With your body next to mine

Our hearts will beat as one

Chapter 30 ~ Afire Love

Jamie Myers

Three weeks later.

Sunday afternoons quickly became known for our family gatherings around the kitchen. It seemed to be the only time when we could talk without bickering or arguing about trivial matters. It also seemed to be the time when everyone opened up about their future plans or events that occurred during the previous week. I would have never agreed to such family bonding, but it succeeded in bringing us closer together.

After three weeks of no drama, it was safe to say that everything was okay again.

"Amy is going on her first date," Jillian blurted out as she stuffed a chocolate covered strawberry into her mouth.

As soon as the news permeated the air, Amy sunk into her seat and slapped her hands on her forehead, letting her brown ringlets fall over her face. "Thanks, Jill."

Jillian responded with a smile. "No problem."

I playfully nudged Amy in the side. "Seriously? With who?"

Amy opened her mouth to respond, but Jillian beat her to it. "His name is Gregory. They're lab partners."

A wave of happiness swept over me. "Amy, that's amazing!"

She nodded and shrugged it off like it was no big deal.

Scar strolled into the kitchen with the twins attached to his sides and he rudely pushed past Jillian to grab a strawberry from the bowl placed on the counter. "Good job, sis. You finally found someone to love you. Double chin and all."

I quickly snatched a strawberry from the bowl and threw it at his head.

He yelped in pain. "What the hell?"

"Stop talking," I snapped at him.

Scar drilled holes into my head with his deadly glare, but nevertheless, he smiled at his sister. "Awesome, Amy. I'm proud of you."

I flashed him a satisfied smirk. "Thank you."

Scar responded by rolling his eyes and grabbing more strawberries from the fruit bowl. He popped them into his mouth one after the other, not even bothering to chew.

Amy released a frustrated groan. "It's not a big deal, guys. We haven't even gone on the date yet. He could be horrible for all we know."

Jillian placed her hands on her hips as though she was preparing to give some sort of grand speech. "It is a big deal, Amy. Don't let anyone tell you any different. It's the nice ones who are the keepers. The bad boys with the pretty eyes are only going to break your heart in the end. Whether it's by sleeping with the sluttiest girl to ever walk the planet or by other means."

She finished with a tight lipped smile, but I could tell she was hurting inside. Finding out her boyfriend was sleeping with Francesca behind her back only confirmed my original thought that he was jerk. If there was anything I knew about Jillian, it was that she hated when I was right.

"Jill," I started to say, but she raised her hand to silence me.

"No," she snapped. "Nope. Do not even go there."

I put up my hands in surrender. "I won't."

Mrs.Patterson appeared beside Scar and slapped his hand away when he attempted to reach for another chocolate covered strawberry. She scowled in disapproval and squeezed between him and Jillian to grab the fruit bowl. "This isn't for you guys," she asserted. "This is for Ryan's friend's birthday party."

As if on cue, Ryan stopped playing around with his brother and stared up at Mrs. Patterson with pleading eyes. "Um, I don't think I wanna go anymore."

She twisted her lips into a frown. "Why not, Ryan? You've been talking about this party all week!"

Ryan fell silent, his brown eyes glancing down to the floor and his fingers rubbing against each other in anxiety.

Bryan threw a careless arm around Ryan as a mocking smile grew onto his face. "He doesn't want to go to Bobby's party because he kissed Bobby."

The room grew silent. Jillian was in the midst of devouring another strawberry when her eyes snapped to the little boy. Scar's eyebrows pulled together in a straight line. Amy and I wore the same shocked expressions.

I took a deep breath before saying, "Ryan?"

He shook his head violently. "No, no I didn't. It was an accident!"

Bryan scoffed. "Sure it was."

Ryan's bottom lip quivered. He looked like he was on the verge of crying, and I wanted nothing more than to comfort him. "Ry, it's okay. Kissing a boy is totally okay."

He narrowed his gaze at me and shrugged Bryan's arm off his shoulder. "I didn't kiss him!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. He was such a soft spoken boy that I never thought he was capable of being so loud.

He shoved his brother away from him and darted out of the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time until he was completely out of sight. The piercing sound of a door slamming was the last I heard before everything went silent again.

Mrs.Patterson shook her head in disbelief. "He did not just slam the door." I could tell the anger was just sitting under the surface of her skin when she snapped her oceanic eyes to Bryan. "You do not make fun of your brother like that again. Do you hear me?"

Bryan stared back at her in awe, unblinking. "Y-yes."

She pointed to the stairs. "Now, go apologize."

He took off in a hurry, following in his brother's steps.

