Head Over Heels Âœ“ 15 / red-handed

april, age fifteen 

Exam season was looming fast and although Lucas dreaded the Easter holidays when he would have to spend hour upon hour revising, he was ready to have a month at home. Audrie had already been back for a week, occupying herself with Charlotte, who still had a few months before she started school, and Lucas couldn’t wait to spend more time with his big sister. He hated that she was at university, that she was away for such long stretches of time. By the time she had come home last week, it had been eleven weeks since she had last set foot in the house, and Lucas didn’t like being without her. She was a natural oldest sibling: the role didn’t suit him.

He was counting down the minutes until four o’clock, feeling like he was wasting his life away as he sat in a geography lesson. The subject hadn’t proved to be as interesting as he had thought and though Asher loved it, one of very few subjects he enjoyed, Lucas just couldn’t find a way to make it interesting for himself. He didn’t care about methods data collection in rural areas or chloropeth maps, just like Asher didn’t care for books. Their interests were virtually opposite, though they shared one. Each other.

Or so Lucas hoped.

The four o’clock bell rang when the clock in the classroom still read three fifty-eight. The teacher raised his eyebrows as though challenging the students and he asked, “What do you believe? My clock or the school bell?”

The question was answered by the rustle and rumble of the students packing their things away. Chairs scuffed back on the carpet; zips were unteethed; abandoned pens rolled off desks onto the floor. The teacher began to shuffle his own papers, sifting them into his bag. Lucas did the same, albeit neatly. He lined up in his hole punch the practice papers they had been working on, pressing a neat pair of holes through the booklet before he snapped it into his ring binder.

Asher shoved his into his bag, curling the corner of the paper. Lucas struggled not to wrinkle his nose, focusing his attention on his own desk. He sorted his pens and pencils into his own pencil case, making sure each one faced the right way, and he slotted his ruler and rubber into their own spaces. There was a place for everything in the case, just how he liked it.

He turned to Asher, who always looked a bit scruffy by the end of the day. His shirt had come untucked somehow, his tie askew, and he didn’t bother to put his blazer back on after he had taken it off at the start of the lesson. The school was pretty strict at enforcing its uniform policy, issuing uniform cards that afforded each pupil three strikes before apparel violations earned them a detention.

Asher had made it through three cards since the start of the year, with one strike left on the crumpled one in his pocket. It was a wonder he hadn’t had more than three detentions in the past six months, but many of the teachers seemed to have given up with him. Holding him in a detention had never done anything to improve the way he tied a tie and sending a letter home had done no good. All it had led to was Ishaana pointing an angry finger at the head of Year Eleven and accusing her of prioritising looks over education.

Asher’s family had a bit of a reputation at the school. The reputation extended beyond the school gates, and it was tricky for him to get away anonymously when everyone knew his face: his parents were virtual celebrities, after all.

Back in the day, Bishop had been one half of a band that had been on track for international success before the duo had come to an explosive end, any chance of a reunion scuppered by the death of his partner. Now a highly-respected consultant medical physicist, he routinely published papers in medical and sociological journals and even featured in occasional televised documentaries.

Meanwhile Ishaana had achieved local fame as the founder of Chess House Publishing Company, its headquarters in Farnleigh with sister offices in New York, Toronto, Berlin, Paris and Sydney with plans to expand into Tokyo and Delhi. Lucas’s mother had worked for the company for almost a decade now, rising the ranks from copy editor to a senior editor. She had the skills for even more advanced work, though she put her family above all else and she had passed over promotions that would have required more time in the office.

Lucas ran a hand through his hair. It was in need of a cut, getting a little longer and scruffier than he liked to keep it, and the school held onto its antiquated policy that boys’ hair couldn’t touch their shirt collars. Although he kept his hair short anyway, it bothered him that the school didn’t loosen its reigns sometimes: the odd missed haircut had been the source of several uniform card signings for Asher over the past five years. Part of him just liked to rile up his teachers, who almost always lunged for the bait. If they wanted to deal with his firecracker mother, that was up to them.

