🏃Clark's POV🏃

I walked up to the front door of the Tyler residence once again, this time, pulling out my phone to message Jasmine to let me in.

I was not in the mood to have Jasmine not answer for how many minutes because she couldn't hear the doorbell. She would definitely hear her phone.

I heard a ding and when I opened my phone I saw just one simple message.

Jasmine

It's open

"Well, I guess we can just go in." I told him, opening the front door and walking in with him trailing behind me.

I expected him to say something else in response but it sounded as if all the air left him when we walked into the house and he saw the inside.

"Gosh, this place is amazing!" Santiago said, his voice barely above a whisper as he stared around the room in awe.

He had had a similar reaction when we had gotten to the front gates and we walked up the long driveway to the front of the mansion. Santiago hadn't completely believed me when I said that Mark and Jasmine lived in a mansion but he sure did now since he saw it for himself.

"I still can't believe that Jasmine and Mark live in this place, though I never thought of myself as having a ton of prejudices, I never would have thought that they lived here with the way that they acted," Santiago told me, his eyes still continually moving from spot to spot as he tried to take in the entire foyer.

"Well, you probably didn't know this but for most of their childhood, Jasmine and Mark's family lived in a regular house and were an average family," I explained, watching when Santiago seemed to be briefly surprised. "But their dad made some smart choices when it came to working and got a job with a quickly growing company. He and his wife were so excited by the amount of money that they were making that the first thing that they did was buy this huge house."

Santiago opened his mouth to say something else but he stopped when we both heard someone walk into the foyer. She was walking towards the stairs, holding a large tray that had bowls of carrots, apples, and peanut butter when she noticed the two of us.

"Oh, Clark! And you brought a friend!" She beamed, running out of the room to put down her tray, and then running back to give me a big, tight hug.

"Hi, Auntie Tania. It's great to see you." I smiled, squeezing Mark's mother a bit more before I stepped back. "How are you and your husband?"

Aunt Tania's eyes crinkled as she smiled at me, she seemed genuinely happy to see me and it made my chest feel warm.

"Oh, we are doing wonderfully, Matthew is going to become a partner at his company so it seems like he will be able to retire and just receive money from the company soon."

I gasped and hugged her again.

"That is amazing news! Will you continue to work at the high school while he is retired?" I asked her, my words rushed out of excitement for her.

"Well, I am not completely sure, I think that I will for a little while but afterward, I would like to retire with him, we could leave the house to the twins and possibly have Meaghan or Aaron or even Francesca coming over sometimes to make sure that they are okay while we travel or something. It is all very exciting!" Aunt Tania seemed so happy and I was so happy that things were working out for her, she and her husband were incredibly nice and generous people in my eyes and I wanted the best for them and their entire family.

"So, how are you? Or better yet, how is that boyfriend of yours?" Aunt Tania asked with an evil glint in her eye. "Are you two alright now or are you still fighting over whether you want to talk about your sex life with other people or not?"

My face immediately heated up with a blush and I groaned. I quickly glanced back at Santiago and found him smirking at me. Scratch what I said about her being nice, she embarrassed me too much for it to be considered nice.

"She is just overexaggerating about us." I told Santiago, hoping to get rid of some of the damage that came from Aunt Tania's question. "And if we weren't fighting over talking about it because we don't even have a sex life, Aunt Tania, I am still an innocent baby that is too embarrassed to do . . . certain things with boys."

Aunt Tania just shrugged, smirking at me.

"Are you sure, Clark? Because while we were in the car that one time I distinctly remember you saying-"

"Oh gosh! I just remembered!" I exclaimed, speaking unnecessarily loud so that I would be speaking over whatever Aunt Tania was about to say. "I didn't introduce the two of you yet, how rude of me."

Santiago didn't fall for my excuse at all, Aunt Tania thinking the same thing, but both of them didn't bring it up and just went along silently with it instead.

"Santiago, this is Tania, I personally call her Aunt Tania, she is Mark and Jasmine's mom and the mother of Mason's brother-in-law. Because Jasmine's older brother married Mason's older brother." I told Santiago, I hadn't been sure if I had already told him about Aiden and Aaron being married, but by the brief widening of his eyes, I would guess not. "And, Aunt Tania, this is Santiago, he is a friend of mine who I met because he saved me from almost falling into the train tracks at St George Station. He is really great."

