His words hung in the air as I stared up at the stars. He already knew what there was to know about me. My sister had just died, I spent pretty much my whole life doing homework and I had a terribly embarrassing bucket list. On the other hand, I knew nothing about Colton. He was always surprising me in ways I couldn’t explain.

“There’s nothing to really know about me actually. I’m pretty boring,” I stated quietly, taking in a deep breath of fresh air.

I heard Colton sigh as he shuffled around in the grass to get into a comfortable position. “I don’t think you’re boring Sutton.”

Tilting my head to the side, I focused my eyes on Colton. He was already looking at me, and I felt lost as I gazed into his dizzying blue eyes. For some reason, my stomach was filled with millions of fluttering butterflies every time I was with him. I felt like all the love struck girls at my school. I knew better then to let myself feel like this, but I couldn’t help it.

I guess the only thing to do was ignore it. Ignore the butterflies I got every time I saw him. Ignore the tingles that traveled throughout my body every time he touched me. It was my only solution.

Colton lifted his hand to my face, and as his finger brushed my cheek I shivered. “One, two, three…”

“What are you doing?” I asked as he moved on to the number ten.

“Counting your freckles.”

He seemed rather focused as he kept on with the counting. After he got past thirty two I pushed his hand away. “There’s too many to count!”

“Now I’m going to have to start over!” he said grumpily, raising his hand back to my face.

Irritably I grabbed a fistful of grass and threw it right at his face before he could go on counting again. Surprisingly a few stray pieces found their way into his mouth and in no time Colton was spitting out chunks of grass.

I laughed as he brushed all the grass away from himself. The sound of my own laughter actually surprised me, and I closed my mouth tight. How could I be out here laughing without a care when my sister was dead? Shouldn’t I be at home, still morning the loss of her instead of moving on?

Colton noticed my sudden silence. “I meant it when I said you’re not boring. You have an amazing personality, sometimes I wish I knew what was going on in your head, and you’re such a strong person Sutton.”

I wasn’t strong, I was weak. Every time someone tried to talk about Melody I couldn’t breathe; it was pathetic.

“Trust me you are way more interesting,” I countered.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not really.”

“Please just tell me something about yourself that I don’t know. There has to be a million things.”

Thinking about the question, Colton lay back down and propped his head up with his hands. Silence filled the night; it seemed like even the wildlife wanted to know about the mysterious Colton.

“I have a birthmark between my butt cheeks,” he admitted with a throaty chuckle.

Scrunching my nose up I sighed. “That’s not that sort of thing I wanted to know. I won’t be able to un hear that now.”

“Fine, I like watching Teen Wolf.”

At this, I gaped at him like an idiot. No way did heartthrob Colton enjoy watching a bunch of hot shirtless guys turning into wolves. No, that’s the sort of thing I do on my down time. Without being able to help myself, I burst into a fit of laughter.

“But I swear to God if you tell anyone that, I will kill you!”

My laughter continued until I was gasping for air. “How did you start watching teen wolf?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I have a twelve year old sister, she got me sucked in. I mean, Stiles is such a funny guy, and don’t get me started on Derek. And Allison is hot!”

“Now that was something I wasn’t expecting,” I stated truthfully.

“Your turn,” Colton told me.

Sighing, I thought to myself about anything that might surprise Colton. There wasn’t really anything interesting about me, I was just so ordinary.

“I like to sing,” I admitted lamely.

“Are you any good at it?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess.”

“Sing something—“

“Nope, your turn.”

Colton let out a loud sigh. “What do you want to know?”

I thought about the question. “Family?”

“My mom and dad divorced when I was in eighth grade. Dad got remarried in like a couple of months and my mom’s still single. I have two sisters, one’s six, her name is Bella, and the other’s twelve, her name is Charlotte.”

“What about your brother?” I asked suddenly, remembering back to the night Colton took me to the club.