“Ready?” Lucas asked. The end of the geography lesson signalled the end of term and Asher was coming home with Lucas to wind down together, embarking on the Easter holidays. It was twice as long as usual, the teachers expecting them to spend the whole time revising before their exams began in May.

The year had been a dream. Although it was supposed to have been a step up from Year Ten, Lucas had found it a million times easier without the constant worry that Adler was just around the corner or that he would lose his best friend. He and Asher were closer than ever, spending as much time together now as they had when they were children discovering the thrill of sleepovers.

The last time he had heard anything about Adler, she was wasting her parents’ money at Mill Park Academy, a private high school a few miles away where she’d had to restart Year Ten when she should have been going into the year above. According to Mika, who had eyes everywhere and whose sister was close to Everly Jensen, she was reluctantly attending ineffectual behavioural therapy and she had commandeered a clique of girls a year younger than her who had inexplicable respect for the fact that she had been expelled.

“Um…” Asher opened his bag up again, rifling through the mess of papers inside that stressed Lucas out. He didn’t know how Asher got anything done. “I think so. Do we come back at all before exams?”

“For a revision week.”

“Ok. Uh, I think I need to get some stuff from my locker. Is your mum here?”

“My stepdad will be here at ten past,” Lucas said. Most days, Truman picked him up at ten past four and they talked for most of the fifteen minute drive home. Lucas quite enjoyed the time he got to spend one-on-one with his stepfather while his mother collected the girls from primary school, the only fifteen minutes they had together without being flanked by the women in the family.

“Perfect. You need anything?”

Lucas shook his head. He had made sure his bag was packed at lunchtime so he wouldn’t need to return to the classroom. Mika had done the same for a swift exit at four o’clock on the dot: she and her family were going to Japan for the first week of the break. She hadn’t been stressed about missing out on revision time when she spent her entire life absorbing and holding onto knowledge: she had been more upset that she wouldn’t see Tom for a whole week. For the past year that he had been homeschooled by Maddie, he and Mika had seen each other three times a week – sometimes more – and they texted every day. A lot.

Asher led the way across the quad to the building his classroom was in, getting the code wrong three times before his thumb cooperated and the door swung open when he leant against it. Lucas followed him up the stairs and when they got to the room, he watched in despair as Asher furkled through his locker in search of his textbooks. There was a shrivelled apple beneath his biology book.

“You’re disgusting,” Lucas said, wrinkling his nose as he picked it up by the stem and held it at arm’s length to carry it over to the bin. “How long have you had that in there?”

“Maybe I’m conducting an experiment,” Asher said. “Maybe you just destroyed my data.”

“Maybe you’re better off for it.”

“Maybe I’ll destroy your data.” Asher grinned, slamming his locker shut. Lucas wasn’t sure what he meant but it made him blush all the same, madly trying and failing to hide the redness in his cheeks that Asher either didn’t notice or he ignored. “There we go. Got my shit together.”

Lucas pointedly glanced at the closed locker. He was getting used to Asher’s language, which seemed to have rubbed off on him from his mother. “I don’t think you have.”

Asher pointed at him, wiggling his finger. “Rude,” he said. “Good thing I like you.”

Lucas fell quiet. He just wanted to know how.

*

Audrie was in charge of supper, which she had promised would be on the table by six o’clock so everyone could eat together but it was five fifty-seven and she was running a little behind. She hadn’t even put the vegetables on to boil yet. Truman was sitting at the table with Charlotte opposite him, a book between them that she could see as he signed out each word to help her learn to read.

“You both need to just chill,” she said, pointing at Lucas and then Asher with her spatula. They had come down from Lucas’s room fifteen minutes ago, venting their exam fears to her, and she had had enough.

“Please, tell me how,” Asher said drily.

“I promise you, your GCSEs aren’t nearly as vital as you think they are,” she said. “You know Cooper?”

Lucas rolled his eyes. He knew Cooper, who was hovering in the background half the times he video called Audrie at university. He was just waiting for her to admit that she liked him. It was obvious that he liked her, the way he looked at her when he forgot that while she couldn’t see him, Lucas could. “Of course.”

