But the world looks better

Through your eyes

Chapter 20 ~ Firefly

Jamie Myers

"Can you tell me why I got a text from you, ordering me to come here?" Jillian questioned me as soon as I stepped foot into the house alongside Scar. Her hands were placed on her hips in a disapproving manner and her clear blue eyes appeared wild with anger. "And while you're at that, can you tell me where've you been? I've been waiting for over two hours and you know cranky Janice gets."

"We were just hanging out," I said coolly while shrugging my shoulders to emphasize the severe casualness of the situation.

She raised a delicate brow. "Just hanging out?" she repeated in a tone that showed my lie wasn't all that convincing. That was the downside of having a twin, because Jillian always knew when I was lying.

I shrugged again, deciding to fully immerse myself in my white lie. "Yep."

Her hard, scrutinizing gaze shifted between Scar and me. Folding her arms against her A-cup chest, she let out a loud huff. "Sure," she drew out, finally giving in.

Scar, sensing the awkwardness of the conversation, piped in, "Where's Amy?"

Jillian vaguely gestured towards the ceiling. "She went to her room, I think."

"Did she have a lot of food with her?" he pried.

She nodded. "Yeah, she had a box of cereal and a couple other stuff."

"Dammit," Scar cursed under his breath. "She can't be eating everything if you guys are going to stay here!" He threw his hands in the air in defeat and trudged up the stairs in search of his sister.

I knew I had to ease Jillian into the situation at-hand. I knew she wouldn't be thrilled to learn that Scar wanted us to stay at his house, because as far as she was concerned, no one knew about our foster situation. But any attempts at calming my sister down went out the window just moments later.

"What?" she questioned, returning her attention to me. "What's he talking about? We're not staying here."

There wasn't any other way I could explain it, so I blurted out, "He knows about Janice, and he insisted that we stay at his house until we can get our own."

Jillian's gaze narrowed. "Are you insane? Do you want Janice to hunt us down and kill us? What about the twins? We can't leave them there to face Janice's wrath!"

I hadn't really thought about Bryan and Ryan. We looked after them like they were our brothers, but the reality was, they weren't our brothers. I felt bad for them, but my priority was to take care of me and Jillian. "We don't want to take advantage of this privilege. Scar only has one guest room."

"So? You'll obviously be sleeping with Scar. I can stay with Amy, and the twins can have the guest room. I'm not leaving them there, Jamie. I don't want them to grow up around her. Not without us to protect them."

I let my eyes travel to the visible banister of the second floor, casually searching or a response that would satisfy Jillian. Letting out a frustrated sigh and returning my eyes to my sister, I said, "Fine, but I'll have to ask him first. If he says yes, then we'll go first thing tomorrow morning. I still have stuff I need to get from there."

"Thank you." Jillian's rosy lips stretched into a satisfied smile. "Now, I don't want to keep you away from your boyfriend any longer, so." She waved her fingers in a slightly teasing manner before skipping up the stairs and disappearing out of sight.

It sent shivers down my spine just to think about Scar being my boyfriend. Even though we confirmed it just a few hours ago, it still felt surreal. I've only seen couples in movies but they were always between a boy and girl. It was never between two boys and there was no rule book on how to act in a gay relationship, which is why I've never really liked relationships or tried to be in one.

So I guess Scar and I were both new to this.

"Do you wanna just order pizza? I don't think whatever I make will be edible, so how about we play it safe?" Scar called out from the top of the stairs.

I nodded solemnly. "Yeah, pizza's fine. Do you mind if I take a shower?"

"No, go ahead. Use the bathroom in my room." He motioned behind him as he led the way to his bedroom.

Flashing him a quick smile, I traced his steps upstairs to his bedroom, which I had pretty much memorized after being here so many times. His room was surprisingly neat with the bed made, clothes put away in their appropriate places, and a smell of vanilla permeating the air. I knew Scar didn't have time to clean his room since we stepped into the house, but I refused to believe he was naturally this clean.

"It's clean," I commented with my arms folded against my chest.

Scar rubbed the back of his neck nervously as he examined the room. "Yeah, I did a little quick cleaning up. I didn't want you to bury yourself in my filth, or anything."

I tried to fight my smile, but I failed unquestionably. "I'd love to bury myself in your filth, Patterson."

His eyes widened for only a second before he grabbed ahold of a towel and folded pair of clothes on his bed, completely ignoring my innuendo. "Here," he said as he handed me the clothes, "they should fit."

I smiled at him as I gratefully took them. "Thank you." I slipped past the adjoining door leading to the bathroom, and locking the door behind me.

I stared at my horrid reflection in the mirror and nearly gagged at the sight of it. Janice didn't have mirrors in her home, so I never got the chance to really look at myself. My eyes were puffy and slightly red from the harsh cold outside and my long blond hair was such a tousled mess that it passed the point of redemption. If I replaced my clothes with an oversized jacket a pair of worn out shoes, I would have looked like a homeless person.

My eyes caught sight of a stack of porn magazines on the counter next to the sink. I shook my head in disbelief as I picked up the first one, which had a picture of a naked female on the cover. I attempted to flip through the pages of the magazine, but most of the pages were stuck together, which only made me smile.