Colton’s jaw tightened at the mention of his other sibling. “Yeah and him,” he muttered.

I could tell that I hit a nerve, so instead of getting my nose into his business, I looked back up at the night sky. The big Dipper, or the little—I couldn’t tell them apart—shined brightly in the black sky. Other smaller stars scattered across the sky, reminding me of the countless number of freckles that scattered across my face.

A small light fizzed to life and then flickered and dashed across the sky. After a moment, it disappeared. “Shooting star,” I whispered to myself.

“That was a fire fly,” Colton said with a small laugh.

“No it wasn’t.”

“Yes it was, I saw it earlier—“

“Don’t be mad just because I saw a shooting star and you didn’t. Now I get a wish and you don’t.” I stuck my tongue in his direction.

“Very mature freckles,” he said rolling his eyes.

“Colton, why don’t you like to talk about your brother?” I suddenly asked, letting my curiosity get the best of me.

He didn’t answer, and from the way his body tensed up once again I could tell he didn’t want to talk about his brother. “It doesn’t matter,” he said briskly.

I sighed. “It does to me.”

“Well I think you’d understand not wanting to talk about a certain someone Sutton.”

His words were ice cold, and I realized I had pinched a nerve. Standing up from my spot in the grass, I slowly made my way over to the small pool of water and slipped off my shoes. As I dipped my feet in the water, I was happily surprised by a nice warm temperature.

The black water rippled as my feet entered. Taking a deep breath, I tried to put myself in Colton’s shoes. He was right, there were certain things we didn’t need to talk about, I guess I was just curious about him. He just intrigued me so much; I wanted to know everything about him; the bad and the good.

“Come on I should get you home,” Colton called over to me after a few minutes.

Silently nodding my head, I stood from my spot and followed him back through the trails. This time, I made sure to keep a fair amount of distance between us because he still looked all tense. By the time we got back to his bike, the silence was no longer comfortable but awkward.

“Look Colton I’m sorry that—“

“Just got on the bike Sutton,” he said coldly, handing me a helmet.

I opened my mouth to talk again, the rumbling of his engine drowned out any conversation that I could have started. All I wanted to say was sorry for asking about his brother.

Sadly, I got on the back of his motorcycle and in no time we took off. The ride back seemed long and tense, and as impossible as it was, I tried to keep my distance from Colton. Instead of hugging the back of him as tight as I could, my arms were loosely wrapped around his torso giving us both some breathing room. By the time we were back at my house, it was already five in the morning.

I stepped onto the ground and handed him his bike helmet. “Colton-“

He interrupted me again. “You should get at an hour or so of sleep. Goodbye Sutton.”

Without waiting for a reply, Colton took off down the street and made a sharp turn and the closest intersection. What the hell happened with his brother that made him so uncomfortable to talk about?

After climbing back up the big tree, I made my way to my room and shut the door behind me. Without bothering to change my clothes, I slipped into bed and snatched the list from my bedside table. Using a pen I had found on my desk earlier, I crossed out number one and sunk into my comfortable blankets. Surely Colton would be back to normal by tomorrow. Maybe I had hit a nerve talking about his brother, but he would understand that I was only trying to learn more about him.

Anyway, Colton never seemed mad; he probably just had a bad day or something.

Telling myself everything would be alright, I closed my tired eyes and drifted off the sleep almost immediately. Too bad that sleep only lasted for another hour…

Hey Guys, sorry for the longish wait and the shortish chapter. I was having trouble writing this one for some reason. I don’t know, I guess I’ve just had a lot on my mind. Anyway, hope you like this one, and for those of you who are desperately waiting for some romance to happen, with anyone in the book, I’m telling you that it will! I just don’t want to rush this story like I have with my others.

Is anyone SUPER happy that The Mortal Instruments is coming out soon?????!!!!!!

I CAN’T WAIT OMG I’M SO EXITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AHHHH, anyway, don’t forget to vote and comment! Love you all!