TAKE IT EASY • TC ✔️

12: Interest Piqued

Timmy laughed to disguise the fact that his brain had decided on having a meltdown in the middle of the corridor.

There was no way she didn't know. There could be no way that she didn't.

And Timothée hated her for it. Despised her, in fact. Wanted to kick these stupid boxes to the floor and trample all over them. How dare she? How dare she try and fool him?

He was stressed enough already; he didn't need anyone putting up facades. He needed transparency. Openness. He didn't want to be lied to, and if she knew who he was, who he really was - who everyone else had made him out to be - he'd much rather she just said it.

Instead of making stupid jokes about people coming up to him in the street and teasing him about Saoirse. Timothée faltered at her front door, hanging back by the entrance and holding the cat food to his chest as if it were a sort of ransom.

He needed the truth. Needed her to be honest.

Lucia frowned as he stayed behind the threshold.

"Timothée, you can come in, you know?" she tittered nervously. There was a crease in his brow, and he looked- angry?

Lucia couldn't think what on Earth she'd done to prompt this shift in behaviour.

"Yeah, I know, I just," he began, pursing his lips when his words refused to materialise. "Lucia, I need to a-"

The boy was interrupted by an exclamation of, "You two!" from further down the corridor. He stopped, snapping his head towards the source of the noise. Lucia followed suit, leaning the upper half of her body around the door frame and peering outwards. This action brought her closer to Timothée, and she rested a hand on his shoulder for support. Timmy wanted to shrug it off angrily, but he refrained, directing his attention to the intrusion instead.

The intrusion itself, it turned out, came in the form of very person Timothée didn't want to see right now.

"I need to speak to you both about something very serious," Mr Pratchett said sincerely, beckoning to the two of them as if they were naughty kids who'd been caught playing on his front yard without permission.

Lucia chanced a glance at Timothée, but he didn't reciprocate it, simply removing her hand from his shoulder. They walked over to Mr Pratchett awkwardly, feeling far too much like they were about to receive a threat of I will be informing your mothers.

"I heard voices in the corridor last night," He stated bluntly. Timothée opened his mouth to speak. It was his fault, of course it was. He was the one who'd gotten them drunk, he was the one who'd brought up that whole thing about getting caught in the rain, and now he felt awful, because Lucia was going to get roped into a scolding that she didn't entirely deserve, and-

"I know you heard them too," Mr Pratchett continued, not even waiting for Timothée to speak.

This confused the boy immensely, and he looked to Lucia for support. She, however, barely managed to suppress an eye-roll, simply folding her arms over her chest in a bored stance. "It can't have been them," Lucia said monotonously, and Timothée was almost certain that he couldn't have been more confused.

"But it's Wednesday today!" he protested animatedly. "And, it was around three o'clock. I checked."

Neither of these facts seemed to have any relevance to the matter, nor to Timothée, who's bushy eyebrows had risen so far up his forehead in bewilderment they'd almost disappeared into his hairline.

"Yes, but it was around three o'clock. Not three o'clock exactly, and we've established that they always come at three o'clock on the dot," she countered.