The two exchanged "pleasantries" and then all three of us headed upstairs to Jasmine's room.

Aunt Tania heads in first, and when everyone else who was in the room sees her, they all give some cheers and quickly take the tray away from and set it on the floor. They also give her a round of "thanks" which she warmly replies to with "you're welcome" before she smiles and leaves the room.

The teenagers in the room finally notice that Santiago and I were once Aunt Tania leaves and it is just Santi and I standing in the doorway.

"Oh, hey Santiago. Hey, Clark. Come in and take a seat why don't you." Daniel says brightly when he notices us before anyone else.

The two of us wave and the other three in the room snap their heads in our direction once they hear Daniel.

Amongst those three were Jasmine, Mark, and Mason. Mark and Mason smiled and waved at the two of us while Jasmine's face broke out in a huge grin.

"Oh, good! You guys made it!" Jasmine says cheerfully, standing up from where she was sitting on the floor and running over to us to give us a big and tight hug. "Yeah, like Daniel said, have a seat and get comfortable. We are just talking and relaxing before we get into the party stuff okay?"

I nod my head while Santiago speaks.

"Yeah, we get it." Santiago says, telling Jasmine that he understood what she was talking about. "But, right now I just really want to get into those carrots though. They make me feel like I am seven again whenever I eat them."

The two of us laugh and we all start walking fully into Jasmine's extremely large room.

"Wait, do you mean the baby carrots or just the ones that are cut up into bite-size pieces?" I ask him, half-joking but mainly out of curiosity.

"Both, honestly." He tells me, his cheeks heating up just the slightest bit. It was a very cute look on him.

"Wait, you do know that they make baby carrots by cutting them out of long carrots right? They don't just grow like that." Jasmine asks me, raising a brow as she waits for my answer.

"What? Really?" I ask in complete surprise. "I had no idea that that was a thing!"

"Me neither," Santiago agrees, looking at Jasmine skeptically. "But are you being serious, not pulling our tails or anything?"

"No, I swear to Rihanna that I actually read somewhere that they just cut out baby carrots from regular ones," Jasmine promised.

From there, the six of us went into random groups of conversation, switching people and what we were talking about constantly, making the entire vibe just random and fun.

I was talking to Santiago about a weird video I had seen on YouTube when Jasmine suddenly stood up and walked to the front of her bedroom.

Her serious expression was a startling contrast to her carefree laughing self only moments ago. Now, she was looking at us as if we were interns and she was the head of -I don't know- Google or something. It was hella weird.

"Ladies and gentlemen, friends, family, and esteemed guests-" Jasmine boomed proudly, starting what she probably planned out to be a great speech. But, before she could get through the introduction, Mark was interrupting.

"Jasmine, we really don't need something so unnecessarily fancy. We are just having a meeting." Mark berated her, getting interrupted by Jasmine in return.

"This isn't just a meeting. This is a meeting about my 18th birthday party, which was delayed for four years because somebody didn't realize that we had enough money to feed all the people he wanted and for me to get my Sweet Sixteen." Jasmine clipped, shooting daggers at Mark after she finished. Mark actually seemed to look slightly bashful and apologetic after Jasmine said that.

Mark had always been a nice person but a couple of months after he and Jasmine turned 15, he got heavily involved in projects meant to help bring shelter to those in North America and others for bringing clean water to underdeveloped countries. But his fifteen, later turning sixteen-year-old mind thought that to help other people he had to give himself only the bare minimum. He donated all of his clothes and only shopped at the thrift store and Walmart for new ones, he ate half of what he used to, he showered with only cold water, and he cut his hair himself. Somehow it still came out perfect but that isn't the point.

Us family and friends staged a mini-intervention to make it clear to Mark that he didn't have to deny himself the blessings he was given, just to give some of them to others. Mark was not convinced at first but eventually started eating more food and letting his parents buy him things again.

But, Jasmine is still going to hold him stopping her from having epic parties for a long amount of time.

