romeo + juliet ↠ l.h

4

"He's not that good." I stated.

"Are you serious? He's amazing. Just because your family hates his doesn't mean he can't sing." Alice exclaimed, turning the volume up on the video she found on Facebook. Luke looked about 15 in the video, and was playing guitar and singing an Ed Sheeran song.

"Why do you care about him? He's annoying anyways." I questioned.

"And how would you know? You've never talked to him." Alice argued, barely looking up from the screen of her phone.

"That's a lie. I have talked to him."

"And your parents didn't shun you?"

"Well, I'm not exactly sure how the conversation went. I was kind of out of it. But I talked to him." I informed her, grabbing her phone and locking it. I was sick of hearing his voice.

"When was this?"

If I told her the truth, she'd know I was drunk on a Monday night. I didn't want her to know about my problem.

"Long time ago." I lied, but she seemed to believe it.

"Im only gonna say this once and then I will never speak his name again." Alice avowed, turning towards me, "Luke's a nice guy. He's not like his parents. And you going out of your way to ignore him has been bothering you. So just stop forcing it. You don't need to live in constant fear of your parents finding out you spoke a few words to a Hemmings. It's not that big of a deal. Now can we please leave this library? I just want to go home."

She gathered her things, placing the Language Arts notes we had been studying in her backpack. I pulled my heavy bag over my shoulder and spun around, hitting somebody with my backpack in the process.

"Oh sor-" I stopped when I realized who I'd hit.

It'd only been 24 hours, but the blood rushed to my cheeks when I looked at him.

"You're fine." Emmett muttered, before carrying on.

"What was that about?" Alice questioned.

"Long story."

•

I knew when I heard my dad shout 'dammit, Andrew' from his office, something had happened. Me and my mom waited in silence in the kitchen as he finished yelling through the phone.

"That bastard thinks he can pull one on me." my dad muttered, walking to the refrigerator and pulling out a bottle of gin.

"What happened?"

"Andrew Hemmings thought it'd be a good idea to buy out my main supplier. The asshole's gonna cut my company off and force me to pay big money for mediocre metals. What chain hotel owner needs to buy a metal company? He bought it just to spite me." He took a drink from the bottle.

"Just buy the business that supplies his hotel with mints or something." I joked, but a light seemed to go off in his head. Before I could even speak, he was already calling his board director.

"I was kidding you know." I called out, but it was hopeless.

"Your father and his stubbornness are gonna cause a big ordeal. Just you watch." my mom pointed out, returning to chopping vegetables for dinner.