize that he had also been wrong?

  I guessed only time would tell. We still had a little over a week before the new year, so I knew that if what my mom was saying was true, I wouldn’t have to wait very long. I could only hope that she was right.

  22

  Grayson

  I knew that I had to fix things, I couldn’t leave it how it was, with Serenity ignoring me and Sebastian frustrated. I was confused, and I wanted to know the truth, and I didn’t want to let Serenity down.

  So I decided that the best course of action would be to show up on Christmas Eve. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing to do, or the most respectful, but I was a desperate man in love, and for that I think I deserved some forgiveness.

  When I knocked, the first face I saw was Sebastian’s. He was seething, eyes dark with anger, hands curled into fists at the sight of me.

  “How dare you come here?” he demanded. “Haven’t you done enough damage already?”

  “Sebastian, I want to fix things.”

  “Well you’re too late. You should have thought of that before you betrayed our friendship.” He spat at my feet, and moved to slam the door in my face, but then Mrs. Allen showed up behind him and set a hand on his shoulder.

  “Let’s not be rash now,” she said. “Grayson, why don’t you come inside?”

  Sebastian gave her a curious look, but stepped aside and let me in anyways. Mrs. Allen shut the door behind us and then gestured for us both to follow her into the living room.

  “Mom, what are you doing?” Sebastian asked, keeping his voice low.

  “I’m taking care of things,” she said. “Now why don’t you go grab your father and meet us in the living room.”

  Sebastian nodded, and headed off to go find Mr. Allen while Mrs. Allen had me sit down in one of the familiar armchairs.

  “Are you sure this is wise?” I asked her. “You know he’s really angry.”

  “I thought you wanted to fix things.” She tilted her head, giving me a strange look.

  “Well of course I do, that’s why I came here. But Sebastian doesn’t want to listen to reason. I mainly wanted to talk to Serenity first.”

  “That’ll come in good time,” she promised. “Don’t worry, I have a plan.”

  That was so like Mrs. Allen. She always seemed to have something up her sleeve. Whenever Sebastian and I had gotten into fights when we were younger she always had some scheme to make us get along again.

  But this wasn’t like the old days anymore. I didn’t know if a board game or baking a batch of cookies together was going to help us see through our differences. Clearly I had crossed a line when I got together with Serenity, a line that Sebastian would not allow to be broken without consequences.

  Then Mr. Allen and Sebastian entered the living room. Clearly Mr. Allen knew what was going on, for the look he had on his face almost rivaled Sebastian’s.

  “I never would have expected this from you, Grayson,” he said. “I always thought you were a good kid, with some sense in you. So why’d you do it?”

  “Let’s not ask such pointed questions,” Mrs. Allen replied. “I feel in this instance you’ve only heard one side of the story. It’s time to let Grayson talk.”

  “I think I’ve heard enough to have an opinion on it,” Mr. Allen insisted. “He messed with my daughter and betrayed the trust of my son. What more is there to hear?”

  “There’s always more to the story than what’s on the surface.” Mrs. Allen turned to me with an encouraging smile. “Why don’t you go through your side of things first, dear?”

  “Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I never meant to cause any harm, I really didn’t. When I came back and saw how Serenity had grown, I couldn’t help but be attracted to her. Maybe things would have been different if I had seen her grow up, but here she was, an adult, all at once, and she was interested in me.

  “I never intended for things to get serious, or continue on for very long. I told her that from the very beginning. I think I was scared of getting attached, of her getting attached. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I couldn’t deny my desires, so I just asked if she wanted to mess around for a bit while I was here.”

  “But clearly you knew that the scam of an internship was a bad idea,” Mr. Allen said.

  “It was never a scam, she really did do interning work at my company. You can ask her yourself if you wish. Yes, part of it was so that my time with her was not cut short, but I also wanted to give her opportunities that she didn’t seem to be getting. I cared about her as a person, and I wanted her to be able to follow her dreams. I thought an internship at a prestigious company might be able to do that.”

  “What, so her employers knew she was good at sucking dick?”

