Outer Limits | ✓

◦ flawless

WITH A FIRM grip of the arm, Darcy had tried shoving Jude out of her home. When this failed her, she spat obscenities at him. When all else failed, she grovelled. Somehow, she'd gotten roped into being the unstoppable force and he — the immovable object. 

⠀⠀⠀⠀ "Damn it, Jude," she groaned for the umpteenth time. "Go home!"

⠀⠀⠀ "Don't blame me, blame your doppelganger!" He told her and she heard the insolence that laced his tone. It became evident that her sister's stealthy disappearing act had rubbed him up the wrong way. "She's the one that told me to come and now look, she's nowhere to be found."

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy frowned. "Weren't you the one that invited yourself over?"

⠀⠀⠀ The look the raven-haired boy gave her was genuinely offended. "Please, try not to flatter yourself so damn much."

⠀⠀⠀ Darcy had found it odd for him, no matter how close he was or had been with Emma, to show up at their doorstep so early, just for a mediocre breakfast. He'd never done that before. It's then that the pieces of the puzzle soon began to come together only for Darcy to realise what situation she had been put in the epicentre of.

⠀⠀⠀ Emma's words played in the haze of her mind, still keeping that cruel charade that's called your feelings for Jude up?

⠀⠀⠀ Her little shit of a sister had been playing matchmaker this morning. Darcy couldn't help but wonder if Sam was in on it. They'd hardly spoken since she'd kissed him, and when they seldom did, he'd averted his gaze as though he couldn't even bare the sight of her.

⠀⠀⠀ Her eyes narrowed in realisation before she carded a hand through the length of her hair and hissed, "Fucking hell!"

⠀⠀⠀ "More like: fucking Em," Jude quipped though the scowl on his face was undeterred. He raised his mobile to Darcy then, and with sharp eyes, the redhead caught glimpse of the message that flickered through the screen. It was a text from the culprit herself:

⠀⠀⠀ Uptown with Sam. Don't follow us. Spend time with my sister, yeah? Sort whatever it is that's going on between you two. xx

⠀⠀⠀ Jude blinked. "All this time I thought you were the evil twin."

⠀⠀⠀ "Only on Tuesdays," Darcy replied with a grimace in which he couldn't help but respond with a gleam in his eyes and a transient snarl that she later realised was a laugh.

⠀⠀⠀ Jude had tucked his mobile in the back pocket of the pair of tight, ripped-at-the-knee trousers he'd worn and pushed up the sleeves of his grey jumper in a way that was so natural she pictured him doing it all the time as though it were instinct. He stood at the threshold, one foot rooted onto the wooden floor of her flat and the other grazing the landing of the stairs.