As soon as he was gone, I turned my attention to Scar's mother. I had to give it up to her. It wasn't easy taking care of six kids at the same time. For what it's worth, though, it was able to keep her hands full and away from the bottle. "Can I just say that you win the award for best mother of the year?"

She rolled her eyes playfully and tossed her brown locks over her shoulder in a conceited manner. "It's like raising Amy and Scar all over again."

Scar wrapped an arm around his mother and planted a soft kiss on her cheek. "And you did an amazing job, mom."

Color flushed her cheeks, but it was soon replaced by a straight serious face. "Why don't you head down to the grocery store to get me more strawberries since it's obvious that these aren't enough."

Scar plucked another strawberry from the bowl while fingering his keys in his other hand. "Sure." He glanced over to me and winked. "You coming, Jamie?"

Amy challenged Scar with her wintry eyes. "You don't need Jamie to buy strawberries."

Mrs.Patterson cleared her throat. "Amy."

"Mom, it's obvious they're just going to fool around in the car. I don't know about you, but I only want my strawberries dipped in chocolate. Not in my brother's-"

"This is where I stop you," Scar's mother interrupted before switching her attention to me. "Just hurry up, okay?"

Scar strolled out of the kitchen to meet me, practically dragging me from my seated position on the bar stool. He didn't give me any time to protest because before I could process it, we were already outside in the cold weather without as much as a jacket to protect us. Scar didn't stop until I was seated in the passenger seat and he was finished buckling my seatbelt for me.

"Scar, this better not be a goddamn ruse or I swear I'll-"

He cut me off by pressing his lips firmly against mine. "Safety first, sweetheart."

I sent him a fake smile, even though I felt like setting him on fire. "Do not call me that."

Scar responded with a humor-filled laugh, not once stopping to catch his breath as he shut my door and circled around the Jeep to slide into the driver's seat. He started the car almost immediately, still laughing wholeheartedly.

I decided not to ask why Scar was laughing so much, because I really didn't want to know what was going through his head. Instead, I slouched in my seat and kept quiet for the duration of the drive.

It was about ten minutes later when I realized we weren't headed toward the grocery store. I figured we took a wrong turn somewhere, but Scar never said anything of it.

"You know we passed the grocery store like five minutes ago," I pointed out.

"Did we?" Scar asked, his voice laced with false concern.

I stared at him, then started to laugh. "Scar, I'm really not in the mood for surprises."

He reassured me with a smile. "You'll love it, I promise."

My gaze lingered on him for a brief moment and I buried my face in my hands, shaking my head in disbelief. "I hate you."

Scar tapped the steering wheel excitedly while taking occasional glances at me through the corner of his eyes. "That's not what you were saying last night," he sang in a mocking tone.

I shoved him playfully. "Shut up."

A loud chuckle erupted from deep in his throat, but he didn't say much else. Time seemed to pass much slower that way. My mind was practically eating itself from just the thought of what Scar could possibly be up to. The more time that passed, the more impatient I became.

My anxiety was soon put to rest when Scar pulled into a gated community lavished with trimmed hedges, tall luxurious buildings, and a ridiculously quiet atmosphere. My original thought was that we were visiting a distant family member or such, but Scar never talked about family outside of his mother and sister.

It wasn't until we were carelessly wandering the halls of one the fancy apartment buildings when I decided to finally speak up. "Are we on some kind of drug-busting deal or something?"

Scar glanced back at me with an amused smirk plastered on his face. I noticed his car keys were replaced with a new set of keys - ones that I've never seen before. He stopped abruptly in front of an apartment door and stuck the new keys into the lock.

I was growing more frustrated by the minute. "Breaking and entering?"

He laughed again. "I can assure that we have total permission from the owner to be in here." He turned the key and swung the door open, stepping over the threshold as soon as he did.

I reluctantly followed behind him and stepped into the very new, and very bare apartment. The interior seemed to be mostly composed of different shades of brown, from the mahogany flooring to the taupe colored walls and down to the marble countertops of the spacious kitchen. I should've expected the inside to be just as marvelous as the gated community itself, but it still hadn't occurred to me why Scar brought me here.

Scar strolled into the kitchen, kicking his feet against the hardwood floor and interlocking his fingers behind his back. "I've been doing a lot of thinking during these past few weeks."

"Well, that's never a good sign."

He whipped around swiftly, sending me an unfriendly glare before continuing. "I want the best for you and I'm pretty sure you already knew that. So if anything ever happens to our relationship, I want to make sure that you have somewhere safe to go."

Hearing him say those words instantly made everything click. I could have sworn my heart sunk to my knees. "No."

He nodded. "My mom helped arrange this for me and we got you a twelve month lease on this wonderful apartment along with your very own bank account filled with enough money to pay for a year's worth of rent."

