Off Limits [PREVIEW]

Chapter One

Chapter One

Luke was doing his absolute best to make everyone's mood miserable. "I swear she hates me," he continued to whine, waving around his test score as if anyone actually cared. "Another E, really? I'm sure I can't have done that badly."

"It's a standardized test. If you got that mark it's because you sucked at the test. End of story." I was in a bad mood, too, and it definitely wasn't helping to resolve the situation. I just wanted to get home to say goodbye to my dad, not have to listen to perfect, intelligent Luke whining about how he failed something because he chose not to revise for it.

Phoebe, his girlfriend and my best friend, was far more compassionate. "Your grade will improve," she squeezed his hand, "I'm sure you'll have mastered it by the end of the year."

"Can we just get going? It's his own fault he failed. Normal people do actually have to revise for things if they want to get a good grade." Luke had always sailed through school without a single problem. It was part of the reason I was so opposed to him. Working my ass off to get the same results made me incredibly bitter.

Unfortunately, I was forced to put up with him on a daily basis since he'd started dating my best friend.

Realisation seemed to dawn on Phoebe's face and I almost sighed in relief. Finally. I wasn't going to even catch my dad if we kept dawdling around. "You're good at German, right?"

German was the only thing about school I genuinely enjoyed and whilst it didn't come naturally to me like everything else did to Luke, I was quite good at it. "I guess," I admitted. I knew where this was going and I didn't want any part of it.

It wasn't just my distaste for Luke's natural ability that got on my nerves; we'd always been at odds with each other. Since I could remember Luke and I had play-fought in the playground, one of us always ending up getting genuinely hurt. We'd sabotaged each other's relationships, engaged in some incredibly messy food fights and got each other more detentions than was really acceptable. My mum definitely wasn't a big fan of the name Luke, even if she'd never actually met him.

Our bickering was odd. Sometimes it ended in laughter and sometimes my bad mood extended for days afterwards.

"You could tutor him!" It was like Phoebe had finally found the solution to all her problems. Our bickering always annoyed her, even if I secretly revelled in it.

There was something about Luke, even with all the shit he caused me, that had me daydreaming about the possibility of him going out with me instead. It wasn't often and I really tried to avoid it, but sometimes, the idea was too tempting to resist. He was attractive, with his mess of black, unruly locks and there was no hiding the fact he worked out.

I liked to think I knew that because he punched me in the arm so often, rather than because I sometimes couldn't stop myself checking him out.

It was silly and I almost loathed it, but there was phases when I fancied Luke so much I could hardly look at Phoebe.

"I really hope you're joking," I spared her a sideways glance, speeding up my pace and wanting to get away from this conversation as quickly as possible. "I just want to go home and have as much Luke-free time as possible."

Luke fired me a grimace. "Don't think I'm loving this idea. Come on Pheebs, I'm sure I can manage a bit of French without being stuck with the short-arse."

But Phoebe had come to a complete standstill, forcing us to stop as well. "Nope, I'm serious about this. You two need to stop arguing so much, it's silly. I'm sure you'd get on if you just got to know each other."