BOXER

eighteen

"God, I fucking hate my life," Brielle muttered to herself as she turned around from the peep hole, and leaned against the door.

"Who is it?" Luke asked, his face scrunched up in confusion.

There was no way she could not open the door as Sam had probably already seen her in the peep hole and heard her mutter curse words to herself. But at the same time she didn't know how Sam would react to Luke being in her apartment, and really didn't want to deal with her reaction -- especially this early and after the long morning she already had.

"Brielle? It's Sam," she called out from the other side of the door, her voice a lot softer than the last time Brielle had talked to her. It surprised her, as she expected Sam to be a lot more aggressive.

Luke recognized Sam's voice from the bowling alley, so he didn't understand why Brielle was so worried about her being there.

"Is everything okay?" Luke started to walk from behind the counter towards Brielle, but she put her hand up to indicate that she wanted him to stop.

She took a deep breath before turning around and opening the door, knowing that there was no way she was going to get out of this. It was weird -- it almost felt like Sam was Brielle's mom and she was about to catch the boyfriend she didn't approve of in her daughter's bedroom. It was ridiculous to her that she felt like she was about to get in "trouble" by her best friend.

"Hey," Brie greeted, showing her a small smile. Even though she was still pissed at Sam, giving her an attitude probably wouldn't make the situation better. To her surprise, Sam smiled back which reassured her that she was at least in a good mood.

"You weren't responding to my calls or texts, so I came here," Samantha explained her presence as she walked past Brielle and into the apartment.

You would've thought that there was some sort of spotlight on Luke from how fast Sam spotted him (though it was kind of hard to not see that giant) and she immediately stopped in her tracks once she did.

Luke grinned and half-waved at her, though Sam just smiled fakely at him before turning back towards Brielle.
She mouthed something at her, but Brielle acted as if she didn't see it and tried her best to cease the tension in the room that only Brielle and Samantha were aware of.

"Samantha, you've met Luke before." Brielle walked closer towards him so Luke and her were on one side of the counter while Sam was standing on the opposite side.

"Yep," she replied briefly.

Luke was still wearing sweatpants and his Sheriff shirt, and also was in the process of making himself bread with Vegemite -- it seemed that he was very comfortable in Brielle's apartment, which made Samantha uneasy.

"Have you been staying here or something?" she asked, motioning to his clothes.

He shook his head. "Oh, no. I just got here."

"It's just that you look pretty comfortable here," she observed.

"Yeah, no. This is usually how I am wherever I go." He laughed slightly, though stopped once Sam gave him a weird look.

"Interesting."

Luke just shrugged it off and took another bite of his bread, completely oblivious to how Samantha actually felt about him. Brielle had been glaring at Sam the whole time, though she continued to ignore it.

"My friend Michael has been pretty stressed out since you haven't called him back," Luke mentioned, and Brielle internally sighed as she would've preferred if Sam and Luke didn't talk -- she knew Sam wasn't going to be able to act like everything was alright when she disliked Luke, and she could tell she was having trouble carrying a civil conversation with him by the replies she was giving.