Why Me?

Chapter 8

Luke, Calum, and Strike finally came out.

“Finally,” I said standing up and walking over to Luke. He met me with a big hug. “What did you guys do, write a novel?” They all laughed.

“You will not believe how many questions I was asked,” Calum said, plopping down in a chair. “It was awful.”

“We’re not going to be able to have band practice today,” Luke said with a straight face. The mood of the room was depressing.

“How about we go to the ice cream store down the street?” Strike suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” I said. “Let’s go.” I practically dragged Luke out of the police station.

“Kids?” said a lady sitting at the desk.

“Yea?” we said from the door.

“They want you to be back in about an hour. Think you can do that?”

“Of course,” Strike said. And we walked out.

-

We all ordered our ice cream and sat down at a table.

“Do you know how good this air conditioning feels right now?” Ashton asked, lounging out in his chair. Everybody laughed at him. “What?” he said, laughing.

Luke was looking all down in the bums so I grabbed his hand and intertwined our fingers. He sideways glanced at me and smiled. I rested my head on his shoulder and played with my ice cream. Luke brought his spoon up to my face and stuck it on my nose.

“Luke! That’s really cold!” I yelled. He sat there, laughing. The rest of them started laughing too. I took the spoon off my nose and grabbed a napkin. I wiped my nose, but I couldn’t see if I had all the ice cream off. “Is it all off?” I asked, turning towards Luke.

“No,” he answered, taking the napkins. “Let me get it.” He got the rest of it off and before he turned away, he gently kissed my lips.

“Do we really have to do that right now?” Calum whined.

“You would if you had a girlfriend as amazing as her,” Luke said once he pulled away. I smiled at him. He smiled back. I kissed his cheek.

“So what do your parents think about this?” Strike asked. “Or do they not know?”

“They don’t know about anything,” I answered.

“Rebel!” Ashton said. I laughed.

“They don’t even know what happened last night,” I added. “All the missed calls and messages I have from them are about how they aren’t going to be home until tomorrow night.”

“That’s pretty amazing,” Calum said.

“Hey, guys,” Bret said walking over to us. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

“You can sit there,” I said. He took a seat.

“How are you guys?” he asked.

“Good, I guess,” Luke answered.

“How much of it did you guys see last night?”

“I saw the whole thing. I was trying to break it up but it wasn’t working,” Strike answered.

“We took Sara away once Michael and Jesy started yelling,” Calum said.

“That was probably a good idea,” Bret replied.

We were all silent for a while.

“Oh look, it’s the loser squad,” Maggy’s friend, Sabrina, said as she walked in. She turned and laughed at the two girls she was with behind her.

“Didn’t think we would run into them here,” said Hillary.

They walked up to the counter, looking back at us and laughing. Bret and Calum got up and started to walk out.

“Where are you guys going?” Ashton asked.

“Just out,” Calum replied. Then they just walked out.

“What was that all about?” Luke asked. I thought about it for a second.

“They probably don’t like the fact that they were called losers,” I answered.

“What do you mean?” Strike asked.

“Didn’t you guys notice that when Maggy called us the loser six, Calum kind of backed away from us a little?”

“I thought he just didn’t want to be in a fight,” Ashton said.

“But think about it now,” I replied. “Even Bret backed away from us.”

“She does have a good point,” Luke said. “I never really thought of it that way until now.”

We sat in silence for what seemed like forever.

“We should probably head back now,” Ashton said, breaking the silence.

We got up and threw our trash away. When we walked outside, Calum and Bret joined us, but we didn’t talk to them. Nobody talked, really.