Didn't Know It Before( An EJ Caswell/HSMTMTS Fanfiction)

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Deal

EJ and I were in my room for two hours just talking about everything. Every Water Polo game, Test, Assignment he ever cheated on. Every person he ever manipulated to get what he wanted. Every bad thing he's ever done that he never told anyone.

By the time he was done, I was sitting on my bed with a pillow in my lap just processing it all.

"Megan?" He asked. I looked up at him. "Megan, please say something."

"Well, um...that was...a lot." He sighed, raking a hand through his hair.

"I knew it. I knew I was gonna scare you off!"

"That's not what I meant." I assured him with a hand on his arm. "I'm just processing it all, that's all."

"Do you hate me yet?" He asked. I shook my head.

"I could never hate you." He sighed, laying down so that his head was on the pillow in my lap. I offered him a sympathetic smile, running my fingers through his hair.

"I'm just scared." He says. "With Nini, you know, that was scary too, but I've liked you for so long, and for that to just be over..."

"Hey..." I said, lightly tugging at his hair, "There's no point in freaking out about hypotheticals." He sat up, turning around to face me.

"You can honestly tell me that you're not at all worried that something might come along and screw all of this up?" He asked.

"I'm not worried about what could happen." I said. "I just want to enjoy what's in front of me right now, and right now, I'm in a kind-of, sort-of relationship with the guy who I never imagined would even acknowledge me existence." He sighed, and I put a hand on his face. "Live in the moment, EJ."

He sighed again, turning his head and pressing his lip against the palm of my hand.

"Have I mentioned that you look beautiful today?" He asked. I nodded.

"When you were trying to save yourself from your parents you did." I stated, taking my hand back.

"I'm really sorry about that." He said. "I promise, once they get to know you better, they'll love you."

"You sure about that?" I asked. He furrowed his eyebrows. "I'm no Nini."

"You're right, you're not." He said. "You're Megan. You're the girl who always steps in to do what needs to be done, you'll do anything for anybody no questions asked, you're an incredibly talented singer-songwriter that, quite frankly needs to be more confident in her ability and herself as a person because if you saw yourself even a fraction of the way I see you, you'd probably have the biggest head in the greater Salt Lake Region."

"Shut up." I said.

"No, Megan! I'm not gonna shut up, and you need to stop waving off my compliments and just accept the fact that you're amazing and I'm crazy about you." I sighed.

"Fine, I'll make you a deal." I said.  "I'll work on being more confident if you work on worrying less about what could go wrong and live in the moment."

"Deal." I chuckled at this. "I should probably be getting home."

"Yeah...but today was fun, right? We were having fun before...everything."

"Yeah, it was fun." he said. "You look a lot more comfortable around everybody." I nodded.

"I am. I think a lot of that has to do with you." He furrowed his eyebrows. "Well I mean, we started to become friends, and I figured...you know, if you could like me, anybody else could too."

"Well, lets work on getting your confidence to the point that you understand why we like you, huh?" I nodded.

"Here, I'll walk you out." I jumped off of my bed, leading the way downstairs and walking him out to his car.

"Oh, also, I meant to ask you something." He said, once we got there.

"Yeah, what's up?" I asked. He opened his car door, reaching inside and pulling out his letter jacket.

"I know its kind of an old-fashioned cliche, giving your girlfriend your Letterman jacket, but I wanted to ask if you wanted it." I smiled at this.

"Well, l happen to like old-fashioned cliches," I said, taking the jacket and folding it over my arms, "And did you just call me your girlfriend?"

"That's what you are, lets be honest here." He said. "We might as well make it official, right." I smiled, nodding.

"Well ok boyfriend. Drive safe, get back home in one piece and I will see you back at School on Monday."

"I'll call you and text you every chance I get." He said, leaning down and kissing me briefly. I smiled, nodding in agreement.

"Goodnight, EJ."

"Goodnight, Megan." He got into his car and I backed up onto the porch as he pulled out of the driveway and drove away. I smiled, hugging the jacket to my chest and inhaling the smell of EJ.

"I have a boyfriend." I said to myself, not quite believing it. I jumped up and down for a second before going back inside and heading up to my room.

~~~

I was woken up the next morning by my parents.

"Hey guys." I said groggily, rubbing my eyes. "How was work?"

"It was good." Mom said. "How was your Thanksgiving?"

"It was fun, I had a good time." I stated. "What are you guys doing?"

"Well, we wanted to make it up to you, for missing Thanksgiving..." Dad said.

"So, we got you something." I sat up, eyeing them skeptically.

"Oh, it um...its not an iPad, is it?"

"No, no, nothing like that." Mom said. "But we're going to need you to close your eyes."

~~~

"Ok, keep them closed, no peeking." Dad had his hands on my arms, leading the way while my mother's hands covered my eyes.

"How could I peek if your hands are over my eyes?" I asked.

"Fair enough. Ok, just stop right here...ok, you can look!" I opened my eyes to see, directly in front of me...was the closed door to the home office. I furrowed my eyebrows, looking at them.

"Well! Open the door!" Mom exclaimed. I eyed them warily, but did as she said, turning the doorknob and pulling the door open.

The room looked completely different, with the desks and file cabinets gone and replaced with all of my instruments. My keyboard, my guitar. The near wall, which once contained metal file organizers was replaced with hooks housing my ukulele collection, and the shelves were full of little music note statues and music themed decorative things like that.

But in the center of the room was the most beautiful grand piano I had ever seen.

"Guys!" I exclaimed. "When did you do this?!"

"We've been secretly moving everything out for a few weeks." Dad said. 

"We thought, rather than having a home office that, realistically, we hardly use anyway...you might like to have a music room."  I turned around, looking at her. "I know you said that getting you presents doesn't make up for things-"

I cut them off by wrapping my arms around their necks and hugging them.

"Thank you!" I said. "Its perfect, I love it!" 

"I'm so glad!" Mom said. I pulled away from them, looking at the room again.

"You guys...you got me a present that you knew I would like." I said, tears welling up in my eyes.

"Well, we figured, we had some catching up to do." Dad said. I smiled at them.