by S. J. Smith
As far as she knew, none of the student body, outside of who was there yesterday, knew what happened. It was only a matter of time though. Someone would talk. For all she knew, Lucas could've told all his friends that she'd gotten her ass handed to her by the Hale siblings, and that was why he didn't want to be with her anymore. Too much drama.
That thought alone gave Alexis enough fuel to get up from her spot on the cold ground.
Gathering up her books and Emilia's, Alexis headed for the door. "We'd better get to class, no need for more trouble."
Without another word Alexis unlocked the door and headed for their human biology class. Emilia had no choice but to catch up to her and take her books back for the rest of the short walk. For the rest of their double period Emilia kept a watchful eye on her best friend. Which wasn't easy considering it involved her constantly turning around to look at her.
There were only so many times a girl could pretend to stretch before people around her thought there was a problem with her.
When class let out for lunch, the two girls took the long way back to Alexis' bag, no need to risk a repeat of earlier events.
"Hey, do you wanna come sit with me and the others for lunch?" Em asked.
"Nah it's okay, you've had to deal with me a lot today. I'm gonna go sit with the guys, haven't really seen them much lately. Thanks though."
Emilia reluctantly let Alexis go off on her own. Ever since her uncle's arrest, and the subsequent friendships lost as a result of everyone finding out Alexis was related to a convicted murderer, she hated anyone seeing her weak. She knew that her weaknesses could be used against her. Emilia hated that her best friend closed herself off, but she couldn't fault her for it, after all, Emilia did the same thing.
◆◆◆
As Alexis approached the guys with her lunch, she was looking forward to some peace and not being watched like a hawk. However, as she sat down, she knew that there would be no peace this lunch period.
The boys had been sitting close, their heads bent together in deep conversation. When Alexis sat down though they had both turned to face her and their faces said it all. They were a mix between concerned and pissed. They knew. How she played the next few minutes would determine their reactions and how bad the fallout would be.
"So, how has the day been going so far?" Apparently, this was the wrong this to ask as it set off a barrage of questions.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"Who did it?"
"Was anyone there with you?"
"How could you not tell us?"
"Are you okay?"
Honestly Alexis was more surprised that they could ask so many questions in three seconds than the fact that they had more concerns about not being told than if she was okay. But she wasn't going to read into that... right now.
"Oh my god, stop! Okay?"
Once the boys had finally finished talking over each other, Alexis gave them the abridged version of what had happened the previous afternoon. "I forgot a book in my human bio class, so I went to get it. On the way back, April's brothers and sister were waiting for me, punches were thrown, groins got kicked, heads got smashed. I went to the hospital, got checked out, all good, now here we are."
Brennan was gripping her hands so tightly she could feel them losing circulation.
Seth was studying her face as though if he looked hard enough he might see what it was that she was hiding.
"So, who found you?"
"Miss Lesch and Emilia."
"How'd you get to the hospital?"
"In an ambulance."
"And how'd you get to the ambulance?"
"On one of those rolling stretcher things."
Seth wasn't asking the right questions, and he seemed to have figured that out. Alexis sat there suppressing the smugness she was feeling from showing on her face. While Seth had given up on his awful interrogation tactic, Brennan was just getting started.
"I heard that you got carried to the office."
Apparently, he had a lot more information than Seth had to work with.
"Maybe."
"So who carried you? Miss Lesch and Emilia aren't that strong."
"Are you calling me fat?"
"No, I'm saying that they wouldn't have risked dropping you, so someone else must've been there to carry you to the office."
From the look that Seth gave Brennan, this was the first that he was hearing of it.
"How do you even know that I was attacked?"
"I overheard some teachers talking about it. Don't avoid the question."
"Well since you know so much about it why don't you tell the story."
"Alexis." He was losing his temper now. Brennan had always had a bit of a short fuse, especially when it came to the people that he cared about. It wasn't fair that she hadn't told them about being attacked, but it wasn't exactly something that she wanted to keep rehashing.
"What, Brennan? Huh? What is it that you want to know?"
"Who was it that carried you to the office?"
"Why do you care so much?"
"Why don't you want to tell us?"
So many reasons.
"Fine, it was Lucas, are you happy now?"
A look of understanding passed over Seth's face. It was like he'd just found the missing piece of a puzzle that he'd been working on for weeks.
"Why didn't you just tell us?"
Before Alexis had a chance to answer Brennan, Seth interjected. "It was Lucas that you were out with on Saturday night wasn't it?"
Alexis didn't take her eyes off the two boys in front of her. She knew that avoiding it would only make things worse but she kept doing it. Why? Because for some odd reason, she'd thought that maybe she would be able to have some of her private life stay private from these guys. But no, they wanted to be involved with absolutely everything.
