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thirteen

Note: how would you guys feel about a possible spin-off when this story ends?

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T H I R T E E N

"THIS IS BORING AS HELL."

"Watch your mouth," Luke said in response to Vivian's complaint and I silently thanked him. Since the two of us had to play the parents for a week, he was on my side, but I didn't question Vivian's ability to spite me just in case she was better at it than I thought - which was already ranked at 'very talented.'

My big - but apparently "boring as hell" - idea was to take Vivian out shopping, retail therapy. It was one of the things I always enjoyed to do, whether I was feeling down or not, but I didn't really have a lot of money. Now that I had a job, I was able to go out and spend some of my well-earned money on clothes and shoes and it was like walking on a cloud up in heaven.

Luke seemed to enjoy the idea, because he needed to stretch his legs and exercise but he felt weird trying to sneak into Ashton's home gym or pool with Vivian in the house as an official guest. One time, she almost caught him sneaking off to the pool when she was just there for the weekend, so for her to be living here full-time made it nearly impossible.

"Well, it's boring now," I said, "but when we actually get to the mall, I swear you'll have a good time."

"Why aren't we taking a car or something," she whined. "My feet feel like they are on fire."

"I can't drive," I said with a smile - that I planned to keep wearing for the rest of the day in order to keep myself from strangling this girl. She didn't exactly take it easy on me, whereas Luke didn't seem to get in any trouble with her. "Like, I took the test and everything, but I can't exactly afford a car at the moment. So I just take the bus to get to and fro."

Vivian rolled her eyes at me, but I did nothing in order to not provoke her.

"I can't drive you around because my license was suspended," Luke said. "Let's just say I could get a little bit crazy during my frat days and I got into a few accidents."

I frowned in confusion. Luke didn't seem like the wild and reckless type here, but now that meant all of us weren't the most functional people and this would only be a recipe for disaster.

"Really," Vivian asked, and for the first time since I met her she seemed genuinely interested in something. That was a good sign, if you ignored the fact that it was about Luke having a past as being kind of a train wreck. "How did it happen?"

Luke just sighed, probably used to telling this story so it was one he approached with open honesty. "I got drunk one night and I thought I was sober enough to get behind the wheel, but I wasn't and I ended up in a bad crash that sent someone to the hospital. I didn't get hurt, but I shattered this old woman's collarbone and I had to pay her medical bills so she wouldn't press charges, but I still got in trouble. Her son still snitched on me and I had to go to prison for a while."

Casting a nervous glance at Vivian, I saw that she was thoroughly enjoying herself. I, on the other hand, didn't enjoy hearing someone talk about their criminal history. Besides, Vivian being a delinquent was the reason we were here in the first place, so hopefully she wasn't passing any judgements.

"Are you sure that you want to be talking about this right now," I asked him but he shot me a strange, one that I found hard to interpret correctly. "I mean, you don't exactly want to give this kid any ideas, do you?"

"I'm ashamed of my past and all, but I think it's important that I share this with her -"

"Yeah, he said it himself," Vivian interrupted matter-of-factly.