Off Limits (8 page)

Luke rounded on
me. There was something to lash out at after all. “How can you just be standing
there so calm? He’s threatening your family, not mine, and I’m on the one going
over there to do something about it. How does that work exactly?”

I wanted to back
down, but his tall stature dominated mine anyway. “I’m just trying to be
rational. He could have a knife or a gun in there or anything. He’s not exactly
looking sane, is he?”

The blaring of a
horn made me jump and Luke and I had to scoot backwards to avoid being hit by
the car that sped down the road. The driver shot a less than complimentary
gesture at us.

The metal of Luke’s
car was cold at my back and Luke hovered close to me, still kind of in the
road. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Look,
you were trying to protect me and I was trying to protect you. This is the way
this whole thing is going to have to work, I guess. I didn’t want you to get
hurt.” I looked up at him with eyes pleading to understand. I just wanted him
to calm down so we could go home and figure this thing out.

Not that there was
much to say other than “well, I guess we’ll just do everything he says from now
on.”

But Luke returned
my gaze with a look of utter helplessness. “I don’t like being in this
situation. I don’t know what to do to solve it and keep us both safe.”

I managed the
smallest of smiles. “I’m sure we can figure something out together.”

“I just want it to
be over and done with already,” he sighed and didn’t look away. “Hey, are you
okay?”

I couldn’t really
say that I was. “I’ll be all right, at some point in the near future
hopefully.”

When he tucked a
piece of hair behind my ear, my eyes widened and I swallowed. Well, that was
completely out of the blue and my stomach reacted with a flip. “I hope so too.
This really isn’t fair on you.”

My hands hung limp
by my side as I strongly considered lifting them to his school tie. This was
suddenly far too intimate, but I only wanted it to get worse. “Thank you for
going after him. It… really means a lot that you would, you know?”

I sucked in a
breath when he leant forwards.

He was leaning
into kiss me and I wasn’t going to do a single thing about it, other than to
accept his lips with a burning lump in my throat that tried to warn me I was
doing the wrong thing.

Only, he
redirected the kiss at the last minute and it landed on my cheek. “We should go
home,” he muttered, breath tickling my ear and still causing my eyes to slip
shut.

My crushes on Luke
were something I’d endured on and off for longer than I liked to admit, but the
closest I’d ever been to him was when we’d wrestled each other to the floor
when we were younger than ten.

This was something
else entirely and my heart pounded against my chest with a desperate longing.
I’d dreamt about this moment for so long, even when we were being absolute
dicks to each other during the day time.

Of course it was
when he was going out with my best friend that some attraction would rear its
ugly head.

And I hadn’t even
been the one to initiate this. At least, I didn’t think I was.

Luke was gone,
disappeared into the car by the time I pulled myself back into an even slightly
normal mind-set and I slipped into the passenger seat with a stony expression.

This was the end
of even an amicable friendship. It had lasted surprisingly long.

The drive was in
silence and I knew Luke was going to drop me back off at home rather than
taking me to his like the past few nights. Maybe I had missed that he’d started
finding me attractive somewhere in that time, or maybe it had just been a
completely spur of the moment thing. At least spur of the moment would mean it
was unlikely to happen again. And that was definitely best.

For Phoebe’s sake.

Because I wasn’t
even going to be able to look at her for days. Sure, I’d daydreamed about being
with Luke whilst he’d been with Phoebe, I’d even imagined him cheating on her
with me, but if it happened in real life? That would be unbearable and I’d be
the biggest bitch in the world. She was my best friend.

“My dad had a drug
problem,” Luke spoke when we were five minutes away from my house. “It was part
of the reason his debts were so high. My mum had known about it for years and
never said anything, I think she might have been scared of him. Being there
today, it just made me all stressed out. I’m sorry for being an idiot. I’d
really rather you didn’t mention any of this to Phoebe.”

It was a formal
apology, at least in the words, but his tone quivered. Being in that house and
seeing everything going on must have really messed with him and it was no
wonder his emotions had been all over the place.

It wasn’t
attraction, it was some kind of trauma.

At least that
stopped me having to over think it and lead myself into a delusional thought
process anymore. That solved that easy enough.

“It’s fine. I
won’t say anything. I hope you’re all right. I wouldn’t have asked you to come
if I’d have known, about you or my dad.”

He didn’t respond
and I hadn’t been expecting him to. We said our goodbyes in an awkward fashion
and I disappeared into the house with a heavy heart.

I’d no doubt spend
the rest of the evening imaging all the possible outcomes if we’d actually
locked lips rather than feeling guilty about lying to my best friend again.

Chapter Seven

My mood was still
sour from witnessing Luke and Phoebe all over each other at lunch, even if it
was unreasonable and unfair. Of course they were all over each other, they were
in a relationship. I was the outlier in this situation. Luke didn’t care about
me and I shouldn’t care about him.

