Happen in a Heartbeat - Ricky Wilson fanfic

Chapter Six

I was thankful I didn't have to go into work. It had been three in the morning before I went to sleep, and it was full of nightmares. Rick's settee was comfortable, don't get me wrong, and I was grateful that I wasn't stuck in my dingy flat all alone for another night... but it wasn't right. I couldn't expect Rick, especially since we hardly knew each other, to look after me each times things got bad. And I didn't want him getting the wrong ideas about how I felt. He was a friend, and that was all I would let myself see him as.

Rick wasn't awake yet, but I didn't want to get up and help myself to anything. I felt bad enough for sleeping at his place. I checked my phone, now charged thanks to him. I didn't know what I was checking it for. There were a few notifications on Twitter and Facebook, but that was it. I realised I didn't have my ring on, and suddenly panicked, sure I had lost it. I couldn't afford to lose that ring. My heart raced, until I remembered how at the station they made me take it off. I grabbed my handbag, heart still pounding, fumbling to find it. I felt the familiar shape, and feeling relieved, I took it out and slipped it back onto my ring finger. The white gold and blue diamond calmed me, seeing what I used to have. It was like my form of reassurance that life was good once, and it could be good again. The blue was the same shade as his eyes. It was a little bit of him that I still had, and could hold onto forever.

'Morning,' a sleepy voice came from the doorway. I turned and saw Rick stood there, rubbing his eyes. 'Coffee?' He asked.

I smiled. 'Sure, thanks.' I said. I put my bag back down on the floor and scraped my hair away from my face, making me look a bit more presentable. I felt dirty, especially after sitting in a smelly cell last night. I needed to change, but I didn't have anything other than the clothes that I was in.

Rick walked back in carrying two steaming cups of black coffee, passing one to me, and then sitting down next to me. He yawned, and then pulled the blanket over his legs.

'I bet this was comfortable for you,' he joked.

I shrugged. 'I can sleep just about anywhere. ' I replied. I swivelled the ring around my finger, telling myself to stop being so anxious.

Rick looked at it as if he hadn't noticed it before. 'Was that from Luke?' He asked. I looked away, not wanting to talk about it. 'Sorry,' he said.

I didn't want to be rude. He'd done so much for me, so I couldn't just ignore him when he asked about something I didn't like to talk about. 'Yeah,' I said. 'It was,'

***

'Get your things and leave,' she said. His mother. It had never been easy between us. She found out a few weeks after me and Luke got together, and she didn't approve. Of course she wouldn't. I was a bad influence on her son whose only aim was to make him lose his job in her eyes. It would be my fault when he fell off course and he lost his job and he would have no money and would have to live in the street. She overreacted like that. I just made the mistake of telling her that, which made her hate me even more.

She would have quiet chats with Luke when we were invited around, even after I stopped being one of his students. I knew she was telling him to try harder, get a better woman. I heard - she wasn't exactly quiet.

She unlocked the door and let me into his apartment. They were my keys. The police had confiscated them, and then, because the apartment wasn't mine, or anything to do with me now Luke had gone, they weren't mine. They gave them to her. I stayed with friends for a few nights, sleeping on different settees and floors, until I found myself a pokey little flat that I could just afford. I called her to tell her, so she set the time and date where I would be allowed into my old home to collect my things. No offers of helping me get it to the flat. I had to sort that myself, even though I didn't have a car and it was pouring it down with rain. Why should she be bothered about that?