HARD TIMES ━ lip gallagher²

10 | vegetable super hero

☆

"I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE some asshole broke our door," Debbie was saying as Amara came down the stairs. She caught sight of Liam smirking into his cup, but Lip didn't look up as she approached. "Can you believe that?"

"Yeah, real asshole move," Amara replied, going to pour herself a cup of coffee, before a hand on her wrist stopped her from moving. "What?"

"Don't," Lip said.

She raised a brow. "Don't what? Drink coffee? You're doing it right now."

"Yeah, well," he scratched his head. "It stunts your growth, and you're short enough already."

"Ha-ha," she flipped him off and resumed, not noticing his jaw clench. "Can you walk me to work today? I want to show you the complex I've been telling you about."

"Oh, you're moving out?" Debbie asked. "Well, you still need to pay while you're-"

"Yeah, Miss Trunchbull, I got it," Amara interrupted, rolling her eyes and looking to Lip again. "You down?"

"Promise not to drink the coffee and I am."

Amara's brows drew together. "Literally since when are you a coffee anti?"

"Since last night," he slid the mug away from her and stood up. "I'll go get changed and meet you outside, alright?"

She eyed him skeptically but nodded regardless. "Yeah, sure. I'll be on the porch."

"I don't understand the point of this," Lip admitted as he came down the front steps. "You're practically already living here. Why do you need to find your own apartment? I mean, can you afford that?"

"I can't on my own," she shrugged, watching his reaction, but there was none. She inwardly sighed. "Don't tell me you actually want to stay here for the rest of your life. We're adults now, we have to branch off by ourselves eventually."

"We're barely managing as it is, Mar," he shook his head and continued walking. "How will we pull this off?"

"Editors make good money," she attempted again, Lip didn't catch on. Amara huffed. "Think about it, we can literally bang anytime we want with no interruptions."

"We could just go to your place now and do that."

Amara sighed. "Can you at least give me something? You haven't even seen the place yet."

"Yeah, I have actually. Tami is spamming Brad with a ton of pics of her apartment and he's shown me. It's not that special."

She deflated. "Yeah. Guess you're right."

Lip paused and gently grabbed her forearm to pull her to a stop. "That doesn't mean I don't want to, okay? Things are just tight right now. Maybe we should wait. Until we both know for sure that's what we want."

His words felt like a punch in the gut for some reason, he hadn't even been rude about it, but still her throat lodged up and it took everything in her not to start crying. All she could do was nod.

☆

"And then, he like, completely skipped over the hints I was dropping," Amara complained, bringing her knee up to her chest as Tami parallel parked next to the curb. "Vanessa has been on my ass the past couple of days. And get this, I did some research and apparently the company I work for is in need of editors. It makes sense to why she's watching my every move. She wants to make sure I'm good enough for the job."

"What an asshole," Tami scoffed, grabbing another nugget. "You know, this totally goes against my entire diet."

"Yeah, but at least we have five heads of broccoli we'll never eat now," Amara smirked at her. Tami gave her a look.