It made work
incredibly difficult because trying to keep a smile on my face was becoming
harder and harder. Luckily, Luke was feeling quiet so there was no need for me
to make rubbish small talk. I simply took orders and shovelled chips and
loathed my hairnet.

“You know my grade
actually went up to a B last test,” Luke commented out of the blue near the end
of our shift. “I thought you’d enjoy some ego-stroking.”

I smiled to
myself. There was nothing like it to lift my mood a little bit. “I’m glad to
hear it. I always knew I was a good teacher.”

“You feeling okay
today? You’ve been a bit down, I think.”

I scowled. Of
course he’d picked up on it. “Fine. Just had a bit of a run in with my mum, as
always. Nothing really important. I thought work would keep my mind off it.” Of
course he knew our almost incident yesterday was going to have an impact, too,
but I wasn’t going to mention it again.

“I’m sorry for
asking you to lie to Phoebe. I should tell her, I know.”

I hung my head.
“It’s fine. It was a mistake that came out of a completely weird situation,
it’s not going to happen again and we’ll forget about it.” It only made me feel
guiltier that my best friend wasn’t even the thing bothering me the most. I was
so pathetic. “Whatever, anyway. I’d rather talk about something else. How are
your multiple extra-curricular activities going? I don’t know how you’re
fitting anything in around working and school.”

“I do hobbies that
don’t require a lot of time commitment mainly. Like, I play the piano and I do
this creative writing group and then I play football. Apart from football, I
meet like once a week with the writing people and practice with the orchestra
for that amount of time, too. But yeah, it’s been good.”

“How long have you
been playing the piano?” I’d noticed the instrument in the corner a number of
times, but I kind of assumed it was a decoration in-fitting with the rest of
Angela’s décor. “That’s pretty cool. I played the flute for like three months
before I couldn’t be bothered to practice anymore.”

“Since I was about
ten I think. My dad always pushed me to play, I haven’t really felt like
playing since he left.”

That was sad. “I
always really liked piano music, you should play just because it sounds really
awesome.”

He grinned and I
was sure his cheeks were tinged pink. “I do still try.”

“I’m glad.”

Tyler popped his
head out of the door to let us know it was time to leave and I ripped my
hairnet off with a sigh of relief. “I really hate this thing.” My hair tumbled
back down to the dip in my hips and I fluffed it out. The natural curve came
back when it was tied up for that long. “Anyway, let’s get going.”

Luke blinked and
nodded. “Sure. You said you had a run-in with your mum, were you wanting to
come back to mine for a bit? My mum’s put a lasagne in and she says you’re more
than welcome.”

I couldn’t stop
the smile. I wished me and my mum were like Luke and Angela. Now I had another
parent-child relationship to be jealous of, but Angela had taken me under her
wing more than Phoebe’s parents ever had. Then again, I was giving her money so
there was no way of knowing how genuine that was.

I still accepted
his invitation.

We dug into the
food almost as soon as we got back to Luke’s and the food was gorgeous. It
seemed like forever since I last had a cooked meal – my dad did the cooking and
my mum did the cleaning. There had been a lot of instant noodles recently.

“I was thinking we
should go through the finances tonight,” Angela explained in between mouthfuls.
“It was the month end a couple of days ago.”

Luke raised an
eyebrow, glancing at me only once, before nodding. “Sure… we can do it now if
you want.”

“I thought you’d
want to wait until Carmen had gone,” her gaze flicked to me for a moment now,
but Luke only shrugged.

“I don’t care. I
told Carmen everything, anyway. May as well get it over and done with.”

I felt slightly
awkward as Angela got up to go and fetch her paperwork. Hearing about it was
one thing, but sitting in on their financial discussion did feel a little bit
awkward. It felt like I was a part of their family already even though Luke had
only introduced me a few days ago. I kept my gaze in my pasta and tried not to
look like I was intruding. “It’s looking a lot better with your wage coming
in.”

Luke nodded,
taking the bank statement off her and checking the numbers himself. “What’s
this from?” He placed the sheet of paper back on the table, and pointed to a
number. I knew that it was going to be the money I’d given. We’d only gotten
money for the couple of weeks we’d worked so far this month, but it was still a
pretty substantial amount as far as I was concerned.

I hoped Angela had
come up with a decent excuse.

“They started
paying me in a separate payment for my overtime,” she explained, voice steady
and believable. “Weird, but apparently that’s the way the new system is going
to be.”

“You didn’t work
that much overtime this month, and your normal work total is practically the
same as normal,” he folded the paper. “Mum, I hope you’re not doing anything
different to normal. You know we have this under control now.”

“I’m not, I
wouldn’t lie about something like that. The numbers just worked out weird this
time. We had some mandatory meetings that were given as overtime and the rate
went up a tiny bit. It’s just been a weird month at work.”

“A weird month you
didn’t mention until now?”

She shrugged,
staring at the folded paper without very much confidence. “I just didn’t want
you to be stressed with any of it.”