“Well, he kinda bombed his GCSEs,” she said, twirling her fork around a strand of tagliatelle that she pulled out of the water to test. “He only got one A* and three As, one B, and the rest were Cs and Ds. And look at him now: he got into Oxford.”

“And your bedroom,” Lucas said under his breath. Asher didn’t catch the utterance but it didn’t escape Audrie, who widened her eyes when she heard her little brother make the comment. It amazed her how much he had come into his own since Adler had left, as though she had been stifling his growth. Approaching sixteen, just a few months away from the landmark birthday that Asher had celebrated before Christmas, he had come on in leaps and bounds when it came to conversation. He was sharper now, more confident, with the brains to match.

“Well, I’m not exactly aiming for Oxford,” Asher said, leaning against the counter with his ankles crossed. He was already one of the tallest in the year: his father was over six feet and his mother was a good few inches above average, their genes blessing their son. He was almost six feet already. Lucas hoped he would take after his father’s six foot three rather than his mother, who struggled to stand tall when she didn’t quite meet five foot three. In one inch’s time, he would be exactly halfway between the two.

“What d’you want to do?” Audrie asked. He shrugged.

“I dunno. I chose physics, art, geography and DT for my A-levels but only because they’re the ones I like,” he said. “Not sure where they’ll take me. I don’t know what I want to do in life. Not like this one.” He pointed his thumb at Lucas, who had had a fairly clear idea ever since he had started high school.

Lucas’s dreams followed the same path as his mother’s, more of a coincidence than her influence: books were his life and he couldn’t imagine something he would rather do than be paid to read. He could hardly remember the days before his mother had worked for Chess House, the only company he could see himself being a part of. His desire didn’t even have anything to do with Asher: it just so happened that Ishaana owned the company he yearned for.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Asher repeated.

“Most people don’t,” Lucas said.

“You and Mika do.”

“Maybe we’re the weird ones,” he said, and he thought that there wasn’t really a maybe about it.

“Audrie always knew, didn’t you?”

She nodded. Ever since the age of six, she had wanted to be a marine biologist. She had never given up on that cause, pursuing the degree that would get her there with what seemed like a non-stop stream of energy.

Truman signed for Charlotte to wait for a minute, pausing his reading for a moment when he spotted a space to jump into the conversation. “Have you ever thought about architecture?”

Asher frowned. “Me? An architect?”

Truman smiled and nodded. An architect himself, he was always ready to recruit fresh blood into the business and the father in him wanted to inspire the boy who spent almost as much time in the house as his own children. “Art, physics and DT – those are all a great place to start, and they all complement the subject. Most courses will ask that you’ve done some kind of art course, as well as either maths or physics. It’s worth thinking about.”

Asher pursed his lips. “Maybe. Thanks, Truman.”

“If you think you might be interested, let me know,” he said. “You could come and do some work experience at my firm.”

“Really? Do you mean that?”

“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t,” he said with a chuckle. “You know where to find me – keep it in mind.”

Lucas smiled at his stepfather, whom he loved almost as much as his real father. He counted himself incredibly lucky to have four parents he adored, and Truman had been an influential role model on him over the past ten years, who had never treated Lucas as anything less than one of his own. Never had he been made to feel as though he was in any way lesser than any of his sisters.

*

Supper was on the table by quarter past six, once Audrie had given in and asked for help. With Asher and Lucas as an extra couple of pairs of hands, eight plates were sat around the table in the conservatory. Conversation could get rowdy at supper time, when the whole family sat down to eat together as much as possible, and there were often two or three conversations going on at once. Someone was always signing, so as not to leave Charlotte out when she was at such a crucial stage of development, and it was impossible to keep up with all the words and hands flying around.

“Do you mind if I go to a party tonight?” Audrie asked as she served herself seconds of the cheese and vegetable pasta. It was a question of courtesy: she was a couple of weeks away from her twentieth birthday, as independent as she was responsible.

“Where is it?” Sarah asked, adding a spoonful of pasta to Charlotte’s plate when she asked for more, having to tap her mother’s arm to get her attention amongst the rabble.

