How You Get The Girl: Bangtan High Book 1

Chapter 33: Thankful

"You should make more of an effort," your mother stated from where she stood in front of the stove waiting for the pasta to boil.

Despite your obvious success in the kitchen, you'd been put on salad duty. You glanced longingly at your freshly baked loaves of bread and wished your mom would let you help her. At least with stuffing the shells and then putting them in the oven. You figured that would be a step in the right direction. Or at least it would stop you from contemplating baking some cupcakes and decorating them as turkeys and pumpkins and leaves and just fall stuff in general.

You glanced down at your outfit which was admittedly Jungkook's hoodie and a pair of leggings. "What's wrong with this?"

"I feel like I raised you better than that. Come on. I can't have my only daughter being out shined by her brother's girlfriend," your mother teased you.

It was true, Isabelle continued to look ethereal in her maroon long sleeved dress. It appeared a little short to your standards, but you figured her legs could possibly just be that long. Somehow she pulled off the bellowing sleeves. You were sure if you tried to pull of that dress that your arms would just look like sausages or at least bigger than the willowy branches that were hers.

You were mentally preparing yourself for Jungkook's wandering eyes no matter what you wore because you'd learned that while you weren't allowed to even make eye contact with the waiter; Chandan was allowed to flirt to his heart's content. Especially if you'd done something to upset him. Which was often enough that looking back you'd pondered what exactly you'd done to warrant him doing something like that.

Your father spoke over the blender as he was making homemade marinara sauce that you knew from past experience was to die for, "She's beautiful just as she is. Especially since she's toned up."

You blinked. Was that a compliment? Did my dad just compliment me? Me? You smiled. "Thanks."

"Of course she's beautiful," your mother scoffed, "we made her after all. I'm just saying that she should enhance her beauty and change into something more appropriate for a family meal."

You went on ahead and whipped up the cheese mixture to stuff the shells with as you pondered outfits. Would it even matter if you did make an effort? Would he care? You glanced at the clock. If you went upstairs now you could shave your legs and wear a dress like Isabelle. Or you could pull on tights. And what about your hair?

"Okay, okay, I'll go change," you gave in.

You passed Isabelle and Dev chatting away in the living room. A bottle of wine sat on the coffee table between their seemingly untouched glasses. You wondered when had your little brother not only grew to the age of legally drinking, but to the point where your parents were cool serving it to their children. At any rate, they both seemed happy as they talked about something that had too many names of people you didn't know and situations you'd never been in. You smiled as both of them laughed, but felt a pang of something as you walked up the stairs. You knew it wasn't the same thing as the dinner parties Chandan had paraded you around, but for some strange reason it was starting to feel that way.

You stepped into your room closing the door behind you and breathing a sigh of relief. You dug out your phone and fired a quick text to Amanda wishing her a happy thanksgiving. Based on her snapchat story from that morning, she was having fun with her nieces and nephews. Alyson's day would be stressful and you pondered how many people would call her for a domestic disturbance. You pondered how many more wouldn't just because she was a police officer.

You padded over to the bathroom and sighed as you looked yourself in the mirror. The bags under your eyes had somewhat disappeared which meant despite your worries about Chandan lurking out there somewhere, you'd at least been getting sleep. You still contemplated makeup. Nothing too flashy. Just a natural look with bronzes and pinks to enhance your natural beauty.