Driving Lessons

{y'all this is another tipsy edit chapter. My sincerest apologies once again. My friend and I are currently watching The Secret Life of the American Teenager and have to drink every time they say sex or baby. Don't recommend but this show is lowkey giving me step sisters vibes 🙈

Anyway, to anyone that read the OG did I make Casey/Corey too likable}

"Hey guys" I say when I go downstairs. All four of them were sitting at the table eating breakfast. Why didn't they come get me?

"Hi Harper. You want breakfast?" My mom asks.

"No thanks. Casey is picking me up in a couple of minutes" I say.

"You don't want to hang out with us today?" My mom asks. I woke up, got dressed, and was ready to start my day. I have some things I need to do today.

"I can't. I have to get my car and clothes from Dad's house" "Ok" My mom says.

I turn to Jessie. "You want to come?"

She looks at her dad, then my mom, and then back to me. "If it's alright with you and Casey"

"It's fine with me. I'm sure Casey will be fine with it." I say.

"I'd prefer if you go" my mom says to her.

"Ok" Jessie gets up from the table.

"I'm gonna go get dressed. I'll be right back" She goes upstairs.I sat and talked to the rest of them for a couple of minutes while I waited. Casey sent me a text saying that he was here. Jessie came down just as I was typing back.

"He's here. We will see you later" I stand up from the table. We go outside and walk to the car. I get in first and sit in the passenger seat.

"Hi" I say and kiss him on the lips.

"I was kinda hoping it was just gonna be you and me today" He says.

"Too bad" I say.

Jessie gets in the car. She sat in the seat behind Casey.

"Hey" She says to him.

"Hi" Casey says back with a bit of an attitude. He starts driving to my dad's.

"How was the car ride home with my dad?"

"Not bad. We talked about sports." He says. Damn, I was hoping he was gonna have an uncomfortable conversation with my dad after all the shit my poor father had to witness from him.

"That's boring"

Casey ignores me, "How is your little brother?"

"He's good" Jessie says.

"Would you want to go to the club this weekend?" Casey asks me.

"Yes. I haven't been to one in so long" I say. That's when a lightbulb goes off.

"Do you have a fake" I turn around and ask Jessie.

"No" Aw she's so innocent.

"We'll get you one. Not a good one but it'll work for the club" I say. I turn the radio on and find a song I like. The car ride was quiet but quick. We arrive at my dad's house and Jessie gets out of the car.

"Bye Case. Thanks for the ride" I say.

"You're welcome." He leans over and kisses me. I get out of the car and wipe the kiss off without him or Jessie seeing.

He drives away.

"It makes me want to vomit when you two kiss" Jessie says.

"Yeah me too" I laugh.

"Do you want to come inside?" I ask.

"I don't think your dad wants me in his house" Jessie says.

"It's fine. He's not one of those bitter ex-husbands" I say.

"Ok. I'll come" She says.

We go up to the front door and I unlock it. "Hey dad." I yell when I get inside.

He walks out of the kitchen. "Hi girls"

"Come on" I pull Jessie by the hand upstairs to my room.

"Your rooms cute"

My room here is the complete opposite of my room at my mom's. Here I have a smaller bed, there isn't a closet, I have a dresser instead. I have some clothes that I leave here and I also bring some when I sleep over.

"Thank you" I get what I need quickly then we go back downstairs.

"Bye dad." I say.

"Bye Harper" He says and hugs me.

"Bye" She says to him.

"Bye Jessie" My dad says.

We go to my car and I put my stuff in the trunk. Then I get in the driver's seat. She was already in the passenger seat."Have you ever drive before?" I ask.

"Nope" She says.

"Do you want to?" I ask.

"Not really" She says.

"Want to drive my car?" I ask.

"That's illegal" She says.

"It's a private road. You'll be fine" I say.

"I'm pretty sure both of us can go to jail for that" She says.

"Again it's a private road. I've been driving here since I was thirteen and never once have I got in trouble" I say.

"Are you sure it's safe?" She asks.

"Yeah just please don't crash my car" I say.

"I won't" We switched seats so I was in the passenger seat and she was in the drivers. I've never been on this side of my car. I like it. "Welcome to your first driving lesson" I say and motion my hand from left to right in front of me

"I'm scared" She was gripping the steering wheel for dear life.

"Don't be. I'll walk you through it. First hit the brake" I say.

"I don't know which one is the brake" She says.

"Maybe you shouldn't be driving then. It's fine. It's the bigger one on the left" I point to it.

"Ok" She steps on it.

"Now put the car into drive" I say and she does as told.

"Great. Now let go of the brake and step on the other pedal. The harder you step the faster you'll go" I say.

"Alright" She says. She hits the pedal lightly and then stops immediately.

"It's too scary" She says. It's cute when she's nervous.

"Jessie, you're doing great. We can go like five miles per hour if that makes you feel better" I say.

"Fine" She says and hits the gas pedal again. We went past one house slowly and then she stopped the car. "Alright I'm done" She says.

"Not bad for the first time" I say. She puts the car in park. I'm shocked she knew how to do that. We get out and switch seats again.

I start driving at not a snail's paste. "Want to go get food? Since I did interrupt your breakfast"

"Sure" She says.

"How does that diner I told you about sound?"

"Sounds perfect" She says.

We arrive at the diner and go inside. It is very retro. It has a counter with stools when you walk in. The counter has an assortment of wrapped desserts and pastries around it. There are red booths lining the walls and some tables scattered around the middle of the room. The waitress tells us to sit wherever so we sit at a booth with a window facing the street. We order our food. She got blueberry pancakes and I got a spinach and feta omelet. We also got a milkshake to share.