“Highland Manor,” Audrie said. The area was one of the nicest in Farnleigh, a gated community of huge houses and long driveways, the kind of houses that had wine cellars and heated pools. “It’s not that far. Only about nine miles.”

“What time?” Truman asked. He reached over to give Felicity a hand when she struggled to loop her pasta around her fork without it slipping off.

“Starts at seven,” she said. “It won’t finish before midnight so I might find somewhere to stay.”

“As long as you’re not driving,” her father said. “I don’t want you trying to drive yourself back, peanut. I’ll drive you over.”

“Are you sure?” Her face lit up with a bright smile. “Thanks, Dad.”

He smiled back. “Whose party is it, darling?”

“Just someone from school; you don’t know them.”

“Is it Cooper?” Lucas asked. Audrie frowned.

“Huh? No, from high school,” she said, though by the look in her eyes, Lucas had a feeling that Cooper would be there too. Although the two of them had met in Oxford, he knew that Cooper hailed from Coalden Valley, a little village thirty minutes away. “Imogen Carter. She’s having a party and it’d be nice to see the old gang again.”

“That sounds lovely, hun,” Sarah said. She bent down to find her bag on her floor when she had polished off her plate, rooting through it to find her purse. “Here, in case you need to get a taxi home.” She passed over a crisp twenty pound note that Audrie was reluctant to take.

“You don’t need to do that, Mum.”

Sarah insisted, leaning closer. “Take it, Audrie. Better safe than sorry – I’d rather make sure you can make your own way back than you end up staying somewhere you don’t want to.” She pushed the note into Audrie’s hand and smiled when she took it.

“Thanks,” Audrie said. There was no point arguing with her mother, who managed to be as gentle as a daisy with a hidden streak of stubborn fire.

“Make good choices,” Lucas said. She beamed at him.

“I always do, Lukie Loo.”

His expression said it all, the disgust that lined his features, and Audrie laughed and shook her head.

“Yeah, that doesn’t work.”

*

Long after everyone else in the house was asleep, Lucas and Asher were still awake as a film played on Lucas’s laptop, the third they had watched in something of a binge session. A couple of bags of Haribo sat between them on Lucas’s bed: Asher always made sure to bring extra rather than just share his own bag, a quirk that Lucas had got used to by now. He never tried to take one of Asher’s.

Two luxurious hot chocolates sat on the bedside table, one of Asher’s creations. He had learnt from his mother, getting the chocolate and milk ratio just right before he had added squirty cream that they had walked to the village shop to get. Cocoa powder was dusted on the top, over the one big marshmallow that had been inexpertly chopped into little pieces. Lucas reached for his, leaning over his friend close enough to feel the heat of his body and smell his intoxicating aftershave. He always smelled so good.

“What time is it?” Asher asked. Lucas checked his watch.

“Nearly one,” he said, surprise jumping onto his face. He never ordinarily stay up so late but he wasn’t even tired yet. He couldn’t fall asleep and miss a moment of Asher’s smile. “Wow. It’s late.”

Asher let out a dry chuckle. “Amateur,” he said. He had far more stamina when it came to staying up late and Lucas dreaded to think what he and Adler had got up to in the early hours of the morning. In the year it had been since the two had broken up, he had never dared to ask for the details that he was sure would hurt him.

The fourth film they chose wasn’t as fast paced. It didn’t do as good a job of keeping Lucas awake and as he sat with his back against the wall, he found his head lolling against Asher’s shoulder every now and then before he felt that falling sensation and jerked awake. He hated that feeling so much, much preferring the ethereal state of being semi-awake, when he was aware of his surroundings on a different level, as though he was caught on the cusp of a dream. Sitting like that, he was.

“Tired?” Asher asked.

“Mmm,” he said, nodding.

“Well, it is nearly two.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup. Wanna turn this off?” He nodded at the screen. Lucas had lost track of who was who and what was happening, an unfamiliar cast on the screen. He sleepily nodded. Asher reached forward, stretching out his bare, toned arm to hit the pause button before he exited the film. Although he had struggled to marry sport and his asthma, he had found ways other than his brothers’ love of football: over the past eighteen months, he had become good friends with his father’s basement gym. After his sixteenth birthday, he had joined the gym in town where he was a fan of the weights, slowly working up his stamina on the treadmill. It showed.

