"Aspen, I have no idea what's coming out of your mouth right now" Ashton groaned and hit his head on the table.

"Ash, I know this is hard for you but all you need to do is use the quadratic formula and plug in all of the numbers" 

He looked deep in thought at the equation. He was over thinking and all the numbers and letters were going to his head. 

"First just identify a, b, and c" I told him. 

"A is one, b is twelve, c is three?" he questioned himself. I nodded my head and he kept going. "This is where everything falls apart" he informed me. He worked the equation without my help but I watched what he did right and what he did wrong. 

"Is that right?" He looked up at me hopefully, but I shook my head. 

"You got the factorization all wrong, but the rest is almost promising" I told him. 

He groan in frustration, hitting his head on the table once again. 

I know he's all worked up and he doesn't understand but it seems as if he's hardly trying. 

"Ash I know you don't really care about this and you just want to play football, it's an outlet I understand. But I need you to actually try and understand this. If you care about football you're going to have to care about school. I know for a fact that you're not a straight A student and you don't have to be, just put in a little bit of effort" 

"What do you think I'm doing right now, Aspen? You're right I don't give a shit about school and I appreciate you helping me and all but all I need to do is pass this test on Thursday to play on Friday! Stop trying to act like you know me when in reality you don't! I don't give a shit about you or school, I quit!" He yelled at me and stormed out of the living room. 

Parker walked in seconds later, probably because of the yelling, but as soon as he saw he he turned around and left. 

"Parker, wait!" I called after him but he didn't answer. 

I was left alone with an unfinished tutoring session. 

"Looks like this isn't getting done" I sighed to myself and put everything back in my backpack. I didn't care if some of the papers were Ash's. He could come get them from me if he wants to work. 

I put my backpack in a place I knew I would remember it. I've been here so much that Sydney finds my things lying neatly in a corner and laughs, because her boys are so sloppy, something I'm trying to fix. 

I skip to Alex's room to find him shirtless on his bed listening to music and flipping through a magazine. He didn't hear me come in, great. Now I can scared him. 

I tiptoe to the foot of his bed being careful not to be in his line of sight. I lightly tickle his foot and duck behind his bed. I swear he jumped three feet in the air and screamed like a ten year old girl. I stifled my laughter as he cautiously sit on his bed, looking around, somehow not seeing me. I make a weird noise between a growl and a demon-possessed cat noise. He screams again running for his door. 

I stood up from my hiding spot and couldn't control my laughter. He looks back at me with a playful glare on his face. I try to move but I'm stuck in some cords. He tackled me onto his bed tickling my sides. 

"No. Please. Don't. Stop." I squealed in between laughs. 

I tried to kick him off but he straddled my legs, where I couldn't move them. I got one arm free and used it to crash his lips into mine, causing him to stop tickling me. 

I tried to pull away but he deepened the kiss even more. My arms wrapped around his neck. he moved his hands from my stomach to my hips, rubbing gentle circles. His hands moved down to my thighs wrapping them around his waist, our lips never broke contact. 

He stood up, causing me to hold on tighter to his body. He pushed me up against the wall and detached our lips. His lips roamed my neck and collarbone making me giggle. He lingered at one spot before moving to another. He reached my shoulder and bit it before I forced his lips back to mine. 

This time I pulled back and kissed down his jawline. Met with his earlobe I bit it which made him moan. I kept my trail of kisses going until I found his sensitive spot before I created a hickey there. 

Alex, wanting the control back  pulled my chin to meet his lips yet again. His cold hands slid under my shirt and rested on my hips. "You're beautiful" He mumbled into the kiss. 

I hummed in response glad he couldn't see my burning cheeks. "I love you" He whispered when he pulled away. 

I stared at him wordlessly. Love? At seventeen? Is that possible? 

I questioned everything. Did I love him? Sure I did love being around him but I loved being around all of his brother too. I love the way he can make me happy even when I'm sad, but I've never really had a serious conversation with him. Don't you need to have  good balance of seriousness and lightness to love? 

A disruptive cough separated us, Alex set me gently on the ground. I'm sure my face was the color of a tomato right now. Sydney stood in the doorway with a basket of laundry in her hands. 

"Excuse me, but Alex here's you laundry. Continue but nothing over PG-13 should be happening in here" She gave us her mom look before shutting the door behind her as she walked out. 

"Oh my god that was so embarrassing." I covered my red face and fell onto his bed. 

"It wasn't that bad" he said laying next to me. He moved the hair that covered my neck and attached his lips to the now bare area. I rolled away from him, embarrassed after what just happened. 

