The Circle

7 | Marble

Kaia drops me off at home and I wave as she drives away. To me, it felt as if the temperature was dropping day by day, and even though the sun shone overhead it felt freezing outside.

After hanging my coat on the hanger by the door, I make my way towards the kitchen, planning on making a grilled cheese. I lay the ingredients on the kitchen island, and then grab a plate from one of the cabinets.

"Hey Lux," A voice echoes from somewhere behind me and I nearly drop my plate in surprise.

Lucas stands by the door, his arms crossed over his chest. A serious expression graces his features, auburn eyebrows stuck in a frown.

"Holy shit, you scared me!" I hold a hand against my frantically beating heart and then look at him in the eyes. "What are you doing inside my house?"

"Oh, right. God, I'm sorry for creeping up on you like this. Alec called me over," he scratches his hair. "I wanted to talk about yesterday."

"Yesterday?" I frown.

"Yeah... Our kiss last night," he closes his eyes for a beat, a visible blush spreading through his freckled complexion. "You seemed pretty upset afterwords and I just wanted to check up on you. I guess I wanted to know if I did anything wrong, or something else to upset you."

"Lucas, it had nothing to do with you. Don't worry." I smile at him and he looks relieved. "But thank you for asking, anyways."

"Great. Friends?" He gives me a lopsided smile, blue eyes shining.

"Friends," I confirm, and he beams. I scratch my arm and then continue, "Thank you for inviting me to your party. Well, thanks for allowing Nicolas to invite me."

"Nick?" he frowns and look at me, and then something clicks inside his mind, "Right. It was nothing, I was glad you came."

"Wait a second. Are you hiding something from me?"

"What do you mean?" He widens his eyes.

"You just questioned Nick inviting me."

"I just thought one of the girls asked you, that's all," he says smoothly. Nope, that's not it. Lucas isn't telling me something.

"Alright. If you say so," I smile and shrug. I'm not going to pick a fight with a brand new friend. He can tell me himself if it's important.

"Alec's gonna come looking for me any minute now. I better go," he laughs.

"Go find him," I wave him off and Lucas leaves the room.

He has now idea about how pretty much everything last night had nothing to do with him. It was a dare, for god's sake. Dares mean nothing. Sure, we might have kissed and everything went to shit afterwards, but that wasn't what made me go flat out drunk. That was all Kit and his harsh words.

He shouldn't have affected me like that. But there was this attraction that made me need to talk to him, to see him, and when he stepped all over me it hurt. Especially because it was all true.

No.

I'll not let this boy make me feel like this, especially after seeing how much of an asshole he can be this morning. A handsome asshole, one with unholy abs and a modelesque face, but an asshole nonetheless.

I take a bite out of the grilled cheese sandwich and sigh.

Boys.

I grab the other half of the sandwich and leave the kitchen through the door, entering the back yard. The tree line at the end of the garden mark the start of the dense woods, and the thick foliage prevents the late afternoon light from penetrating their cover. I can only see the first layer of trees of the woods, standing proud and ominous near the house.