Play No More (Player Next Door sequel) ✓

100 | Lost boy

Thank you @Yohari_luz for the moody poster!  And a thank you to everyone reading this chapter.  We're at ONE HUNDRED *waves invisible balloons*!!

✰ Please vote - it's chapter 100 after all :) 

Chapter 100: Lost boy

Luke Dawson lives in my mind, rent free.

He's who I think of when I try to sleep. He's who I compare every boy to. Healthy or unhealthy, my mind loops back to Luke. Always.

I ran across the street, zipping my brown jacket up to my chin. The letter was folded in my jacket pocket, and I held onto it like it was my most precious possession.

Luke's jeep wrangler was parked outside his driveway. It hadn't been there when I first came home, so he probably just got back from wherever he's been.

I reached the Dawsons' flower bushes and resisted temptation to pluck some daisies. I was here on a mission. But I didn't want to knock on the front door because I didn't want to see his parents.

They've been so rude to my family and to me, that I didn't want to put myself in a submissive position again.

I walked around the flower bushes to the side of their house and stared up at Luke's bedroom window. This would be so much easier if Luke hadn't left the bar early, if he'd come looking for me or if he would answer his damn phone.

"Luke!" I called up. He didn't hear me.

"LUKE!" I yelled louder.

No movement. I stared at the tree next to his house. Its branches extended so close to Luke's window. Should I? No. That would be a disaster. But... maybe?

I looked around. No one was here to witness this, so how bad could it go? I shuffled closer to the tree and reached out to touch it.

It didn't fall over, so that's a good sign.

I grabbed onto a low branch and tried to climb, convincing myself to just channel my inner raccoon.

**

**

I was stuck in a tree.

I didn't know how to get to the next branch, and I was scared of going back down. So I just sat there, reflecting on my life's decisions.

It's much harder to get up a tree than it is to come down. Lesson learned.

I heard Luke's voice as he walked out of his house, completely unaware of my current situation - above him. I used my new viewpoint to stare down at him. No bald spot. Just a fluffy head of hair.

"Chad, it's not difficult. Keep your mouth shut... no, not even Irvin... I'm handling it... maybe I'll take a bubble bath to relax."

Luke hung up. He walked down the front steps in the black bomber jacket he'd been wearing earlier. His left hand gripped his workout bag, and his right hand held the phone.

It rang again.

"Seriously Chad, if you call this number one more time, I'm blocking you... I don't want to talk about it... No, don't tell your therapist."

He hung up on Chad again.

Luke sounded tense and I had no idea what was going on.

I didn't know where Luke was going, but I came all this way, climbed up a tree, just to speak with him. And now he was leaving again. Part of me really wanted to hide in embarrassment until he left, but a bigger part of me was so done with us not talking.