"Last night was the best night of my life, just so you know," I tell him, leaning across to cup his face.

We've been sitting outside my house in his truck for far too long, neither of us wanting me to go.

Sure, I'm avoiding the inevitable conversation that I'm going to have to have with my parents, but I also don't want to leave Bryce.

"Do I have to go?" I whine, and Bryce lets out a deep chuckle, nodding his head.

"Yeah, baby girl, you do," he tells me, and I feel my entire heart clench.

"I love that nickname," I confess to him, and he smiles at me, tilting his head to the side.

We sit there staring for another moment, before I slump back in my seat, crossing my arms across my chest.

"You really need to get your cute ass inside, Blossom. How about I take you out for brunch tomorrow? It can be our first official date. Would you like that?" he asks me, and like an actual child I clap my hands together in delight, smiling at him widely.

He releases another chuckle, bending down to kiss me on the tip of my nose.

"You're so easy to please. I love to see you happy," he tells me, and I give him a small grin, tilting my head to the side.

I'm so giddy around him. Everything he says and does makes my heart soar, and I wish I could spend all my time with him for the rest of my life.

Bryce suddenly reaches across, unbuckling my seatbelt for me. I stick my bottom lip out at him, and he ignores me, undoing his own seatbelt.

"I want to walk you to the door. Let's go," he says, pushing open his door and stepping out of the vehicle.

Reluctantly, I do the same, making sure to grab my phone on the way out. I meet Bryce at the base of my driveway, and he links his fingers through mine as we walk up to the front door.

I hadn't bothered bringing a key with me last night, assuming that I would come home with Charlie, but that clearly wasn't the case.

Because of this, I reach up to ring the doorbell, and Bryce drops his hand from mine. He must be remembering how I asked him to keep this hidden from my parents, and I'm glad he went along with it, even though I still feel incredibly guilty about it.

"I'll tell them. I promise. Just give me some time," I request, and he nods.

He looks like he's about to kiss me again, but then all of a sudden, the front door comes flying open.

Thankfully, my brother is the one standing there. He's still wearing his clothes from last night, but his shirt is totally unbuttoned.

He smiles at me, but then when he sees Bryce, he looks confused.

"Rough night?" Bryce smirks at him, and Charlie rolls his eyes.

"Dad is going to kill you. He's been worried about you all night and morning. I would really recommend that your boyfriend leaves before they hear you guys," Charlie tells me quietly, stepping back from the doorway to allow me to enter the house.

I'm about to go inside, but then I turn back to Bryce.

He has a sad smile on his face, and I quickly mouth the words 'I love you' in a way that Charlie can't catch. He does the same, mouthing, 'I love you, too' before pulling me into a quick hug, giving me a squeeze and stepping away.

"I'll text you about tomorrow," he promises me, and I nod, grinning at him.

"Bye Bryce," I say, stepping into the house and giving him a small wave.

"Bye, Blossom," he tells me, before turning around and heading back down the stairs.

I'm still in a daze from the best thirteen hours of my life, and as Charlie shuts the door after Bryce, I fall backwards against it with a content sigh.

"For once, you didn't fight me when I called him your boyfriend," Charlie observes, and I grin at him.

Although I don't want my parents to know, there's no way I can hide from Charlie unless Bryce and I stay away from each other at school.

That doesn't seem fair to him, so I suppose that I'll just have to trust my brother to keep my secret.

I give him a smug smile. His eyes go wide, and he grabs both of my shoulders, preventing me from moving away from him.

"Jesus Christ, Lex! You did not!" he exclaims, and I press a finger over my lips to keep him quiet.

"Don't tell Mom and Dad for me, please. I'll do it myself, just not now," I tell him, and though he raises one of his eyebrows, he does still nod at me.

All of a sudden, a bunch of quick footsteps sound coming from down the stairs. There, Jasmine appears, running her fingertips through a mess of blue hair as she lets out a yawn.

She heads straight for my brother, wrapping her arms around him and pressing a kiss to his bare chest.

"I had fun last night, but I have to head out," she says to him, and he nods, seemingly breathless thanks to her presence.

"You guys really hooked up while Mom and Dad were in the house?" I ask Charlie, and all he does is shrug at me.

"They were downstairs. It's fine," Charlie says, sounding unimpressed.

Jasmine laughs at his statement, turning around to finally face me.

"Well of course you wouldn't get it, Virgin Mary," she teases, nudging my shoulder.

That nickname doesn't quite apply anymore.

