teach me to be innocent, l.hemmings

#13: promise to leave me alone

"That rollercoaster was sick!" Luke cheered, pumping his arm in the arm as I let out a breathless laugh.

I was about to say how the first time had been fine, but the eighth ride had gotten a bit boring. However, before I could get the sentence out I saw Tyler waving at us.

"Oh, hey." I blinked a few times as Tyler walked over to us with a loose grin.

"I didn't think I'd see you here, Ari." Tyler tilted his head quizzically. "You don't exactly like these things do you?"

"She seemed to enjoy the Haunted House." Luke interjected with a smug smile, which probably just made Tyler even more confused. I elbowed him in the ribs.

"Am I missing something?" Tyler laughed, raising his eyebrow.

"No." I said quickly before Luke could say any more provoking things. "Just screamed like a baby."

Tyler let out a smile. "I'm actually manning the show bag booth so I should get back to it." He nodded in the direction of the stalls. "I'll see you guys later."

"Laters, man." Luke nodded, seemingly relaxed in comparison to his earlier statement.

I waited until Tyler was out of earshot before I rounded on Luke. He gave me an innocent smile, probably knowing what I was about to say.

"Wow, subtlety isn't your strong suit." I remarked before shooting him a playful glare.

"I wasn't going to subtle. I was going for 'back the fuck off'." Luke shrugged nonchalantly. What the hell was that meant to mean?

"Alriiiiiiighty." I drawled out the word, still a bit miffed by what he meant.

"So, I know you said that you ended things with Tyler because of the sexual aspect but I feel like there's more to it." Luke said casually as he glanced over at me.

He wasn't wrong. There was more to it but I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell Luke about it. I don't think he'd understand, and if he did then I'm sure it would just reinforce of me not having a backbone.

"It's pretty insignificant." I said dismissingly, but Luke caught on.

"So there was another reason?" He raised his eyebrow as we walked down the main strip of the Pier.

"Yeah." I saw no point in lying now. "There was one main reason."

"What was it?" Luke was being rather patient. If he had been Ashton or Calum I would be getting an on slaughter of 'what the fuck happened?'.

"Katherine." I kicked at the ground as Luke came to a stop. He peered at me silently so I just let out a sigh. "Katherine liked Tyler a lot and I don't know, I just felt guilty being with the person my best friend loved. It's not like I was really attached to him so I ended it before I developed deeper feelings."