“Hey, we actually managed to fit everything in!” I happily exclaimed and threw my arms up in triumph right after we had closed the trunk of the car.

“Barely, but yes.” Jack nodded in agreement, still getting used to the warm temperatures that we were now experiencing and our clothes weren’t exactly adjusted to yet.

I decided to take drastic measures and pull the sweater I was wearing over my head so I was just standing there in a black tank top. “I don’t get why you insisted on bringing your guitar, but we made it work.”

“Because guitars are fun, obviously,” he told me matter-of-factly and walked to the right side of the car to get in.

“Jack, that’s the driver’s side…” I pointed out and stopped him before he could open the door whose handle he was already holding.

“Right.” He clicked his tongue and went around the front to go to the side we were used to having the driver on.

I could help but giggle a little at his mistake and took his previous place, only I did open the door and got in. It was weird having a steering wheel in front of me while sitting in the front right seat, it was going to be even weirder to have to drive on the left side of the road. Both Jack and I were going to have to pay attention that I didn’t accidentally fuck up when taking a turn. I was bound to fuck up.

“This would have been so much easier if it was an automatic…” I breathed out as I tried to orientate myself. Practically everything was placed somewhere else except for the pedals. It was going to take a while to get used to.

“It’s why I refused to drive. I don’t trust myself on the left side of the road already, no way I’ll trust myself with a manual.” Jack agreed, sitting comfortably where he was, not having to do anything.

I started adjusting the mirrors so that I could see everything properly and put on my seatbelt. This was either going to be way easier than I expected, or things were going to be disastrous. I was good at driving back at home, but this was a whole new challenge. But, hey, being a little nervous couldn’t stop me. We had to get somewhere. After Jack had put the destination into the navigation embedded in the dashboard, I turned on the engine fully.

As soon as I tried to start up, the car started bouncing before stalling and turning off.

“Ok, let’s try not to do that.” Jack stared at me with wide eyes, showcasing his fear.

“Oh, shut up.” I rolled my eyes and turned the keys again. “It’s not like you would have done any better.”

“I know, that’s why I didn’t even offer to drive. If it were me, I’d probably be doing that at every stop light, bringing me back to my driving lessons…” He shuddered at the memories from when he was a teenager. “I mean, at least I know how to drive a manual, right?”

I shrugged with a nod, sort of agreeing. There were so many people that just never learned it. At least we got to drive my dad’s fancy car that he gave us. If neither of us knew how to drive manual, it would have been useless. Plus, it was very useful at car rentals. Even with the premium cars, you could easily get a manual instead of an automatic, as now shown by the car my dad had rented for us.

I started up again, this time not fucking up. It was quite strange having to do the gearshift with my other arm and my rearview mirror being to the left. I could deal with it, though. I just had to be a little more careful than usual, especially since these roads were very unfamiliar. What I did, however, do wrong, was the signaling. Cars with the driver's side on the right apparently also had the windscreen wipers and the signaling switched around. So, when I wanted to go to the left like the navigation said, I accidentally turned on the wipers.

Jack let out a shriek, startled by the sound of the wipers on the dry glass. “What was that? Don’t do that!”

“Oh my god, Jack.” I sighed out in frustration. “This will not be the first time I do that. If you’re going to comment on every small thing I do wrong because everything is mirror imaged in this car, I will punch you in the dick.”

“Oh, no, not me testicles!”

I snorted at the weird voice he put on and couldn’t help but chuckle a few times, but as soon as I actually got to turn to the left, I tried to turn serious again. “Honestly, though, I will do it.”

A grin, however, decided to creep up on my face, knowing this drive was just going to be full of me making mistakes, Jack trying to keep quiet about it, me threatening him, and lots of giggles.

----

“Ok, so how bad was this thing between you and your mom again?” Jack asked me as I turned off the engine of the car.

We were parked outside the house, or at least what I hoped was the house. All of the buildings looked very similar. It was part of this resort thing that usually rented them out, however some of the houses were also for sale. Hence why my father now owned one of them. It was pretty awesome because we still got to enjoy the resort’s amazing features and it was easier for my dad to rent it out while we weren’t here. I still thought it was pretty stupid to just randomly buy a house this big for no reason, but it was giving me a nice vacation, so I wasn’t going to complain.

“I don’t know, Jack,” I sighed and pressed the button to take off my seatbelt. Eventually, I had told him about the fight my mom and I had, but he never pushed the subject. Only, now I couldn’t exactly avoid it anymore. “I guess it really depends on what she does.”