  “Richard!” Mrs. Allen sent a pointed look in Mr. Allen’s direction. “You will not speak of our daughter that way, nor will you assume things of their relationship! No employer is going to think that she did that.”

  “Really? Because it’s quite suspicious, interning with a family friend for only a few weeks in order to be able to get recommendations and put it on your resume.”

  “Well it’s not something they should assume,” Mrs. Allen insisted. “And I will not let you attack either our daughter, or Grayson while he is still explaining himself.”

  “I think I’ve heard enough.”

  “No you haven’t!”

  “It’s alright,” I said. “I can understand why you might assume things, or be frustrated by this, but I assure you that I never wanted to make things seem that way. In fact, I tried to move our relationship back to one that was professional after a few days, but neither of us could do it. We were both developing feelings for each other, real feelings at that point. Would you really deny us that?”

  “You were the one who started things,” Sebastian said. “And you knew that they would end up wrong. I mean, you got her pregnant! What do you have to say about that.”

  “I couldn’t have gotten her pregnant, I used protection the whole time. You know that I wouldn’t have done that to her.”

  “He’s right,” Mrs. Allen said. Sebastian and Mr. Allen both looked to her in shock. “Serenity told me. It was Ethan.”

  “That’s her ex, right?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  Sebastian almost looked ashamed of himself for assuming what he had, but I couldn’t quite tell if he was or not.

  “I don’t care,” I admitted. “I don’t care if it’s not my baby, or that she’s pregnant. I want to support her through this, to be the man that she deserves, and the father that her child deserves.”

  Sebastian and Mr. Allen looked shocked, but I could see that Mrs. Allen was nodding along as if she expected something exactly like this.

  “I would like to go up and see her. I want to talk through things with her, make sure that she is okay, and get her opinion on our relationship progressing before I listen to anyone else’s.”

  “Please do that,” Mrs. Allen said. “I’ll talk to these two. She should be up in her room.”

  “Thank you.” I stood, and then walked upstairs to Serenity’s room. I knocked, and there was a muffled “Come in.”

  When I opened the door, Serenity was lying in her bed on her side, looking at the wall. It didn’t appear as if she was doing anything else, and I wondered if she was okay. I would think that she would look happier, or at least be doing something, since it was Christmas.

  “Serenity,” I said, not wanting to startle her.

  She rolled over and looked at me with wide eyes
, then sat up and immediately began brushing down her hair and picking self-consciously at her outfit.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you would be here,” she said. “Why are you here?”

  “For you, of course.” I extended one arm to her. “May I sit down?”

  “Please.” She gestured to her desk chair. “You can sit there if you’d like.”

  I took her offer and sat, then turned to look at her with a sad smile. “Are you doing okay? You seem a bit sad.”

  She looked down at her hands. “I didn’t think it would hurt this much. Leaving you. Feeling the disappointment of my family. But it hurts, really bad.”

  “I know, but it doesn’t have to hurt anymore. I’m back.”

  “Even though I ran away? And didn’t answer any of your phone calls?” There were tears in her eyes now, and I could tell that she really regretted what she had done.

  “Serenity, I don’t care about that. I love you. What I want to know is if you love me too?”

  “Of course I love you, I just didn’t think….” Her hand drifted to her belly.

  “Serenity, it’s alright, I already know.”

  “You do? Who told you?”

  “Well, Sebastian initially, though he was under the impression that I was the one who had gotten you pregnant.”

  She bit back a laugh. “He overheard me talking to my mom, and misunderstood. I wish it had been you.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Because maybe then it wouldn’t feel so bad. Because maybe then I wouldn’t have run away. Because there wouldn’t have been the possibility of you...of you….”

  “Of me what? I’m not going to judge you.”

  “Of you thinking that I had cheated on you, or rejecting me because of it, or rejecting the baby….” She sniffled, and I stood and crossed the room to pull her up and into my arms.

  “I wish you wouldn’t think of it that way. I know that you’ve been hurt before, but I promise that I’m not going to hurt you. Serenity, I love you, and I’m prepared to love you through anything, and support you in whatever way you need me to. I’m prepared to raise your child as my own, because for all I care, they are.”