Lucas suppressed the urges that had popped up last year, the new kind of desire that had taken him by surprise. There were new thoughts in his head now, thoughts that sounded louder when Asher got out of bed in just his thin pyjama bottoms to put the laptop away. The semi-light of the moon through the open curtains cast a hazy glow over the abs that were growing more defined each day.

Lucas stopped in his tracks, cocking his head like a spaniel. He looked to the left and right. “Did you hear that?” he asked after a few seconds, looking straight at Asher.

“What?”

“I heard something,” he said. It had been too quiet for Asher to pick up on, though the next bang caught his attention.

“I heard that,” he said, his forehead creasing. “Was that inside the house?”

“Downstairs.”

“It’s probably just Audrie,” Asher said.

“What? She was supposed to be back two hours ago. Isn’t she back already?” He hadn’t heard her. No matter how quietly she moved, the sound wouldn’t have escaped Lucas who was in tune with every creak of the house. Although he could drift off throughout a film, the groan of a floorboard always snapped him to full attention.

“No idea,” Asher said. He stepped back to the door. Lucas sat straight.

“What’re you doing?”

“Checking!”

“No! You’ll wake Lottie!” he hissed. Liliana and Felicity shared the room that had once been a storage space while Charlotte had moved into Audrie’s room when she had headed to university, the two of them sharing whenever she was home.

“She won’t hear me,” Asher said, a funny look on his face. Lucas dropped his shoulders. Of course she wouldn’t. He slipped out of his bed, creeping over to Asher and following him into the hallway, where he gently pushed open the door to Audrie’s room. Charlotte was flat out in her bed, a gentle nightlight comforting her when the dark was too much on top of silence, but Audrie’s bed was pristine and empty.

“That’s probably her downstairs then,” Asher said. Lucas frowned. It wasn’t like Audrie to be so late or to make noise, or to do anything but come straight to bed. She had gone to parties before but she tended to be home by midnight, gently tipsy, and she always got straight into her bed. Asher nodded at the stairs. “Wanna check?”

The two of them crept across the landing and down the stairs, treading carefully with their hearts thudding loud and hard. Had Lucas been alone, he would have lain petrified in his bed until he heard Audrie slip into her room, but Asher gave him the confidence to go down and see what was going on.

The house had fallen silent. His first paranoid thought was that the crash had been his sister collapsing, that she had overdone it at the party and the alcohol was infusing her blood. He gripped Asher’s elbow as they stepped into the dark hallway downstairs, trying to swallow his fear of the dark. He hated that the lack of light made him so afraid when the house was no less insecure after the sun went down.

“Is she in the sitting room?” he whispered. Asher poked his head round the door, opening up his phone’s torch to check. The sudden bright light showed an empty room though Lucas jumped out of his skin when he caught sight of his own reflection in the mirror across the room. Asher laughed.

“What was the noise if she’s not back?” Lucas asked. He shrugged.

“Maybe something just fell.”

Lucas tripped over Audrie’s shoes in the hallway. She was there, somewhere, silently. “Maybe she did.” He eked towards the cellar door, holding Asher’s arm so tightly that his nails were digging five little crescent moons into his skin.

“You’re a worrier, Lucas,” Asher said. “Why don’t we just go back to bed?”

He shook his head. Now that he had told himself something could be wrong, he knew he couldn’t go back to bed until he had made sure his sister was alright. He knew she had to be back when the glittery blue shoes he had tripped over were the ones she had asked his opinion about before she had left.

Asher gave in and pushed open the basement door, leading the way downstairs by the light of his screen rather than the harsh light of his torch. Lucas’s heart was in his throat, dreading that he might find Audrie passed out or hurt. This wasn’t like her. He swallowed hard, squinting even with his glasses on. When they got to the bottom, Asher stopped and nodded at the door. Lucas took a deep breath and quietly pushed down the handle, the ridiculous part of his brain telling him that there was an axe-wielding murderer waiting to chop him into pieces.