“But how do you feel about it? Maybe your mom’s waiting to see how you are going to deal with it.” He smartly pointed out, strangely being the voice of reason this time.

“Don’t make this more difficult than necessary for me, please,” I groaned, bringing my left hand to the handle to open the car door.

Jack shrugged and opened his side of the car before hopping out. “I’m just preparing you so you won’t worry about it while it’s happening, but you do you.”

“I know…” I slowly got out as well and followed him to the back of the car to get our suitcases out. “But I’m not even sure how I feel about it. I don’t want to be mad at her, but she did make me feel guilty.”

“Guilty?”

“Yeah, for Cam’s death.”

“Oh.”

I used the key to unlock the trunk and open it. “But I don’t like holding grudges, you know?”

“I’m pretty sure I know. We definitely wouldn’t be together anymore if you did.” He chuckled and slipped an arm around my waist, stopping me from reaching in to grab the first bag. I looked up to ask what was going on, but his lips were already softly pressed against mine.

“Oh my god! I knew I heard a car!” A female voice yelled out in excitement from the front door.

Jack and I broke apart and looked towards the sound to see May running out to us. Immediately, Jack’s face sported a grin and he held his arms out so that she could run into them. However, as she got closer, she pushed away one of his arms so she could run past and instead attacked me with a hug first. I nearly fell over, not even being close to prepared for the impact. But as her arms were around me, I couldn’t help but laugh and hug her back.

“Hey.” Jack pouted as he watched us and slowly dropped his arms to his side out of defeat.

“I like her more.” May stuck her tongue out at her younger brother, causing him to intensify his pout.

“God dammit.” He grumbled and went to grab the first suitcase from the car.

“Awe, poor Jack-o. Don’t worry, I love you too.” She broke away from me and went over to Jack, also giving him a big bear hug. Jack’s face immediately lit up despite knowing that his sister was joking when she went up to me first.

While they were hugging each other, I went to take over what Jack had started and took out the remainder of the suitcases. The only reason why we had so much was because of Jack’s guitar and him insisting that he brought a suitcase for his own clothes. I suggested that we share one, but no. Apparently, he needed a large variety of clothes to choose from. Honestly, my bag was smaller than his and way lighter.

“Everybody’s already at the beach. I stayed back in case you guys came since we weren’t sure when you’d arrive,” May told us, explaining the absence of other family members coming out to greet us. “Let me help you bring your stuff in and we’ll go as well.”

“Fuck yeah, I love the beach!” Jack excitedly clapped his hands together.

Shortly afterward, although Jack and I were so confused with time zones and having been traveling for over a full day, we were in our swimming costumes and walking with our toes sinking into silky soft sand. The sun was beaming down on us, reflecting off the ripples in the ocean as well. Everything was so bright. No, literally, it was so bright. I was so lucky I was wearing sunglasses, or I would have not been able to see anything.

May lead us to where our families were, which wasn’t all too far away. We were practically the only ones to be there since school holidays weren’t going on anywhere in the world. It was so warm, though. Even though it was April, I felt like it was summer. I did not want to know what it was like when it was actually summer there.

I saw my parents sitting with Jack’s on their towels somewhere closer to the water and three other people in the water. The only people I knew who it could be were my two cousins and Joe. But first I had to figure out how I was going to greet everybody including my mom. I literally gave Jack a push so that he had to go first and I could easily follow him. It was a pretty smart move, if I said so myself.

May announced that she had ‘found’ us. All the parents stood up straight afterward. Jack first went to hug my parents, so that left me to go and say hi to his mom and dad who I hadn’t seen in very long. The last time I saw them was when I first met Jack’s brother. They were pretty glad to see me as well.

But then Jack and I switched over. Since my mom was the first one, I was able to transition easily. I didn’t give Jack’s parents very elaborate hugs, just the normal thing, so I did that to my mom as well while muttering a ‘hi’. She rubbed my back a little but I moved away quite quickly. I could tell that she sensed that something was still off, but I wasn’t planning on fixing it right at the moment. When I got to my dad, I practically jumped on him like every single other time.

“One day I am going to be too old for you attacking me like this, you know.” He chuckled, but still hugged me back tightly.

“But that day is not today!” I exclaimed and squeezed him, causing him to try and pry my arms off.

