reckless | mgc

three

"So you and Clifford, huh?" Luke asked casually, tapping the end of his pencil on the table top and trying desperately to figure out the math problem in his head. Addy's parents had gone out to some company and left her home alone yet again, so she opened her bedroom window and yelled across the gap between their houses. Luke opened his bedroom window (which was only a few feet from hers) and they talked, agreeing that he would come over so they could work on math homework together and maybe watch a movie later. Addy knew as well as Luke that her parents wouldn't be arriving home until some ridiculously late time, so they had a few hours to kill until Luke needed to go home.

"Um," she stuttered, caught off guard and not really sure how to respond. "Not really, I mean, we met at that party last weekend but nothing happened. I'm assuming Calum told you everything?" Luke glanced up and locked eyes with her, nodding before shifting his gaze back down to his math book. She wasn't surprised, to be honest. Calum and Luke were best friends; Calum told him everything and vice versa. It happened a lot that Calum squealed to Luke about things like this. Addy didn't mind, though. Calum knew everything about everything and told Luke as well, which was convenient when Addy needed to know something.

"Oh," he said, punching in a few numbers on his graphing calculator and looking up at her again for a second. "Yeah, Calum told me about it. I just assumed you liked him back, though, because everything with a heartbeat and boobs seems to be in love with him." Addy burst out laughing, Luke laughing softly along with her.

"Oh my god," she giggled, closing her eyes and smiling in attempts to settle down. She got up from her chair and set her pencil down, walking into the kitchen with Luke close behind. He took a seat at the countertop with her notebook in hand, scanning over her answers quickly. Addy rummaged through the fridge in search of some sort of late dinner. One of the perks of her constantly being home alone is that she could eat whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. She was a little sick of cooking for herself though, so sometimes she took her car somewhere for dinner or ordered takeout.

"You hungry? I'm making a pizza," she asked Luke, unwrapping it quickly and getting out the pizza oven, putting it in and turning the dial to the ten minute mark.

"What? Oh, no thanks. I'm fine," Luke smiled, going back to scanning her paper. "By the way, number seven is wrong. In order to find sine you have to put opposite over hypotenuse, but you put opposite over adjacent instead which equals tangent instead of sine." Luke talked a mile a minute and understood himself perfectly. He was a math genius, and Addy was extremely thankful to live so close to him. To be honest, she probably wouldn't have made it through sophomore year without his help. She laughed lightly, leaning down and resting her elbows on the table.

"I have no idea what the hell that means, but thank you for checking my work." He nodded, circling the problem in red pen and scribbling down the correct answer next to it, not bothering to explain further. This type of thing happened a lot. Luke (and Addy, though she didn't like to admit it) would much rather just write the answer instead of explaining it all, which worked nicely for the both of them. Their whole friendship was just convenient. It gave Luke a place to hang out whenever he wanted (Addy's parents wouldn't stop complimenting him on his grades, she was convinced her mom would marry him if she didn't) and Addy had someone to pass Junior Year trigonometry for her.

"I'm gonna go get a sweatshirt, I'll be right back," Addy said, spinning on the tile and walking down the hallway, turning into her room. She flipped the closet light on lazily, scanning her clothes for her favorite hoodie. "There it is," she said to herself, grabbing it out from under a pile of tee shirts and pulling it over her head, flipping the light switch off again and pulling out her phone. Addy unlocked it, leaning against the closet door frame and scrolling mindlessly through Twitter. Out of nowhere, something tapped extremely softly on her window. She snapped her gaze up to the window and saw nothing until it happened a second and third time. In the darkness of her room she couldn't quite make anything out, but the street lights illuminated the window frame just enough for her to see something hit the window and drop to the ground.

"What the hell?" she whispered, walking over to the window and pulling it open, peering through the darkness and down to the ground. "You have got to be kidding me." There, stood in her front yard dressed completely in black stood Michael clifford, holding a handful of something Addy couldn't quite see.

"Ellis!" He cheered, waving up at her with his free hand. "I thought I'd be throwing socks at your window all night! Took you long enough to open up," he shouted. Addy pulled back from the window, rubbing her eyes and letting out a sigh before looking back down at him.

"Michael? What are you doing here? And why are you throwing socks? Isn't it supposed to be rocks?" Michael was bored out of his mind; there was no other excuse for him being here. There hadn't been any parties worth going to in a few days and he wasn't in the mood to grab his fake I.D and go clubbing, so he did the next best thing he could think of. He found Addy.

"Rocks cause damage, Ellis," he said, smirking. "And I'm not paying for you to get a new window. Your parents would kill me." Addy rolled her eyes, pretending to be annoyed at the fact that Michael was literally everywhere, but she couldn't help laughing a little bit. Michael was funny, cute, nice, mysterious, and confusing all at the same time and Addy couldn't have found him more intriguing.

"Not if I kill you first," she joked, her heartbeat speeding up. "Why are you here anyway? Isn't there some party you should be at?"

"I wanna take you somewhere," Michael said, pulling out his phone and opening it up, trying really hard not to stare at Addy. She felt herself blush a little bit. She wanted this really really badly, to do something that she would quite possibly regret later on. Michael was someone she wouldn't mind spending more time with, but she had Luke over at the moment and her parents would be home in a few hours.

"Where exactly is 'somewhere'?" she asked, and Michael shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't exactly created a game plan, so he just expected to wing it like he usually did. Winging it was sort of a talent of his.

"Guess you'll just have to trust me, babe," he smirked. Addy fought with herself for a few seconds before she leaned over and said something she didn't really regret.

"Fine. Just hide over next to the house for a few minutes. Luke's over right now, I'll just tell him my parents called and want him home or something. I'll be down in ten." Michael gave her a thumbs up, walking into the shadows and silently thanking himself for wearing all black. Addy closed her window tightly and ran out into the kitchen where she met eyes with Luke, who was sitting at the table doodling little shapes on his hand with the red pen. He'd drawn a little garden and tried to hide it when Addy walked out, blushing slightly when he knew she saw it. They didn't say anything to each other as Addy walked over to the pizza oven, turning it off and taking a deep breath.

"My parents called," she started, lying through her teeth. Addy felt horrible lying to someone like Luke, who would never lie to her. "They said they'd be home earlier than expected; in like ten minutes actually. They told me I wasn't supposed to have anyone over tonight. I don't want either of us to get in trouble, so you should probably go home," she felt really bad at this point, thinking at any moment Luke would call her out on the lie and her night with Michael would be ruined along with her and Luke's friendship. He pulled his gaze up to meet hers, and smiled.

"Oh, okay. Yeah, that's fine! Thanks for having me over," he said, and Addy felt herself breathe a sigh of relief. Luke stood up, collecting his things and pulling Addy in for a hug. "Just yell across or text me if you need anything, whichever's easier." She nodded and he left, closing the door behind him and leaving Addy alone. She sighed again, running a hand through her messy hair and looking down at herself.

"Shit," she whispered, realizing she looked like a mess. Running into her bedroom she hopped out of her sweatpants, pulling on skinny jeans and converse before running to look in the mirror. She ran her fingers through her hair and pulled it into a ponytail, deciding it was dark anyway and Michael probably didn't care.

"Here we go," she whispered, pulling open the front door and walking to the side of the house where Michael was waiting.

"Hey Ellis," he said smoothly, grabbing her hand and smiling. "Ready for an adventure?" She nodded breathlessly, her heart beating faster as Michael led her across her front yard to his car.