The horror film probably hadn’t been a good idea, though Asher had laughed when he had cowered against him.

Lucas wasn’t prepared for what was on the other side of the door to the den, his hand flying to his mouth and almost knocking his glasses off his nose. On the sofa, a pair of tanned legs were wrapped around a pale back, toes curled and ankles crossed. A moan was followed by a grunt, and then a gasp when the two boys were spotted.

“Holy shit!” Asher whispered, dragging Lucas out of the room and closing the door. He held his hand over his mouth, laughing into his palm. “Audrie’s getting it!”

“No, no, no.” Lucas shook his head, eyes wide. “I didn’t just see that. Oh, no.” He clapped his hand over his forehead, his cheeks hot. He hurried upstairs, forgetting to care about the noise level at two in the morning. “Oh my goodness, no. That didn’t just happen.”

Asher bent double halfway up the stairs, struggling to breathe with the effort it took to laugh hysterically without making too much noise. He gripped his cramping side, grabbing the banister to drag himself up the rest of the way. Lucas was shaking his head, his eyes wide and filled with horror.

“Oh my God,” Asher said when he caught his breath. “Who was that?”

“I don’t know!” Lucas cried out, hushing himself too late. “I can’t identify strange men by their naked arses!”

That only made Asher laugh more. “That’s the last time we’re following a bump in the night!” He guffawed, doing a poor job of silencing himself, and the two of them froze when they heard the click of the door to the master bedroom and Sarah stepped into the doorway, squinting into the darkness.

“Audrie? Is that you?” she asked. She wasn’t wearing her glasses. She couldn’t see a thing. Asher instantly put his arm around Lucas.

“I’m just giving her a hand,” Asher said, confidence in his voice. “Sorry if we woke you!”

Sarah sighed. “You’re really late, honey,” she said. When Lucas twigged that he was supposed to be playing the role of his sister, he tried to imitate her voice.

“Sorry, Mum,” he whispered.

“Just don’t wake your sister, hun. Did you get back ok?”

“Fine, thanks,” Lucas said, partly horrified to lie to his mother and partly amused that she had no idea.

“Good. Now be quiet. It’s … I don’t even know, but I should not be awake right now,” Sarah said. “Sleep well. Love you. And thanks, Asher.”

“No problem, Mrs S,” he said with a smile, pretending to haul Audrie to her room when he was in fact leaning on Lucas to support himself, trying not to break down in hysterical laughter. “Sorry to disturb you! Sleep well.”

“You too,” she said, yawning as she stepped back into her bedroom and shut the door again. The boys stumbled to Lucas’s room, where Asher dropped to all fours and rolled onto his back, biting his arm to stop himself from waking up anyone else with his laughter.

“Oh my God!” he whispered, his body shaking with the effort of holding in the noise. “Oh. My. God.“

“I feel awful,” Lucas groaned, dragging himself over to his bed and flopping down face first. “Did I really just pretend to be my sister so Mum won’t realise she’s having sex in the den?”

“You did,” Asher said, a grin splitting his face. “I think that’s called a breakthrough. You just reached a whole new level of brotherhood.”

*

The sun had only just risen when Lucas was shaken awake by a hand on his shoulder hours earlier than he had planned to stay awake. It had been a nightmare trying to get to sleep when his brain was even busier now, bombarding him with images he had hoped would never scar his vision, and he groaned when he woke up at half past six.

“Lucas,” hissed a voice. He squinted, reaching out for his glasses that brought Audrie’s face into focus just above his. He grimaced and rolled away.

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head.

“We need to talk,” she said. She looked worse for wear, her hair a mess and her eyes underscored by heavy bags. She smelled like alcohol and a bad night’s sleep.

“No we don’t. We don’t need to say anything. Nothing needs to be said.” He buried his face in the pillow.

“Look, I’m really sorry, Lucas,” she whispered, casting an eye over Asher. He was fast asleep, the duvet hardly covering him. The way it hid his shorts made it look like he was naked and she did a double take.

“Accepted. You can go now,” he mumbled into his pillow.

“It’s not what it looked like,” she said, desperation in his voice. Lucas looked up at that. He struggled to believe that.