“I’ll take her from you.” Jack appeared behind me and picked me up as soon as I let go. I didn’t even have to ask what his plan was, there was only one thing he could have in mind. We were way too close to water for him not to do it. And the fact that he was walking in the direction of the ocean just confirmed it.

“Don’t you dare!” I warned and wrapped my arms around his neck so it would be way more difficult to throw me in without taking him along.

Jack acted oblivious as he entered the water, some of it splashing up against my back. “Dare do what?”

“I swear to god!” I yelped as he kept going further and further. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go in, I just didn’t want it happening this way.

“Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I didn’t even have time anymore to protest. Jack already let go of me right when I least expected it, so my grip on him wasn’t strong enough to pull him along with me. I fell through the air shortly before by body hit the cold salty water. I went all the way under until I swam back up. Jack was laughing loudly when I came back to the surface. But that wasn’t for long. Since I was still fully in the water except for my head, I grabbed his legs and pulled them out from underneath him.

“Goddammit!” He screamed as he resurfaced, glaring at me but a smile spread across his face nonetheless.

I stuck my tongue out at him and swam away as fast as I could. The splashes from his strokes came soon after, trying to catch me. I, however, was just a little faster and went straight for my cousins and Joe. The only reason I knew where I was going was because of my youngest cousin’s blonde hair that reflected light quite well. But she wasn’t my exact target. Toby, my older cousin, who was in his early thirties, was already shaking his head at me.

I didn’t listen, though and went to hide behind him. “Save me!”

“No!” He shouted back at me, trying to get away from me. I had my hands on his shoulders, though, so I just went along with him.

Lucky for him, Jack was no longer following me and decided to dunk his own brother under water. Joe gave him a sarcastic greeting and splashed Jack back, waving at me to acknowledge me as well. When everything calmed down a little, I decided to make some introductions.

“Jack, you still know Sophie.” I reintroduced them, knowing that Jack had probably forgotten her name by them. He saw her once when we had dinner at my parents’ house as she was there as well with aunt Doreen. “And this is Toby. Toby, this is Jack.”

Since we were in the water, they didn’t shake each other’s hands, but they did give each other a nod. I was going to have some fun during this holiday. Toby was pretty fun to annoy. I had always done it since I was way younger even though he was almost ten years older than me. Somehow, when I was four years old I managed to convince him--or more specifically blackmail him--into pushing me on the swing. You can probably imagine what went down when I was a teenager. Let’s just say that parties did not just consist of some soda and water.

We caught up a little until Sophie decided to get out because she was getting cold. Eventually, it was just me and Jack left in the water. I had my legs wrapped around his torso and my hands behind his neck, just like when we were in the swimming pool in LA, only this time Jack had to keep swimming a little to make sure we didn’t drift away.

“I feel like we’re just giving a show to our families right now, even though we aren’t doing anything except floating around,” Jack said as he looked at the beach behind me, where everybody was sat together.

“We could give them a show. It will probably make them look away.” I smirked, letting my fingers play with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Show them what? We can hardly do something impressive while in the water.”

“We can do this.” I lightly pressed my lips against his, but kept it PG since I didn’t know if he was ok with us doing it in front of family.

“You should not have done that,” he groaned and threw his head back a little once I broke away. “I have been so fucking horny the entire day, but couldn’t do anything about it!”

“You’re always horny, Jack.” I laughed, pleasantly surprised he hadn’t even tried to make advances while we were on the airplane and everybody was sleeping.

“But it’s worse now!” He argued as if it was a serious subject. “You always look so fucking hot in my clothes and your glasses and we haven’t had sex in ages! How am I not supposed to feel this way?”

“We can fix it once we get back to the house.”

“Well, that’s even worse. Because everyone will be there to hear us! Not that you have a tendency to be loud, but still, I don’t know what weird powers those walls have.”

“Well,” I copied him with a knowing look on my face and looked at the skin on my arms, “I’ll have you know that I am starting to get a sunburn, so we should probably get back soon.”

“I’m not sure if that’s just an excuse or if it’s actually true, but I’m all for it.” He held up his hands and let me untangle myself from him.

“Actually true. First time I’m in bright sun again, it happens quickly. I’ll be fine tomorrow. But if I don’t want this to turn into a serious sunburn, we should go now.”

“Better hurry up, then.” He winked.

Notes

I'm on a roll! I managed to write a whole new chapter in less than a day. Only, it was past midnight when I finished, so I decided it was best not to try and edit. But you've got a chapter now!