All I can do is bite my lip. We hold eye contact for a few seconds until it almost becomes uncomfortable, and then her eyes go wide with realization.

She lets out a loud squeal, and I have to clamp a hand over her mouth to keep her quiet. She pulls away though, turning to my brother and asking, "Can you give us a minute? I'll come find you when it's time to go."

Charlie nods, turning away from us and retreating back into the living room.

He begins to button up his shirt as he leaves, and though Jasmine watches him go, the moment he turns the corner, she spins around to look at me.

"Spill. What happened with you and Bryce last night?" she asks me, and I cross my arms, biting down on the inside of my cheek.

I'm trying hard not to smile like a lunatic right now, but it's kind of hard as all the memories flood back to me.

"You totally had sex with him. I'm so happy for you!" she exclaims, pulling me into a hug.

It makes me chuckle, and I wrap my arms around her quickly.

"How was it?" she asks me, and I give her a huge smile.

"Great," I answer with a sigh, and she squeals, pulling back to stare at my face.

"You lucky bitch! That's not even fair. Literally everyone's first time sucks," she tells me, and I laugh along with her.

"He's everything to me, Jazzy. I love him so much, and he loves me back, somehow," I confess to her, and she bites down on her lip, still grinning madly.

She gives my shoulders a squeeze before taking a step back from me, her hands now resting on her sides.

"That's adorable, and, believe me; I know how much he loves you," she says with a sly smirk on her face.

I blink a couple times at her. "What are you talking about?" I ask her, really confused.

"Ask Bryce about it," she tells me, before spinning around. "Charlie! I'm ready to go!" she calls out to my brother, who quickly hurries back into the room.

Grabbing his keys, he heads over towards us, linking his arm through Jasmine's before stepping past me and opening the door.

"I'll be back," he informs me, before him and Jasmine walk out the door together.

I shut it behind them, twisting the lock before stepping out of my shoes, carrying them in my hands as I head upstairs.

"Hi, Lexi."

I turn around to see both my parents standing there, my dad with his arm around my mom's waist. My mom was the one to speak, surprisingly, and I give them both a timid wave, unsure if they're mad or not.

"How was your night with Bryce?" she then asks me, and I expect there to be a hint of annoyance there.

I would've assumed that she would be mad at me, worried that history would repeat itself and something awful had happened to me. I wouldn't blame her, seeing as I always think the same way, but I was with Bryce; someone I would trust with my life.

"Um, it was good," I reply cautiously, and she smiles at me nodding.

My dad seems generally pretty calm as well, a sharp contrast to our phone call last night, and I can only assume that my mom must've done me a favour and calmed him down.

"Was Leo there last night?" my dad asks, and I contemplate lying for a moment before realizing that that's an awful idea.

"No. He was on a flight back from Florida," I answer quietly, and my parents both look surprised.

They turn to look at each other, silently somehow having a conversation amongst themselves, and a few minutes pass by before my dad suddenly looks at me.

"I guess it's not fair of us to me mad at you for spending the night with Bryce when Charlie had a girl over last night, is it? Just know that we were genuinely worried about you seeing as we didn't know your whereabouts. Please plan ahead next time," my dad says, and I give him a huge, grateful smile.

"Yes, of course. It won't happen again. It was just a spur of the moment sort of thing. We weren't on speaking terms the past while so we just wanted to spend some time together," I answer, giving part of the truth.

They believe me though, as they give me a nod, permission to leave.

I quickly head to my bedroom, and I'm just about to shut the door when I catch that my parents are in the hallway, still talking.

"You trust that boy to take good care of her?" my dad asks my mom, and I freeze, realizing that I definitely should not be overhearing this conversation right now.

"Yes, I do. Besides, I'd rather have her stick with a boy she likes and trusts rather than have her spending time with boys she doesn't know. I really don't want anything to happen to her like what happened to me. You remember how bad that messed me up, don't you?" she answers him, and there's a slight shuffle of footsteps.

When I peak out the doorframe, I see that they're clinging to each other in a hug, both of them looking like they're about to cry.

"Of course. Remember when I met you? You didn't even let me hold your hand for the longest time because it brought back such bad memories," my dad chuckles, and my mom laughs out loud.

It's very tempting to stroll straight back in to the hallway to tell them that Bryce and I are actually together, seeing as they seem to approve of him, but I have to refrain; I wouldn't be surprised if they totally changed their mind on him after hearing the news.