"Lex?"
When Alexis looked at Brennan, she saw the hope in his eyes that what Seth said was wrong. All it took was a few more seconds of silence from her to confirm Seth's theory.
Brennan's eyes hardened and when he spoke, his voice had a sharper quality to it. "Why didn't you just tell us? Weren't you the one who was all for telling the truth? We're meant to be best friends remember?"
His words cut deep. He was right. Weeks ago, when she'd found out that Brennan had lied about why he couldn't hang out with her, she'd told him that he should've just been honest with her. Wasn't that the point of friendships, being able to be honest with each other?
But what if they force you to lie? What if you know that they're going to blow things out of proportion and act irrationally?
A sudden thought occurred to Alexis in that moment, and her own eyes narrowed at the pair.
"I didn't actually lie to either of you. I told you that I had plans on Saturday. You were all pissy because I didn't tell you who they were with, and then you proceeded to blow up my phone all night trying to get my attention, and then you went to Jessica and tried to get her to tell you where I was. What you did Brennan, that was actually lying." Pausing for a breath she held her glare at the two boys.
When Seth opened his mouth to say something undoubtedly stupid, Alexis cut him off, "You wanna know why I didn't tell you who my plans were with? Because I didn't know if it was worth telling, I didn't know if Lucas and I were actually going to become a thing. And hey guess what, if it hadn't been for you over hearing a conversation Bren, no one would have ever had to know." A stinging started behind Alexis' eyes, and she ducked her head as she shot up from her spot on the grass.
Alexis' escape couldn't quite be described as 'running away', but it was close. She was certainly out of the boy's sight fast enough. Alexis didn't pay much attention to where she was going, she just wanted to get away. Somewhere where no one would see her crying.
God I'm so weak today.
One of the unfortunate yet foreseeable side effects of not paying attention to where one is going is that eventually, you will run into something. Or in Alexis' case,
someone. This time however, the other party was paying more attention than he had been the first time they ran into each other.
Before Alexis could save herself from falling on her ass again, Lucas wrapped his hands around her upper arms, steadying her. He caught a glimpse of her startled, tear stained face before she was looking down at the brick walkway again.
"We've got to stop running into each other like this, one of us is going to get hurt."
When he didn't even get a tearful chuckle Lucas knew that something was seriously wrong. He let his hands drop from her arms, only to grasp her hand in his and pull her towards a section of limestone that was relatively hidden by bushes, without actually stepping into the garden itself.
"Lex, what's wrong? Did those assholes come back?"
Alexis still refused to show her face, she just sniffled and wiped furiously at her cheeks as she tried to control her breathing.
"Alexis, please. I'm sorry that I wasn't there yesterday. I should've been there to protect you and I wasn't, and I'm so sorry. But please tell me what's wrong."
It took a few seconds for his words to register in her mind, but when they did, Alexis' head snapped up and she looked Lucas dead in the eye. Her disbelief was clear in hers.
"You're sorry?"
Lucas wasn't sure what to make of her question. Was she being sarcastic? Did she not expect him to be sorry for not being there when she needed him most, and it was only third day into their relationship?
"Of course, I'm sorry. I figured you must be pissed at me. Thought that if I gave you some space then you'd forgive me when I came over to apologise after school. I wasn't expecting you to actually be here today."
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. For the last fourteen hours she had been stressing out that he was mad at her for involving him in her drama, and here he was freaking out that she was mad him. It probably didn't ease his concerns at all when she started laughing. It was soft laughter at first, but the more she thought about the absurdity of the situation, the stronger the laughter got.
"Okay, you're going to have to fill me in on the joke here."
Calming herself down, Alexis held one of his hands in both of hers. Mostly because his hands were huge and made hers look baby-sized.
"Lucas, I am not mad at you about yesterday. If anything, I thought you were mad at me. God how could you ever blame yourself for what happened?"
"Why in the world would I be mad at you?" Everything from his tone to the look on his face implied that she was crazy for even thinking such a thing.
"I thought that you were mad because you'd been pulled into the Alexis Angelo drama."
"The Alexis Angelo drama?"
"Yeah. Look, I don't know what you've heard about me around school yet, but I'm not exactly a fan favourite. And sometimes there's just... drama. Look, it's kind of just part and parcel of being an Angelo, you'll have to trust me on this."
Lucas squeezed her hands comfortingly with his. Looking down at the beautiful girl in front of him he thought about the stuff he'd heard. Criminal. Murderers. Mob.
