The entire premise of his visit was so incredibly random and so incredibly crazy, but I don't think that I had ever had a more enjoyable few days in my entire life.

            I rolled over in bed, a huge smile on my face as the fourth day of the Halls' visit began. Aria was snoring softly on the air mattress next to my bed, and picked up my phone to check the time. 8:56 AM. Everyone knew it wasn't socially acceptable to wake someone up until at least 9:00.

            Aria was suprisingly chill, especially for a freshman. Most of the underclassmen I knew were concerned with nothing more than dating seniors and getting high, so Aria Hall was a fresh spirit in California—she was witty and excited about everything, but not to the point where I wanted to wring her neck because of the excessive giddiness.

            The clock hit 9:00 as I was scrolling through Instagram and Aria's alarm went off.

            "Girlfriend why did you set an alarm? You're on vacation!"

            Aria laughed as she rolled over to shut the clock off.

            "I'm gonna go out to the beach with this cute guy I met on Sunday." She sat up and pulled on a pair of fuzzy slippers. "Don't tell my parents or brother; they think I'm off with a friend from camp. I'm gonna go shower!"

            I laughed as she left the room. How I wished I had that kind of spunk; I would never in a million years have even thought of lying to my parents about going out with a guy.

            I felt my phone buzz and I flipped over to see who had messaged me. I couldn't help but smile as I read the message, however gross and girly the smile was.

            I rolled my eyes at the last message; Aria had been a wonderful roommate for the past few nights and he knew that perfectly well. The "good morning beautiful" is what made me squirm a bit; I wasn't the most girly of girls and I had a feeling that the increased flirting was going to start making me uncomfortable.

            That's not to say that I wanted him to stop.

            Hayden and Nate, my 12-year-old twin brothers, were absolute atrocities; they lived off of their video games, and when they weren't playing Halo virtually, they were trying to recreate it in real life. My mother had given up on trying to convince them to behave like normal human beings approximately two hours after my dad bought them their first video game. Connor had been staying in our upstairs guest bedroom, which was right next to the twins and directly across the hall from Aria and me, so the only sounds I could imagine Connor hearing were gunshots being made with their mouths and fake deaths.

            I turned off my phone and grinned up at the ceiling, staying that way until the door opening jolted me back into reality.

            "Gross, did Connor say something nice?" Aria cringed as she sat down at my desk and took out her mascara wand. "You two are so disgustingly adorable, it kills me."

            "Oh, shut up." I rolled my eyes. "We're not even officially a thing; you guys live across the country."

            Aria shrugged.

            "Long distance works sometimes. I've never seen Connor behave this way around anyone, or talk this much about anyone. We didn't hear a word about Ashley until they had been dating for three months, and even then he didn't say much about her. She never wanted to come over and meet our parents or do anything that a regular couple did, so I mean it wasn't even a surprise that she was cheating on him."

            "Not a surprise?" I felt my eyes widen. "How could someone cheating not be a huge shock to everyone else?"

            "Think about it this way." Aria spun around to face me, one eye with huge, thick lashes and the other completely undone. "You're dating this guy, this really good guy, right? He's never kissed a girl before you, he's never uttered a rude word against you in your entire relationship, he gets along with your friends because he's just that nice, and he's met your family at least fifteen times already and they absolutely adore him. He's just a flat-out good guy.

            "Now imagine that you've been cheating on this great guy, or, at the beginning, that you've been checking out other guys and you can picture yourself with them instead. You're gonna be awkward around your boyfriend's family, right? You're going to feel guilty, because you have a conscience, because in the back of your mind you're reliving the terrible things you've done behind their son's back. You don't want to meet his parents because you don't want to look them in the eye and see how much they want to love their son's new girlfriend, only to feel your heart drop at the fact that you cheated on him.

            "Ashley never wanted to meet our parents. Connor's a pretty straight-forward guy, so he flat-out told us that Ashley didn't want to meet our mom and dad. Not that she was busy, or that she didn't like the restaurant they chose, but that she didn't want to. That's a major red flag that Connor didn't catch until it was too late. So it wasn't as big of a surprise that Ashley was cheating as it could have been. The signs were all there. We just didn't choose to make anything out of them until after the fact."

            I reflected on that for a moment. Had Kevin ever wanted to meet my family? Probably not. He had met them dozens of times, of course—we had dated for almost two years—but at the same time, he had never really clicked with any of them. He didn't play ball outside with my brothers like Connor had over the past couple days, he hadn't helped my dad fix his broken phone like Connor had done last night, he hadn't asked my mom if he could help her make dinner like Connor had on their very first night here.

He had come over for dinner, told my mother that it was delicious, and kissed me goodbye like a good boyfriend does. We barely had any problems until he ended it so suddenly and all the drama ensued; we had had a relatively drama-free relationship. He hadn't exhibited any of the warning signs Aria seemed to know so much about, so I doubted he had been cheating on me...he was just suddenly done. He was done, and he didn't want to explain why. He had been the stereotypical good boyfriend for too long apparently; going through the motions of what he saw in the movies and what his older brother had taught him, and then that was it. He had gotten through his routine.

"You seem to know an awful lot about relationships for a freshman, Aria."

            "Hey, I'm just observant." Aria replied, turning back around to finish up her mascara. "I noticed the strange things Ashley did, or didn't do, just like I noticed that you have what must be the world's most incredible supply of makeup."

            "Girl, I could talk about makeup for hours." I laughed, forcing my mind to get away from the whole Kevin situation. "Have you ever wondered how long it takes to absolutely perfect the winged eyeliner?"

            "How long?"

            "Took me two years. Here, let me show you."

***

"Did we get a ride?" Connor asked as I rolled over in the hammock. "I've never been to a "beach jam", I don't know what to expect."

