Liars in A Row (Book 1, 2 & 3)

f i f t y _ o n e : turns and twists

ps : late update. we are nearing the end of book one btw. what do you think?

_______

On a rainy October morning, Liv had been staring out at the road from her porch. Not that she could see the road entirely through the main gate. She was waiting for two honking sounds of a car horn. How long had it been since a boy had asked her to drive to college? George lived all the way across the city. He had stopped driving her to Pristine after a year had passed of them being together. Eventually, good things faded and became worn anyway. He had called last night. But she hadn’t picked up like always. She wouldn't. Not anymore.

Liv had donned her slicker for it had been raining the whole night and the morning. Her mother usually dropped her to college on her way to her office but she had slept in today., Giovanni Portman, her father, was home for a few days. Days like these for her parents, either passed in the bedroom or in the highgate golf club.

The honking sound came ten minutes later and she carefully walked down the driveway in a rain so fine and so stiff. It wasn’t even drizzling. The guard opened the gate with a squeaky sound, revealing a seek vintage baby blue porsche.

He’s trying to impress me, she thought, and smiled a little.

She walked quickly but he climbed out of the car, his long legs stretching in his uniform pants. Bending a little, he opened the car door for her, the platinum blond tips of his hair shining through droplets of rain.

“Why, thank you, Chuck,” she smiled sweetly as she got in, rolling her slicker in her hands so that it couldn't soil the upholstery of the car.

“You’re welcome,” Chuck smiled back, shutting the door and clambering into the driver's seat himself.

Quiet boy. Clever boy. Hadn’t these been what Julia used to say to him when he was a toddler? She would rock him in her lap and praise him for hours. He remembered these two words in his sister’s voice. They blared in his head. He did not blush when Liv’s arm brushed against his while she tossed her backpack in the backseat. He did not fidget. He sat still, and started the engine.

“I didn’t know you could drive,” she said, breaking the silence.

“You don’t know a lot of things about me. We don’t hang out much. So, it’s fine.”

“What else do you do?” She didn’t mind his blunt response. She really is not that sensitive anymore, he thought, absently massaging his arm with one hand, other hand still on the steering wheel. He didn’t want to come across as vain. But he responded, “Well, I can play the piano.

“I know it. Every Christmas you play the piano and Julia plays the cello.” She blinked. “It’s a tradition.”

“I can get you anywhere in London. I know each and every street,” he shrugged, hoping that he didn’t sound much proud.,

“That’s because we used to drop you off at random street back when you were in year six and let you find your way back home. We were such idiots.” She laughed this time. There was something about that augh. Both of them could smell the nostalgia in the car interior. “Tell me something I don’t know about you at all.”

“Well.” He clucked his tongue. “I can sail.”

She frowned, ‘What do you mean by ‘sail’?”

“I can sail a boat as in a yacht.”

“Realyl?”

He nodded.