And so I decide to give them their space, closing my bedroom door before heading to the bathroom to take a long shower.

🌸🌸🌸

"So, tell me something about yourself," Bryce jokes, before taking a small sip out of his cup of coffee.

I roll my eyes, kicking him gently under the table. "You know everything about me, Bryce. I don't know what you're taking about," I tell him, and he chuckles, jokingly kicking me back.

We're on our first official date, at a small diner for brunch, and I'm once again giddy with excitement.

I was able to sneak out of the house as my parents had left early to go to the market downtown, eliminating any awkward conversation when Bryce picked me up.

"That's not true. I'm sure there are many things I don't know about you," he counters, and I raise an eyebrow at him as I take a sip of my hot chocolate.

"What's my full name?" I ask him, playing along with his game.

He laughs. "Alexandra Elise Brooks. But it'll

be Lexi Bradshaw, some day. Mark my words," he says, sticking out his tongue at me in a teasing manner.

"Bold of you to assume. Besides, I thought you said that you never wanted to get married," I remind him, and he cocks his head to the side.

"I did say that. But I want to spend the rest of my life with you and the idea of marriage seems to make you happy, so why not? I'd love to call you my Mrs. Bradshaw one day anyway," Bryce tells me, taking another sip of his coffee, and all I can do is sit there and stare at him; he looks dead serious right now.

I can only shake my head at him. "This is definitely not the normal kind of conversation people have on first dates, Bryce," I inform him, and all he does is shrug at me.

We had decided to sit across from each other in the booth, but I'm really regretting that decision now, as I wish that I could get a little closer to him.

I have to breath slowly a few times to regain my composure. All this talk about spending our lives together is freaking me out, but I'm glad that Bryce and I seem to be on the same page about these things.

It's clear to me now that we've both already fallen, hard.

"Do you know what my full name is?" Bryce asks me, and I take a drink of my hot chocolate before raising an eyebrow at him.

"Bryce Angelina Bradshaw. Duh," I joke, and he bursts out laughing as I continue to grin at him.

"But, for real, you don't have a middle name so your name is just Bryce Bradshaw," I answer, and he finally stops laughing, nodding to confirm that I'm correct.

"Can I ask you something?" I question Bryce.

He thinks for a moment before nodding, and I quickly ask, "I ran into Jasmine yesterday morning and when I gave her a brief summary of what happened Friday night, she knew that you love me already. How?"

"She overheard me tell you, baby," Bryce says, and it makes me furrow my brows together.

"What do you mean? When? She was still inside with my brother when we talked in the parking lot at the dance, and I highly doubt she broke into your house or anything," I ponder, confused, and Bryce gets a ridiculous smile on his face.

"I've told you that I love you before Friday," he says, and I've never been more bewildered.

As I rack my memory for any time Bryce could have possibly said the words before, I realize that there's no point.

He answers all my questions before I even have to ask them, saying, "Remember that night when you saw Camila kiss me? After you had fallen asleep, Jasmine showed up, and my dumb ass had forgotten that she was still there. While you were sleeping I kissed you on the forehead and told you that I love you. That's all."

That is the absolute sweetest thing that I've ever heard.

Sure, the reminder of my boyfriend's lips on another girl brought back an unwelcome visual, but I can't believe that he had those words inside of him but was just too scared to say them.

It thrills me to know that I can make him a little nervous too.

"So you've known how you felt this whole time and you didn't say anything?" I ask him in a quiet tone.

As cute as that confession is, it would've saved us both a lot of emotional strain if we had gotten our feelings out in January.

"What do you mean by 'this whole time'? Because I've loved you basically my whole life, so I mean . . ." Bryce says, and his confession has me weak in the knees.

All I can do is stare blankly at him, emotion welling up inside of me.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek, looking away from his gaze for a moment in an effort to stop myself from crying over how adored I feel right now.

"Come here, sweetheart," Bryce says lowly all of a sudden, and without even looking at him, I slide out of my seat.

I crawl into his side of the booth, curling up against his chest as he wraps his arms around me.

"My beautiful girl," he breathes, tilting my chin up so our eyes meet.

He kisses me gently on the lips, and it's the kind of kiss that I feel all the way down to my toes.

When he breaks the kiss, he leans his forehead against mind, his breathing slightly laboured. His fingers are gently tangled in my hair, holding me in place, and all I can do is blink at him.

"You've always owned my heart, and you always will. Always," he promises me, and I nod, speechless, shifting to press my cheek against his shoulder.