I furrowed my brows when I realized that Scar and his mother couldn't have possibly had enough money to do all this. Then it hit me.

"You fucking idiot," I spat out as I advanced towards him and jabbed an accusing finger into his hard chest. "That money was for you. I gave that money to you so you could still go to that college you wanted to go to and-"

He wrapped his hands around my wrist and smiled at me. "And I'll find another way to go there. The only thing that really matters right now is that you're taken care of."

I gave him a blank stare for what felt like years, but was surely only seconds. I could feel the tears forming in my eyes, so I looked away and took a couple steps backwards. "Scar, this is-"

"A three bedroom apartment," he finished for me. "One for you, one for Jillian, and one for the twins. It doesn't look like much now, but we can help you decorate or whatever."

I pressed my lips together as I took in the sights of the vacant apartment again. Words couldn't even begin to explain how I felt in that moment.

Scar shoved his hands into his pockets. "My mom has agreed to continue taking care of the twins until further notice, but you and Jillian are old enough to live on your own. Plus, I don't think it's healthy for us to be living under the same roof, no matter how much I want to."

I looked at him with my eyes watering from the tears struggling to fall. "What about you?"

"I'll most likely be spending my nights here," he replied. "Once you get a TV, of course."

I couldn't help but smile. "Scar," I said so softly that I could barely hear myself. "You're amazing. You know that, right? I feel like such a horrible boyfriend now."

He titled his head to the side in concern. "You're not."

"Really?" I countered with raised brows as I flailed my arms in the air. "What could I possibly do to top all this?"

Scar looked away for a moment, clearly in deep thought over my question. He chewed on his bottom lip and scratched the back of his head as he pondered the possibilities. I was starting to believe he wouldn't be able to think of anything, but he snapped his pale green eyes back to mine with a small smile curving his lips.

"You could make love to me."

My eyes widened at that very instant. I glanced at Scar who was gazing back at me with dead serious eyes. "You're kidding."

He took a step closer. "Nope."

I raised a skeptical brow. "You're absolutely serious?"

Scar nodded. "Absolutely serious."

I kept my doubtful gaze on him. "And you promise you won't talk my ear off like last time?"

He paused to think about it. "I can't promise that."

Against my will, my lips tugged into a full-on grin. I honestly wondered how me, of all people, could end up with such an amazing human being like Scar. Even though it took him a while to realize it and it took me a while to admit it, I certainly loved everything about the boy standing in front of me. From his messy brown hair, his soft green eyes, his clueless tendencies and all the way down to his big fat heart.

I truly hoped there was a forever in our future, because I couldn't imagine spending my life with anyone else.

"We don't even have a bed," I pointed out.

He smiled as he rushed to my side and grabbed onto my hands. "Now that's where you're wrong."

Scar began to pull me in the direction of one of the rooms and I nearly gasped when I saw a King sized bed in the midst of an otherwise completely vacant room. Of all the things he could have possibly bought as a housewarming gift, it had to be a bed.

As though reading my mind, he said, "I thought we could break it in together."

Up until this point, I had tried so hard to hold my tears in, but there was no point resisting anymore. The tears had already poured out of my eyes before I could stop them.

"Wait," Scar said. "Are you crying?"

I shot him a quick glare as I wiped away the tears with the back of my hand. "No, I'm not. I'm just, um, I was just-"

"Crying," he interrupted. "Yeah, I can see that. What happened to only girly men cry, huh?"

I couldn't think of anything to say in response and that was probably due to the fact that I was filled with genuine happiness. I've never been this happy in a long while and it soothed my heart to know Scar was the source of my happiness.

"Don't use my words against me," I snapped at him, but I failed miserably at sounding threatening.

He patted my back in a soothing manner. "It's okay, Jamie. We all get a little emotional so-"

Not being able to keep my emotions at bay any longer, I grabbed onto the sides of Scar's face and pulled him into a long, endearing kiss.

**

A/N: So, this is the final chapter which means it is the end of Scar and Jamie's adventures! I had so much fun writing this story and I really hope you guys enjoyed it.

Just in case you were wondering, there IS a sexy chapter to end the story so head over to Other Stuff to check it out.

As some of you may know, this book is the first in a series. Over the next couple hours I will be posting information to basically clear up this whole series thing and anything else about this book. So if you have any questions about this story, about things that didn't really make sense to you, about things that'll happen in the future, or anything of the sort, please do not hesitate to ask. I will be answering them in another update. I want to make sure that this story is completely resolved in every aspect possible.

If you want to make me the happiest girl alive, then you should probably vote and comment, yeah?

Until next time,

Lara <3