Lucas wasn't sure if what he said next was going to be the right thing to say, but he certainly hoped that she didn't break his nose like she did Joel's. Leaning in close so no one else could overhear, "Well, if what they say is true then you are the prettiest mobster I've ever seen."
If anyone else had said that, Alexis might've been mad. There was something about the way that Lucas' mouth quirked up at the one corner. An almost smirk. She couldn't resist it. She could roll her eyes at his cheesiness all she wanted, but her smile gave away her true feelings.
"Seriously though Lex, I'm not going to believe anything about you unless it comes from you... and probably Em because if anyone could help me get myself out of trouble with you in the future it's her."
Alexis couldn't help herself. Slipping one of her hands free she reached up and cupped his face, at the same time closing the distance between their faces and their mouths. It was a soft kiss, tender and heartfelt. Different to their frenzied, hormone fuelled kisses of Saturday night, but with no less feeling behind it. Alexis broke the kiss when she realised that she'd more or less attacked him again. Jess would not approve.
"So just to clarify, neither of us are mad about yesterday. At each other I mean," his last-minute clarification stopped Alexis from being able to make a smartass remark, so instead she just nodded as she chewed nervously on her bottom lip. "Okay good because I was enjoying that kiss." And to prove just that, Lucas closed the distance between them once again.
◆◆◆
From the moment Alexis got to her feet and left them, Brennan had been feeling shitty. He had wanted to talk to Alexis about the fight yesterday, to make sure that she was actually okay but Seth's question about Lucas had thrown him for a loop. He knew that he had let his jealousy cloud his judgement, and it had been a terrible thing for him to do. Especially to his best friend. Brennan left Seth to his own sulking. He needed to find Alexis and apologise before she decided that she didn't want to be his friend anymore.
He started thinking about all the places that Alexis might go to when she was this angry. His first thought was that she would go to be with Jess, if not there then maybe Em. Once he stepped off the stretch of grass and rounded the corner, Brennan saw her. She was with him.
Brennan tried to wrap his head around everything. What he was seeing versus what Alexis had said. She'd implied that her and Lucas weren't a thing anymore, yet here she was running straight into his arms. Literally.
He stood there and watched as Lucas took her hand, leading her towards the limestone wall. He watched as their faces got closer, as she laughed at whatever he said. He watched as she kissed him and then pulled back. He watched as he kissed her back, and this time no one pulled away, not until the siren rang to signal that lunch was over. Even then they didn't separate straight away. He watched as, when they did manage to detach their faces from each other, he pulled her into his side with an arm around her waist.
Brennan didn't notice the other people around him, all at varying speeds as they made their way towards their next class. Even after Alexis and Lucas had left his sight, he couldn't stop seeing them on that limestone wall, kissing. It wasn't until a heavy hand slapped his back that Brennan stopped staring at that single spot in the distance.
"Dude, what are you doing just standing there? You're going to be late." Seth kept walking as he spoke but quickly realised that his best friend wasn't following him. "Dude, what the hell's wrong with you?"
There was a moment when Brennan had to decide if he should keep what he saw to himself and respect Alexis' privacy or if he should just tell Seth what he saw. He could wait and ask if what he'd seen had been what he thought it was, or he could just assume that what he thought, was what he saw.
"Bren?" he couldn't stop seeing the girl he loved kissing someone else. Someone she barely knew.
"She lied. Alexis lied."
And just like that, he made his choice.
Chapter 12
Tony hung up the phone, his expression grim and his heart heavy. Carmen sat on the edge of his desk, one hand mindlessly massaging the back of her husband’s head. She always did that when she felt that he needed comfort. Now was one of those times.
"He's really dead?" Carmen couldn't believe it. Ricky was the third death they'd had this month alone. Even for their line of work the death toll was getting too high. Tony didn't answer straight away and Carmen wondered if maybe he hadn't heard her. When she moved her hand away from the back of his neck he reached up with lightning fast reflexes and caught her hand in his.
"There's more sweetheart." With a heavy sigh Tony got up from behind his desk, not letting go of his wife's hand he led her over to the wall to the left. There on the wall was a large cork board, on it was a giant map of Australia. It was on this map that Tony kept track of where there were major Family related activities. Plucking a red pin from the bottom right corner of the board Tony found the tiny
town to the south were Ricky had lived and successfully executed his role in the Family.
Carmen looked over the map, drinking in all of the information that was revealed with something as simple as the placement of different coloured pins. Starting from the pin Tony had just pushed through the map, there were red pins spread out evenly along the coast line, trailing all the way down to Albany and then along the bottom coast of the state before passing over the border. Realisation washed over Carmen as though she'd just stood under a freezing cold waterfall. She didn't even realise that she'd let out a gasp, but when she did, Tony knew that she'd seen it.