"You're such a boy, Scar," I said to myself as I returned the magazine to its original position.

My cell phone vibrated in my back pocket and when I retrieved it to see that Dante was calling me, I hastily turned on the water to drown out my voice. Answering the phone and releasing a heavy sigh, I said, "Hello?"

"Myers," his deep, velvety voice responded.

I rolled my eyes. "Will you ever call me by my actual name?"

"No, because the day I do that is the day that we've officially crossed professional boundaries."

I found myself laughing at the irony in that statement. "We crossed it a long time ago, don't you think?"

He laughed too. "You've got jokes."

I took a glimpse at the closed door behind me and sighed, hoping the running water was enough to prevent Scar from hearing my voice. "What do you want?"

"Another car, of course."

He couldn't have chosen the worst moment. "Seriously? I just got you one."

Dante breathed a long, heavy sigh on the other end. "Let me tell you a little something about supply and demand, Myers. As more and more people discover my services, they contact me with these demands. Some may want a brand new Mustang, or others are looking for a Nissan. Whatever the case, I can't give it to them because the person who is supposed to be supplying me is too busy with his boyfriend to do his job right. Does that answer your question?"

My hands balled into fists. "Right now isn't the right time. I'm busy."

"The way I see it is you have three options. You can either come over here and let me fuck you, or you can get me another car. There is five thousand dollars in the question for either one you choose. And your last option is you can do absolutely nothing and forget about the five grand and any possibility of earning money in the future because you'll be fired."

When I didn't answer, he continued, "When you first came to me looking for a job, you told me you were desperate. You told me you needed the money to get you out of a tough time. I'm assuming you were able to achieve that since you are being so stubborn over this."

I needed the money. If I wanted to have any sort of future for me and my sister, I needed to do this. But choosing to carry out this plan would potentially jeopardize my relationship with Scar. After everything he did for me, I was going to abandon him in the moment he needed me most. "Dante. Can't I do this another time? I'm with my boyfriend and-"

"I don't care about your boyfriend," he snapped into the phone. "All I care about is making love or making money. It's your choice." The line went dead before I could respond, leaving nothing but the piercing sound of water hitting the shower floor.

It was more than clear what I had to do, even though I didn't want to do it.

After climbing into the shower and letting the scorching water wash away all my thoughts for a good ten minutes, I got dressed in the clothes Scar provided me and exited the bathroom to find Scar sprawled across his bed with a box of pizza accompanying him. "That took you long enough," he commented as he held up a cheese coated pizza to his lips. He nodded towards my clothes. "Do they fit okay?"

I glanced down at the plain white tee and the sweatpants. "Yeah."

He patted the empty space next to me. "Well, don't just stand there. Dig in."

I glanced at the pizza with a reserved look. "I can't."

Scar furrowed his brows. "Why not?"

"I'm lactose intolerant."

He sat up abruptly and stared at me with a disbelieving look on his face. "What? Why didn't you tell me? I asked you if pizza was fine, and you said yes."

I bit down on my bottom lip. "You said you weren't a great cook, so I didn't want you to cook for me just because I was staying in your house."

The look of awe never left his face as he scrambled for his phone. "You should've just told me, Jamie. What about Chinese? Are you allergic to nuts too?"

He asked the question with such genuine curiosity that I felt horrible for laughing.

He frowned. "What?"

Still trying to contain my laughter, I replied with, "No. I'm not allergic to nuts."

A light bulb seemed to have gone off in his mind because his face screwed in disgust. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Uh huh," I said, still laughing.

He rolled his eyes at me before dialing an unknown number and placing an order for several Chinese dishes. It warmed my insides to know that Scar was so comfortable with us that he was willing to order Chinese food just to appease me. If all relationships were like this, then I regretted not getting into one earlier.

Once the food came, we sat on his bed for what felt like hours, just eating our food and talking to each other. I could tell talking about his problems lifted a weight off his shoulders. It was like he finally found a reason to open up, because he knew that all his secrets would be safe with me, and he was right. I would never think of spilling information that Scar trusted me with.

He talked about his mother, and how much it hurt him whenever she was drunk. I had suggested hiding all the alcohol in the house, but he said he already tried that. It resulted in his mother falling into a heavy pit of withdrawal and urging her to go out to buy some more. He talked about how he hated himself for being mean to his sister and how he was trying to make up for it. He even expressed his jealously towards the relationship between me and Jillian, because we were seemingly perfect siblings.

I told him that it wasn't always that way. After my parents accident, Jillian blamed me for their deaths for a few years because I had left them in order to check on Scar and his father. But after we went through plenty of foster homes and finally ended up with Janice, we realized we needed the support of each other more than anything else.

Scar even asked me how I managed to steal cars without getting caught. For a second I thought he heard my conversation with Dante, but he seemed to be genuinely curious in the subject.