"When do you go back to school?" She asks.

"The last week of August" I say.

"I'll be here for that" She says.

"Maybe you could go to school with my mom. I'm sure her class would love to meet you" I say.

"Do you ever get to go to work with her?" She asks.

"At the end of the school year. I will go once or twice. We have finals and don't have to go every day or we'll only go in for a few hours. They still have a regular school day." I say.

"That's cute" She says.

"It's kind of funny, my mom has pictures of me in her classroom so like once a year I'll have a little kid come up to me and say hi. They will start talking to me like I have known them all their life when in reality I have no idea who they are. In the beginning, I would get confused but realized once they would tell me they were in third grade. Now I just assume" I say.

"That's so cute!" Jessie says. Our food comes and we start eating. We also got to share our milkshake. It looked like a scene right out of a coming-of-age movie.

"What does your dad do?" Jessie asks.

"He is a detective. He tells a lot of fun stories about it" I say.

"That's cool" She couldn't care less.

"Yeah. Sometimes he volunteers at an animal sanctuary if he can. He likes animals especially reptiles" I say.

"We should visit him some time"

"We should" I've never been before. It would be fun to see it; put a place to all the stories he tells me. While we're eating the manager comes up to us. Her name is Lucy. Casey and I come in here so much that we've become friend with her.

"Hi Harper"

"Hi. How are you?"

"I'm doing well. No Casey today?"

"No. We went to a concert last night so he's exhausted. This is Jessie, my mom's boyfriends daughter"

"Nice to meet you" She says to Jessie.

"You too" I'm not going to lie. It is kind of weird being here without Casey. We come at least once a week. It is like our special place. I've just been like disgusted with him recently if I'm being honest so I'm glad I am here with Jessie.

"Well I let you two finish I just wanted to say hi" Lucy walks away.

"Who was that?" Jessie whispers.

"Lucy, she is the manager"

"You're friendly with the manager of the small town diner. That's so cute" We finish our food and the waitress comes over to take our plates.

"One check or two?"

"Two" Jessie says.

"One" I say.

We both look at each other and the waitress is still standing at our table. "One" I say and she walks away.

"Consider it my treat since for coming with me today"

"Thank you"

The waitress comes back and I pay then we head out to my car. I start driving home. We didn't really talk on the way home. We were just listening to the radio. It was a comfortable silence.

"We're home" I yell when we walk through the door. I got no answer. We went upstairs and checked the bedrooms. No one was home.

"What do you want to do?" I ask.

"Can we go watch a movie?" Jessie asks.

A movie day with Jessie sounds absolutely perfect. "Yeah. Go get in your pajamas" I say.

"Ok" She says and goes into her room.

I went into my room and got my pajamas on. I checked my phone while I was in there. I honestly forgot I even had one. I had one text from Casey.

Casey 💌:

Wow you really took Jessie to our favorite place i see how it is.

Jealous much? That text is not worth my time.

I took my blanket off my bed and dragged it downstairs to the couch. Then I went into the kitchen and put a bag of popcorn in the microwave. If we're gonna have a movie day we may as well do it right.

"What are you making?" She just came down in her pajamas. She sits on one of the island counter chairs. I was leaning against counters.

"Popcorn. I took my blanket from my bed and put it on the couch" I say.

"Do you need any help?" She asks.

"Do you want to pick a movie?" I ask.

"Sure" She goes to the couch and makes herself comfortable in the blanket.

After another minute the microwave goes off and I take the popcorn out and put it in a bowl. I go over to the couch and get under the blanket next to Jessie.

"What are we watching?" I ask.

"Pitch Perfect. I was gonna do The Fault In Our Stars but it seemed too sad" She says.

"I would have loved to cry my eyes out with you" I say.

"Maybe next time" She starts the movie.

I cuddle up next to her and lay my head on her chest. She didn't stop staring down at me the entire time. She would take her eyes off of me for a second and look up at the movie but then she would look right back down to me. After like ten minutes I look up at her and smile. "What?"

"Nothing" She says and turns a little pink from embarrassment. She looks at the TV. She glanced back at me to see if I was still watching her. I was, she smiled. I quietly laughed.

So we were having a good old time watching the movie until I heard my mom's car out front. I sit up quickly and Jessie moves away from me a couple inches. My mom and Collin walk through the door with Levi following closely behind them.

"Really girls?" Collin says.

"It's nice out now so youre gonna watch a movie? It's gonna start raining in two hours. Why don't you take advantage of the nice weather?" My mom asks.

I roll my eyes. "Fine. We'll find something to do" I stand up. Jessie does too.

"Where did you go?" Jessie asks them.

"The grocery store" Levi says.

"This isn't over" Jessie turns to me.

"I know" She says and we go upstairs.

We go into our rooms and I get dressed back into my clothes from before. I don't know what we are going to do but we probably won't be able to do it in our pajamas.After a couple of minutes I go into Jessie's room. She and Levi were in there.

"Hey. Do you two want to go to the beach?" I ask.

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" Levi says.

"It will probably be raining by the time we get there" She says.

"You're right. How about we go in the pool instead? It is much closer, about 15 steps away." I say

"Yeah that's an even better idea" Levi says jumping up and down.

{fun fact I hit the gas instead of the break during my driving test 4 years ago and that's why I still don't have a license 😍

Anyway, now that I'm half an hour into editing and halfway throw my rewatch of secret life I can whole heartedly say the main inspo for this story was this show

Also who has had the one or two check dilemma because it is getting annoying. I'm just trying to pay for everything in a toxic situationship over here 😭}