“It looked like you were having sex with a big white guy,” he said. Audrie’s cheeks turned an even deeper shade of red and she dropped her head, shame overwhelming her along with a wave of hungover nausea. She held it back with a deep breath, crouching next to her brother’s bed.

“Ok, ok, it’s exactly what it looked like,” she mumbled, growing more ashamed by the second. “It’s not like that, though. I feel awful, Lucas, I do. It’s not like I just brought some randomer home, I promise. I would never do that. It’s not like that, I swear. He’s my boyfriend.” She whispered the last word as though it was a swear word.

“Cooper’s not going to be happy when he finds out,” Lucas muttered. He knew that feeling. He already empathised with Cooper, whom he knew was utterly besotted with Audrie.

“That was Cooper,” she said, bunching the sheet in her hands to stop herself from falling over. More than four hours after making it home, she still felt a little drunk.

“He’s your boyfriend? Cooper’s your boyfriend?”

She nodded, her apology evident on her face.

“Since when?”

“Reading week.”

“When was that?”

“Nearly two months ago,” she said. “I was going to tell you, I swear. I didn’t want you to find out like this. I’m so sorry, oh my God. I wasn’t thinking. Please don’t tell Mum and Dad what you saw. They’d absolutely slaughter me.”

Lucas doubted that. They would be disappointed, but he was fairly certain they wouldn’t stoop to murdering their own daughter. “I won’t tell them.”

“Thank you, Lucas.”

“On one condition,” he said, narrowing his eyes at his sister. Next to him, Asher stirred when the voices ceased to be so quiet that he couldn’t hear them.

“What?”

Lucas wrinkled his nose. “Wash that blanket.”

Audrie would have laughed if she hadn’t been on the cusp of throwing up, both from the nauseating shame and the amount she had drunk last night. “I will. I’m so, so, so sorry. I promise, that will never happen again. God, I’m mortified.”

“Me too,” Lucas said. Asher laughed.

“Well,” he said. “This has been awkward enough.”

“God, Asher, I’m so sorry. You have no idea. Oh my God, I want to die,” she groaned, dropping her forehead to the bed. Asher just chuckled and shook his head, propping himself up on his elbows when he registered her utter shame.

“Relax,” he said. “It could have been a lot worse. And anyway, I’ve walked in on my parents enough times that my brain can’t be scarred any more than it already is.” He tapped the side of his head. “Can’t say the same for Lucas.”

Lucas shook his head, his eyes still as big as saucers. “Because my parents use their lock!”

Audrie held up her little finger. “This stays between us.”

Lucas looped his pinky with hers. “And Cooper.”

“He didn’t see you,” she said, “and he is never to know that you saw or he’ll never let me introduce him to you guys. He’s gone, don’t worry – he left already. This isn’t exactly how I want to tell Mum and Dad I have a boyfriend.”

“Ok.”

“Thanks,” she said, standing. “Ok, I’m going to go and have four hundred thousand showers.”

Lucas nodded and dropped his head back on the pillow. Asher did the same next to him, reaching out to pat his arm and getting his chest instead.

“You’ll recover,” he said. Then he shrugged. “Good for her.”

“You’re gross.” He flung his arm over his eyes, trying to scrub the image out of his mind. “That’s my sister.”

“Trust me, better than catching your parents in the act.”

“Stop walking into their bedroom then,” Lucas said. Asher laughed, so far beyond scarred that he was able to find his misfortune amusing by now.

“They’re very rarely in the bedroom.”

+ – + – +

legit one of my fave ever chapters to write, i think

throwback to my high school’s dumb uniform policy (that i abused for 7 years without a single signature in my card – the pros of being a simultaneous rebel and a teacher’s pet). i hope you enjoyed this chapter! i’ve ended up writing more for this book than i thought i would. it was initially 13 chapters covering 25 years; then it was 25 chapters covering 25 years, but now i’m 15 chapters in and lucas is still only 15. this will likely end up longer than first planned, and it’s looking like a minimum of 30 chapters but possibly more.

also, welcome to cooper! a slightly awkward introduction, but hello nonetheless!