"I have to go, Alex" I stood up. I crossed a mirror a row of purple marks laid across my collarbone and more on my neck. "Can I have a hoodie?" I asked, motioning to his huge closet. He nodded and I walked in. I was immediately surround by the smell of Alex. I picked out one of my favorite hoodies that he wears and threw it over my body. 

"Bye" I kissed him and left the room. 

I heard a sniffling in the room down the hall. It was Ashton's room. I walked closer to investigate. 

"Ash I don't know what to say, she's in town just deal with it" Ashton answered harshly. 

Ash?

"Ugh" A girl growled in frustration. "You suck!" she yelled. I'm pretty sure that it was Ashley. 

My unasked question was answered when she came into the hallway with tears running down her face. 

"Ash-" I started but she pushed past me and left. 

I left not long after, trying to steer clear of Sydney. 

***

"So he told you he loved you?" my mom asked as she took a drink of her coffee. 

"Yes" I groaned and shoved my face into my hands. 

"Do you love him?" Del questioned from beside me. 

I've thought of that question a lot since he said those three little words. 

"I don't know" I groaned. "I love being around him, I love the way he can make me smile or laugh, I love the way he makes me feel, but I don't know if I love him. I don't know how that feels and quite frankly I don't think I've felt it yet." 

My mom moved around the counter to be by my side. "It's okay to not love someone, especially your first one or even first few. I wasn't in love with anyone until I met you're father and he hit me with a football the first time I met him."

"Does he have the potential to love him one day?" Lar asked from my phone. That's right she's here too., sadly it's only on face-time.

I thought about this too. I know him very well and I like him a lot, but if he doesn't change that we only have fun conversations, that might now be the case. 

I shrugged and saw the shocked reactions from the corner of my eyes. "I've never had a really serious conversation with him. I know he wants to be a lawyer and that's because dad asked. We don't ever talk and that's important to me. I like knowing that I can tell him anything and Alex hasn't given me that closure yet" I answer honestly. 

"I think you two just need to talk and figure things out. You don't have to love him and if he doesn't understand that then you deserve better" Mom told me before she placed a kiss on my head and left the kitchen with her coffee. 

"What's this thing with Ashley?" Del asked as she picked at her cuticles. 

"Honestly I don't even know" I answered.

"I haven't talked to her since the airport, I saw her at the Haywood's." Heads turn to me expectantly. I swear I could hear Del's neck crack. "She was crying and screaming at Ashton and I might have been eavesdropping." I admitted with a blush forming on my face out of embarrassment. "I tired to talk to her but she walked past me, crying." 

"Give her time, she'll talk when she's ready" Larry said. 

"No Lar this girl has been rude to me since day one, thinking that I was going to steal Ashton from her" 

"Trust me it'll happen, you ran into her at one of her most vulnerable moments and you heard her mother yelling at her, then you saw her crying. She'll need someone to open up to and she needs to explain everything." She answered like it was obvious. 

We sat in silence for a few seconds taking in her words. 

"Yeah you're probably right" I answered in a quiet voice. 

"Anyway, next topic of discussion, you and Parker what's up?" Lar said and Del hopped up on the counter. 

I groan and throw my head into my hands again. "Why do we always have to talk about my problems? What about you and Briar?" I asked Del, trying to get the conversation off of me. 

"We're good, we started dating  like two days ago. Your turn." She said quickly. 

I sighed knowing she's not going to give up. 

"I wanna know more about Briar" Lar whined from the phone. 

"Sh later" Del waved her off before, turning the attention back to me.

"There's nothing to say about Parker, he's still ignoring me and I stopped trying to talk to him." I shrugged. 

That was it. Nothing more. Nothing less. Jasper said that I need to talk to him to find out what's wrong, but I tried that and he said he just doesn't want to talk to me. I used to be able to talk to him about anything, my dad, lar, my life back in Kansas, literally anything, but not anymore. He shut me out for no reason. 

"That's not it and you know it" Lar warned from the other side of the phone. She always knew when I wasn't telling the full truth and it creeps me out how well she knows me. 

I groaned, at that moment hating how well she knows me. "I talked to Jasper about it and he thinks I should confront him but I can't. I've tried several times but I just can't. I don't want him to be the Parker I've known these past few weeks, I wan't the old Parker back. I don't know why I can't confront him." I tell both of them honestly. 

"Sounds like you're scared that if you confront him and he goes back to the old ways, he won't be the same, That'll it will be better but it'll be different"  Lar told me. I don't know how she has such great advice all the time. 

"Thanks Larry I think that's what I needed to hear" I told her, wishing I could give her a big hug right here.