"Don't worry, you'll fit right in. Just don't accept any drinks from people you don't know." I winked.

Connor rolled his eyes.

"Since I've never had a sip of alcohol before, I don't think I'm going to start now." He laughed sheepishly.

"I've never had any either, and I don't plan on having any at any beach jam." I smiled reassuringly; he seemed to think I would think it strage that he had never drank before. "The number of times I have had to drive home a drunk Jen is enough for me to never want to try it for myself."

He smiled at me before laying his head back down on the hammock. I felt his hand slip into mine and squeeze gently. "You know how, in our letters, we said that it was more comfortable to tell each other things because we couldn't see each other?"

I nodded before realizing that we were both looking up and he couldn't see me.

"Yeah."

"And then on the phone, when it was still okay to tell each other things because even though we could hear each other, we couldn't see the other person's reactions?"

"Yeah...where are you going with this?"

"I just think," he paused for a moment, "I just think that it's a billion times more comfortable when I'm looking at your gorgeous face."

Don't bug your eyes out of your head, Sydney.

"Well hot dang, Hall, that was smooth!" I grinned as I flipped onto my side to face him. "How long were you waiting to use that one?"

He faced me as well, with a sly smirk on his face.

"No more than three days."

"Days?"

"Hey, I'm not good at coming up with these things!"

I couldn't help a small smile creeping up onto my face as I looked at him. He was just so cute—he didn't have the athletic build that I was used to with Kevin, he didn't have the perfectly sculpted jawline that all the girls swooned over on Instagram. He was about six inches taller than me, and had a tiny scar on his chin from when he was riding a bike as a kid. His hair flopped over to one side, but never covered his huge blue eyes. His smile was huge and genuine and didn't hide anything; he was a real person, a good guy, as Aria had put it, and the fact that that giant smile was directed towards me made me want to jump up and down.

"What are you smiling about?" he laughed slightly as I realized I had literally just been staring at him for a few minutes.

"Oh, you know, just the fact that I'm lying next to the best guy I've ever met." I shrugged, looking down in an effort to hide my surely red face. "No biggie."

Connor laughed and tilted my chin up so that his face was only a few inches from mine.

"No biggie? Syd, it's the biggest deal in the world to be here with you."

Kisses in the movies always seemed so flawless, so perfect and so obviously rehearsed that I always feared for my own kisses, since I knew they would look nothing like that. My first kiss with Kevin was disgusting; sloppy and wet and with way too much beer breath from him. I felt like I was kissing a drunk puppy. I, of course, had progressively moved our kisses along so that eventually I had nonverbally strengthened his skills. Delaney had no idea what he was like before I had fixed him for her.

But right then, it that moment, when Connor kissed me...it was exactly like the movies. It might not have looked like the movies—our noses were squished together and our limbs were tangled in the hammock—but it felt like the heavens had opened up and the angels were singing hallelujah above me. His lips pressed against mine and I instantly forgot what we were talking about, where I was, and what planet we lived on. I was kissing Connor Hall. Connor Hall had kissed me.

He broke away after a few seconds and grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry. You just looked really cute and I wanted to kiss y—"

I cut him off immediately and kissed him again. This time it really was like the movies; our noses were at perfect angles in relationship with each other, his right hand was on my lower back and his left was in my hair, and I felt as if the entire world had just stopped.

I could have kissed him forever if I hadn't heard the screen door open.

"Sydney!"

We jumped apart from each other and I called back to my mother, acutely aware of his hand lingering on my back.

"Yes, mother?"

"Did you find a ride to the beach jam?"

"Yeah, Riley wants to stop by! She'll take us."

"Alright."

The screen door closed and I breathed a sigh of relief. Sure, my mom was used to the idea of me kissing boys, but it was still awkward to be walked in on by your mother, no matter how innocent the kiss was.

"Do you think I'll fit in with everyone at the beach jam tonight?" Connor asked.

"Definitely. Just try to avoid Delaney and Kevin's crowd."

"Sounds good." Connor nodded. "Now, where were we?"

A/N: ^^BTW those palm trees are my own bomb photography skills at the beach (the picture was better when it wasn't a square but I mean this whole fake Instagram thing is way too hard for my mediocre editing skills).

So I got a Wednesday update in! Yay! I hope their first kiss was enjoyable for you guys, and that I didn't screw up what you envisioned! Some drama's bout to go down at the beach jam in the next chapter...whoops :)

Thank you guys for all of your well-wishes in the previous chapter! I didn't reply to most of them because there were just so many from you wonderful people and I didn't want to just do a few and not the rest, so here is a BIG thank you to everyone! You're all so sweet and wonderful!

The first chapter of Recalling Lincoln Carter was put out on Monday! Head over and check it out and let me know if you guys like it! I love the concept and hope you guys do too! Let me know which cover you like as well! While laying out at the beach today I got a few new ideas for books but I'm forcing myself to finish these two before I start the new ones...I always have at least 15 different books going at once, it's awful.

Also, real quick, a couple days ago I noticed a contest on thefictionawards profile! It's for the best fiction books on Wattpad, and it's completely people's choice! Since I have the best peoples reading my book, I was wondering if you all would mind dropping a comment on the "Teen Fiction" line of their contest's book to nominate Dear Sydney for it! All your comment has to say is "Dear Sydney by katherinepowell" and you've voted! The top 15 books with the most comments in each category will get to go on to the finals!

I hope you enjoyed this update, since it was sort of a filler chapter for the drama coming up that had to be from Connor's perspective! (there's a hint) Also, my Microsoft Word has stopped spell checking my words, so if something's spelled wrong, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it, it's all Word's fault.

As always, make sure to vote, comment, and check back for a (maybe) regular update! (Still can't promise those) I love you guys and love reading your comments and opinions!

-Katherine