Love Thy Neighbour *editing*

"You know where I am if you need me." (edited)

Chapter 3: "You know where I am if you need me."

"And you're positive you'll be back in time for dinner?" Mum asked for the fourth time, standing with her hands on her hips. "Because you can't agree to come and then back out." Pushing away the inadvertent innuendo, I nodded, pulling a coat over my jumper.

"Yeah, I'm only going to drop something off at Sian's," I told her. Again. She pursed her lips together, glancing at the clock with the air of someone who definitely disapproved of how fine I was cutting things. She'd spent all afternoon getting ready; the house reeked of cheap perfume and she had donned her favourite salmon-coloured long dress. It had been so long since she'd gotten dressed up to go somewhere, that neither Tommy nor I had had the heart to tell her that it looked like something you'd find hanging in my grandmother's wardrobe.

I was only making an appearance to support my mother. That alone should have had her trusting me. Alas, trust had been a fickle thing between myself and the woman who had birthed me due to several instances with Denny. So I had to take what I could get.

My feet bombed it down the sodden pavement, trying to put as much space between myself and the house as humanely possible. There was no-one about, really; at six in the evening on a Friday, people (sensible people) were probably having dinner.

The dinner at the Gallaghers' had been the source of much conversation between Sian and I. Niall had yet to acknowledge her existence and there I had been, about to pass up an opportunity to spend an hour or two in his presence. So as well as trying to butter up my mother, the evening would be a case of taking one for the team.

A Sian-oriented team.

However, when aforementioned best friend opened the door, bleary eyed and smelling like a brewery, I realised that hospitality was probably not the first thing that popped into her head. In fact, what Sian needed was a good long hot shower and possibly a make-up wipe.

The panda look was never going to catch on around this part of town.

"What?" she rasped, clutching a tanned hand to her forehead. "Can't you see I'm dying?"

"I can see you never fail to lose your love of exaggeration," I replied, raising an eyebrow. "Parents home?"

Sian went to shake her head, only to think better of it and wince instead, leaning her hip against the doorframe.

"Brother broke his leg skiing; they've had to go out to pay the medical bills." She said it so matter of fact, as though the fact that her big brother was in some country on his own with a gammy leg. It was hard to imagine her worrying about anyone, especially seeing as she didn't give a damn about her family.

"So, can I come in?"

She moved out of the way, pulling the thin blanket she had around herself tighter in protection from the non-existent chill.

The house of Sian epitomised her very core; it was grand and expensive, every surface garnished with some garish silk patterned cloth or nude sculpture. It was miles away from the cosy semi I'd grown up in; pictures of her parents hung in the entrance hall, beaming down at us both with smiles that didn't quite reach their eyes.

"I've been thinking," Sian mused, leading me through to the kitchen. Oh. Sian thinking. That never ended well. This one time, she thought too hard and managed to make herself pass out during a maths lesson when we were younger.

"Yeah?" I mused, raking in my bag for the sheet of notes she'd missed today at school.

"We should have a party!"

There were several things that she could have been thinking and all of them were probably better than her suggestion. My eyes rose slowly from the paper in my hands to her face, sucking my cheeks in.