"Okay, let me start again," Jasmine said, half muttering to herself. "Ladies and gent-"

"But wait, Jasmine, you are the only girl in the room." Mason suddenly said, actually confused when he spoke. "Are you talking to yourself?"

Jasmine opened and closed her mouth several times, going back and forth between the options of being upset and possibly insulting Mason, or just answering his question because he was really curious. Mark was staring at Mason while this happened and I could see the clear adoration.

I just had on an amused smile while I watched. I nudged Santiago who was also silently enjoying what was happening and when he looked at me I sent him a wink for no reason at all. Santiago's cheeks gained a little colour before he went back to watching what was happening in front of us.

"Fine, I'm talking to myself as well." Jasmine finally answered, her voice coming out slow and calm. She sounded as if she was on the verge of exploding and I was excited to see how it would end.

"Ladies, me, and gentlemen, friends, family, and esteemed guests. We are gathered here today to witness the planning of Jasmine, and Mark's 18th birthday party-"

"Jasmine." Daniel sighed, and I saw the exact moment the Jasmine cracked. "Why in the world are you making your speech sound like a wedding?"

"You know what?! That's it!" Jasmine yelled, raising her hands as if she were giving up. "I tried to be nice and make this a good experience for all of you but you can't even let me finish one speech."

"But-" Mason tried to speak.

"Nope!" Jasmine raised her hand while she yelled and Mason shut back up. "Listen, and listen good. We are going to make one of the coolest, classiest, best 18th birthday parties that have ever existed in the history of Canadian -no- North American parties." We all looked at Jasmine skeptically but continued to listen.

"It is going to have a ball theme so that we can have some fancy schmancy dancing for a bit, but it will mostly have a lot of cool areas to chill and a huge dance floor area so it will give the feeling of a club."

"A club that doesn't serve alcohol," I added, remembering one of the main conditions that her parents gave her in order for her to be allowed to have a party.

"Yes," Jasmine agreed. "A club that only serves water, juice, sparkling juice, and soda."

"Sparkling juice?" Mark asked. "Isn't that a bit expensive?" Jasmine seemed to want to snap by fortunately recognized that some of Mark's frugal tendencies were showing through and just waved her brother off.

"It's fine, you really don't have to worry about it, Mark. Mark didn't seem convinced but stayed quiet. " So, roles. Daniel and Santiago," Jasmine started, sending a reassuring smile to Santiago who seemed to be slightly uptight.

"You two are in charge of sending out invitations and making sure to check up in those that were invited two more times after this. My party is only in literally a couple of months because it took so long to get my parents to agree so, you will send out the invitations today and tomorrow, being alert to check off who RSVPs; follow up in a month to ask people if they are still coming; then remind them a week before in case they forgot."

Santiago had snapped out his phone and started jotting down what Jasmine said but Daniel just listened to everything that Jasmine was telling him.

"So, when are you gonna give us the list of people that you want to invite?" Daniel asked after Jasmine finished explaining what they had to do.

"I have it written down on a piece of paper. One of you guys can take it and the other can just take a picture of it. I already picked a general template for the invitations, you guys can add your own emails so that you can see everything." Jasmine explained, turning and bending down to grab the paper.

Daniel continued to not while Santiago tapped even more frantically on his phone.

She then looked at Mark and Mason.

"The two of you are in charge of the food and drinks, you have to decide what you are going to serve, full meals, snacks, catering, No-frills, it is all up to you," Jasmine told the two, Mason glancing at Mark for a moment with a smile. "I gathered a list of catering companies that have great reviews and some general food themes that I would like you guys to draw info from, but if you guys have a better idea, do it."

I noticed that Mark seemed quite pleased with the power and was already thinking about how cheaply he could get great things to eat.

"And Clark," Jasmine smiled. 'You and I are going to be decorating, finalizing the venue, and figuring out where we can rent things like tables, chairs, and a DJ. A good one too, not one of those DJs that never finish the good songs." I nodded completely agreeing with her comment about DJs.

Why did some of them always seem to end the best songs that they had? Did I tell you that I was finished dancing?!

"Ok, any questions?" All of us looked at each other, wondering if anyone had questions, but when no one said anything, Jasmine nodded and clapped her hands. "Alright then let's get to work!"