Be Mine

"it's hard for me to open up, I'll admit it"

Hey hey, welcome to chapter 5!

This chapter's lyric is from "Love Lies" by Khalid and Normani.

Read as you see fit here- warnings for light family issues and some deep conversing, though things never get too rough :)

Enjoy!

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HARLEY POV

DEC 01

"Abbie! Breakfast's ready!"

Abbie came racing down the hall and grabbed her seat at the kitchen table.

I frowned at the crop top she was wearing, holding her plate of eggs out of arm's reach and giving her a look.

She sighed a big sigh. "I'm thirteen, Lee. Not nine. Plus, clothes don't sexualize you-"

"People do," I finished her mantra for her. "I know, I know. Just be safe, yeah?" I conceded the plate with a mild retaliation. "And I'm sixteen. Stop callin' me Lee ."

Abbie just giggled and tucked in, scanning a social media page with the twenty minutes she had before Mom took us to school.

In between bites, Abbie said, "Where's Mom?"

I shrugged tensely, then gestured to the hallway Abbie had come in from that was behind the teeny-tiny kitchen. "Probably still asleep."

Abbie grumbled knowingly and told me, "We're gonna be late. C'mon, Harley, why can't you get your license?"

"We've had this conversation before. Shoes and makeup, sis. I'll try and get Mom. 'Member, I'm going to Peter's tonight, so wear walking shoes."

"Okay."

Abbie exited the room and I followed, stopping at my mom's thin wood door.

I knocked and stepped in without waiting for an answer. My mom was at her desk, phoning a client with one hand and taking a drag with the other. I hadn't smoked since Peter and I fought a week or so-ish ago, (not to mention that it was barely a puff in and out followed by a gag, with it being my first time and all,) but the smell was still a little intoxicating. I tapped her shoulder and she held a finger up. I huffed in response.

"I'm telling you, Michael, I'm telling you," Mom said into the phone, "we just don't have the money. It's not in the budget!... Okay... Okay. Yeah, I'll tell him. Okay. Bye."

She knocked the phone back into its holster and gave me an in-no-way apologetic look. As she put a few things into her purse and slipped on heels, rushing, I said completely deadpan, "No smoking in this building, Mom."

A scoff. "You think I don't know that?"

Ride to school. You're in it for a ride to school.

Once Abbie was ready, we all piled into the little Honda and headed to MidTown.

PETER POV

I bounced my leg anxiously at my spot on my bench in front of the school doors. Harley had been five minutes late for six and a half years, but I never went in without him.