Afraid • l.h

Chapter 13 • "Can I help you?"

Tilly's POV

My Mums office was modern with white walls, black furniture and green decor. It was a very urban room with big glass windows and a wall cabinet full of books, ornaments, files, boxes and a space in the middle where the TV is. A black desk was situated in the centre back of the room with a grey leather chair behind and two white smaller chairs in front. In the centre of the room was a coffee table and four chairs each with a scatter cushion.

She sat down gently into her chair and set her bag aside as a women with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes dress in a pencil skirt and blouse came in and handed my mum a coffee.

I walked around the room admiring all the different types of books there are about interior design.

"Tilly." My Mum said.

"Yes."

"There is a spare office down the hall, it's yours for today." She tells me and puts the key on her desk to the office.

"Are you serious?!" I say excitedly. I finally get to have a go at my dream job.

"Yes, I'm serious." She smiled.

"Thank you so much Mum." I say and open her office door.

"Have fun." She says and I walk out with a smile across my face as if I'd won the lottery. I see a man walking towards me and he looks familiar. He stops in front of Mr Hemmings door and unlocks it with a small key. As I walk past no one is in his office and so it must be his. He had to be related to Luke. The man was too young to be his Dad as he was only a few years older than Luke so it had to be a brother or cousin.

On my way to my office I stopped to get a coffee from the machine. I stood still for a moment wondering how to get to office 42 which was on the key my mother had given to me.

"Excuse me?" A voice says and I look up to see the man who walked into Mr Hemmings office. "Can I help you?" He then asked.

"Oh yes please, my mother works here and she told me that I could have office 42 for today but I have no idea where it is." I say and smile.

"It's the third door down on the right." Me Hemmings tells me. "I'm Ben."

"Ben Hemmings?" I question.

"Yes. Who's your mother?" He asks.

"Nina Wilson, the owner. I'm Tilly."

"Oh my God I had no idea." He says shocked. "Do you want me to show you the office? Can I get anything for you?" He asks like I'm an important person in this business.

"You can show me to the office if you want but I don't need anything thank you." I reply.

"Okay it's right this way." He says and walks in the opposite direction to his and my Mums offices. "Do you go to school Tilly?" Ben asks.

"Yes I do. I go to the university of California." I reply.

"That's why I've heard of you. You're friends with my brother."

Oh great.

"Yeah. I am." I say.

"Luke has talked about you before." He tells me.

"Oh really." I say surprised.

"Yes, why do you sound surprised?" He asks.

"Well me and Luke didn't really get along to start with. I mean I thought he hated me for no reason because he wouldn't talk or hang out with me." I say.

"You know the reason now?" Ben asks and I guess he knows about Becky.

"Yeah. I do now." Is all I say as we stop outside of office 42. I put the key in the lock and twist it to open the door to a beautiful office beyond me. I walk over to the window and open the blinds to reveal a breathtaking view. The room was similar to my Mums although instead of green it was red.

"Wow your view is better than mine." Luke's brother says from behind me.

"Thank you, I had no idea how beautiful California is." I say in reply.

"About Luke, I just wanted to let you know that if you give him a chance he may not be so afraid." And then he backed out of the room, turned, and walked down the hall.

Give him a chance?

But my thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Come in." I said.

"Hello, I'm Katie. I will be your assistant for today." A young girl not much older than me wearing black jeans, a light blue blouse and black heels.

"Thank you." I say and sit down in the chair behind my desk. I could really get used to this.

"Do you need anything?" She asks.

"Um, I'm okay thank you. I'm jut going to go and explore." I say and stand up grabbing my phone from my desk. I follow Katie out the door and make my way to the lift. I press the down button and wait patiently for the lift to come up and the doors to open. When the lift arrives I am faced with a familiar person.

"Luke?" I say with slight question in my tone of voice.

"Hi." is all he said and walked past.

"What are you doing here?" I asked ignoring the fact that the lift had already left and I was now following him down the hall.

"I'm going to see my brother. Will you just leave me alone." He turned around and spat then walked on while I stood still. I turned on my heels and walked back to my office annoyed at the fact I was only trying to be nice and Luke threw it back in my face.

Maybe I ask too many questions?

Luke's POV

I knock on my brothers office door and wait for it to open. I just know I can't be friends with Tilly and that was the only way to keep her away.

"Luke!" My brother said excitedly. "What was all the shouting in the halls?" He asked. Great.

"Nothing." I try to leave it but my brother knows me too well.

"Luke." He asks sternly.

"Okay okay. I saw Tilly and she asked me why I was here and I took it as an opportunity to tell her to leave me alone because I can't let myself be friends with her." I finish and by now my brother looks ashamed.

"Luke! I can't believe you would do such a thing. You need to go and apologise right now." He orders.

"No. You don't understand, I know it's going to happen again." I object.

"So you like her?" He asks.

"Maybe, I don't know, I don't want to know and I will never know." I say adamantly.

"You still need to apologise." He says and just passes me a piece of paper with 'Office 42' on it.

"Okay." I say and head out the office door.

Do I go and apologise? Or do I go home?

Tilly's POV

Three knocks on my office door interrupted my thoughts as I was staring out of the window. Then I remembered I had asked Katie to bring me a coffee.

"Come in. Thanks for tha-" it wasn't who I thought it was. It was Luke.

"I came to apologise, I shouldn't have been rude earlier it's just, I'm just-"

"afraid?" I finish the sentence for him.

"Yeah." He says quietly.

"I was just curious as to why you were here. I'm trying to be friends with you Luke but you're making it very difficult and to be honest confusing at the same time. What's going on? And why do you keep pushing me away?" I say in desperation of needing an answer.

"Because if I don't something bad will happen with my luck."

"Why don't we try to be friends?" I ask.

"I don't think that's a good idea." He says. "For both of us."

"Come on Luke, you'll never know unless you try. You can't be afraid forever."

**

This story is finally coming along a bit :D

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