"Well, once I find a car and know that it's safe to steal, I break the window. It's not really a concern, considering my boss has people who can easily make repairs. Once I'm inside, the first step is to disable the GPS system, which is pretty common in newer cars. I do it so that the police can't really track where I go with the car. If all that goes well, then I usually take a can of spray paint and change a letter and a number or two of the license plate. Again, that's just for identification purposes. Then to finish it off, I hot-wire the car to get it started and take off."

"How did you learn to do all that?" He asked me.

"I've been trained," I said, short.

"What happens to the car afterward?"

"Dante takes it and makes a couple changes to it so it looks like a completely different car, then he sells it. It's really smart because one person would buy a forty thousand dollar car, but ten people would rather buy that same car for ten thousand."

Scar's brows pulled together. "Dante?"

I hadn't even realized I accidentally let his name slip. "Yeah, um, he's my boss."

A brief period of silence came over us as we just stared at each other. I hadn't released so much information about myself to anyone before, but I was really glad that it was him who I confiding my life story to.

"We should probably get some sleep," he suggested with a small smile. "This Chinese food has me falling into a food coma."

I gestured towards the paper bag containing all of our empty boxes. "We didn't open our fortune cookies."

"Right!" His brows lifted to their position as he sat up straight and dug his hands into the paper bag, pulling out two fortune cookies wrapped in plastic. He tossed one to me and hastily opened his. His pale green eyes darted back and forth as he read over his fortune. "You can make your own happiness."

I smiled as I cracked my cookie open, pulling out the white strip of paper. My heart nearly stopped when I read over its contents.

"What does yours say?" Scar questioned me with a curious look in his eyes.

"It's stupid," I said in an attempt to make him drop the subject. He didn't.

Instead, he snatched my fortune from my hands and read it over. "Stay true to those who would do the same for you." He shrugged. "Sounds like common sense."

I pressed my lips together, not wanting to respond.

Scar tossed his cookie into his mouth and reached over to the bedside table to switch the lamp off, leaving the room in complete darkness. He wrapped himself in his sheets and nuzzled his face into his pillow. Reluctantly, I did the same and became internally grateful for the fact that I was actually going to sleep on a real bed for once.

"Jamie," Scar's voice broke the silence.

"Yes?"

"You can call me Scarlet, if you want to."

I turned around to face him, still being able to see his face thanks to the moonlight shining through his bedroom window. "Really?"

"Yeah," he said softly. "With you, it doesn't feel so bad. In fact, my life feels perfect when I'm with you. That might sound really weird and really stupid, but that's just how I feel right now."

Just when I thought it wasn't possible to like him any more than I already did, he had to say that. "It does sound really weird and really stupid, but I really like it." Raising a hand to caress the side of his face, I pulled him into a soft, gentle kiss. It wasn't anything elaborate, but it was enough to send chills down my spine and butterflies in the pit of my stomach.

He smiled at me. "Goodnight, Jamie."

I smiled back. "Goodnight, Scarlet."

**

As soon as I was certain that Scar had fallen asleep, I eased out of his arms that were wrapped around me and quietly tip-toed my way out of the bedroom. I wasn't sure how long it would take to do this particular job, but I really hoped I'd be back before Scar woke up.

But as soon as I reached for the front door, a voice stopped me. "Where are you going?"

I sputtered a string of profanities under my breath, and then turned to face him. He stood at the bottom of the staircase, his hand getting lost in his short brown hair and his eyes squinted.

"I have a few errands to run," I said quickly.

He frowned. "At two in the morning?"

I knew there was no way I was getting out of this unless I told him the truth. "I have to steal a car."

His facial expression morphed into that of confusion. "At two in the morning?"

Was he really that much of a light sleeper? "I don't make the rules."

He scratched his head and yawned a few times, still trying to make sense of the situation. "I'm coming."

"What?" I took a defensive stance. "No, you can't."

He knitted his brows together into a thin line. I hated myself for thinking about how cute and innocent he looked when I was in the middle of a huge conflict. "Why not?"

"It's dangerous," I lied easily. The only reason why I didn't want Scar to accompany me was because I didn't want him to meet Dante. Knowing him, he would do something unpredictable and ruin my relationship with Scar.

Scar scoffed. "Dangerous? Who do you think I am? I'm not scared of a little danger."

Why did he have to be so stubborn? "I'd really prefer if you stayed here."

It was obvious that nothing I said would convince him. He dismissed me with a simple wave of his hand, and grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter, dangling them in a teasing manner. "And I'd really prefer if you didn't tell me what to do. I'm coming and you can't make me change my mind."

My lips fell open as I stared back at him in astonishment. He couldn't seriously be serious right now.

"Close your mouth, Jamie. You'll catch flies," he mocked as he brushed past me and padded his way to his Jeep.

**

A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update. I've started school again and my exams are coming up soon so I've been trying to prepare as much as possible and it's just been hectic. But I've slowly been writing this chapter and now it's finally here.

What do you think is going to happen when Scar meets Dante for the first time?

If you haven't already, please check out the prologue for Max's story named ADDICTED. Keep in mind, that the prologue is really a sneak peak and I won't be starting that book until this one is finished. So I'd love if you could add that book to your library so you'll know when it's updated.

If you liked this chapter, then please feel free to vote and comment and all that great stuff.