“Mum, you always
tell me this stuff. What’s going on? You know we got into this mess by my dad
doing stupid stuff… I don’t want you to get into anything bad either.”

“I never would!”

I listened to
their argument with guilt weighing on my conscience. Angela was doing
everything to stop me being dropped in at and having to listen to her son’s
doubts. I tugged on my hair and was forced to admit that “the money’s from me.”

Both gazes snapped
to mine, Angela’s guilty and Luke’s surprised. “What?”

“I just, wanted to
help out since my parents are kind of screwed.” I looked up at him hopefully.
“I don’t want you to be annoyed or anything.”

Luke sighed,
standing up and beginning to pace. “Mum, can I speak to Carmen alone for a
minute?”

“Of course,” she
hurried out of the room with an apologetic look in my direction.

I stood up, too, clasping
my hands in front of myself. “I didn’t want you to find out in case you thought
I was just being a dick or something, and I figured if you got rid of your debt
problem quicker then yours and Ph-”

I was stopped from
saying his girlfriend’s name by lips on mine. Luke had swooped in, hands
cupping my face and lips pressing against mine in a surprisingly soft embrace. My
eyes slipped shut, even though they should have widened in horror, and I stood
on my tiptoes so Luke wasn’t having to break his back, fitting my body against
his.

When my hands
curled into his hair, my heart pounded and I really tried to shove Phoebe from
my brain because this was the most emotional kiss I’d ever had.

Eventually, reason
won out.

We’d broken away
from an open-mouthed kiss to breathe, our bodies moulded perfectly and our
noses brushing together, when Luke let out a shuddering breath and told me I
had to leave.

“I know,” I
stepped away, shoving my hands in my pockets to stop them doing anything
stupid. “I know, I’m so sorry,” even though it was him who had kissed me, I
felt the tears welling in my eyes. I’d done this entire thing because I fancied
him and it had worked.

He’d kissed his
girlfriend’s best friend.

I fled the room,
shoving my feet into my shoes and opening the door with blurry vision. I felt a
hand on my arm and jumped. Angela’s sad expression met mine. “I just want you
to know that you’re better for him than she ever could be.”

It was cheesy and
stupid and I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t be better than Phoebe, because
Phoebe was his girlfriend and that was all that mattered.

I slammed the door
behind me without another word. I didn’t want Angela to think I was mad at her,
but I didn’t have the willpower to speak to her either. I just needed to get
home and sit in my self-loathing whilst I attempted to figure out what I was
going to tell Phoebe.

Because she had to
be told something, really.

It was only fair,
when I’d done something like this.

I wrapped my arms
around myself, suddenly realising that the wind was whipping at my exposed
arms. I’d left my jumper in Luke’s car. Tears streamed down my face.

When a car pulled
up beside me, I jumped and feared the worst. I’d been stupid enough to walk
into the streets when some madman was after us.

Thankfully, it was
only my mum. “What are you doing out here?”

I stared past her
at the man in the passenger seat. He looked like my dad. “I was walking home
from Luke’s.” Maybe she hadn’t noticed the tears yet. It was incredibly dark
outside.

“Get in, I’ll give
you a lift home.” I wiped my eyes on the way to the back seat, knowing it
probably hadn’t done much more than smudging my make-up. “What’s happened? Is
there something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,
just the wind making my eyes water.” As good an excuse as any, I supposed. I
tried to get a good luck at my mum’s new boyfriend, after confirming that it
definitely wasn’t my dad sat in the passenger seat. “I’m Carmen, nice to meet
you.”

“Richard. I would
shake your hand, but it’s a bit awkward in the car,” he chuckled, obviously
uncomfortable. My mother probably hadn’t skimped on the details of how angry I
was.

I forced out a
laugh, before going back to my sulking. Pleasantries were over and done with
and I wasn’t affected by the awkward silence that took over the car.

It was when I
sniffled that my mum turned around. “Oh, tell me what’s wrong.” I could see her
eyebrows had knitted together, even in the near darkness. “Why were you walking
home alone?”

“I just had an
argument with Luke, it’s not even a big deal.”

When she reached
back and took my hand in hers, I resisted the urge to flinch. I hadn’t touched
my mother in over two weeks. “You can always talk to me. I’m sure whatever
you’ve fallen out about isn’t worth your tears.”

And that was when
I really burst into tears. I scrubbed at my eyes to shield my face, but my
mother looked utterly forlorn. “It’s really nothing,” I repeated, voice broken.
“Nothing important. I’m just overreacting.” There was no way I could tell her
what I’d just done when I continued to blame her for my dad leaving. I supposed
we were both just bad people.

“You can always
talk to me,” she repeated, squeezing my knee now my hands were out of reach.
“I’ll always be here.”

“I know. Thanks. I
think I just need some sleep. It’s really not a big deal.”

I felt my phone
vibrate against my thigh a few minutes later and saw Luke’s name on the
display.