Chasing Calloway

Nineteen - All Your Fault

Song Of The Chapter ||  So Alright, Cool, Whatever - The Happy Fits

𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐓

Lucas mashes the buttons on the controller with more anger than I've seen from him in a long time. "I fucking hate that guy!" He shouts, his eyes trained on the first person shooter game.

"We know, Lucas." Nick replies in an exasperated tone. He's cleaning up the remnants of family dinner night.

Some family we were tonight.

"And you know what I hate even more? I hate that Annie defended him!" He drones on in his loud voice.

"We know, Lucas." Nick assures him. I can see he's using a lot of mental willpower not to throw a plate at him right now. Instead, Nick washes a plate in the sink with a little more force than I usually see from him.

"Do you?" Pesters lucas. "Do you really know? Because as far as I'm concerned you caved the second Annie got a little teary eyed."

"It's not Annie's fault that Rhys is a dick." I pipe up. It wasn't. I keep trying to tell myself it wasn't. I don't want to be mad at Annie, I don't know if I could forgive myself if I truly was. Annie and I had thirteen years of friendship between us, did I really want a stupid boyfriend to get in the way of that?

"It kind of is." Lucas opposes. He jams his fingers into the buttons of the controller, it's to avoid having an outburst. We know that by now. Doesn't give him any excuse for what he says next. "Rhys is a dick and Annie is defending him, isn't that like...enabling or some shit?" He asks, but it's not a genuine question. It's an accusation.

"So you take one psychology class and suddenly you're an expert on the human psyche." Nick responds in a passive-aggressive tone.

"See!" Lucas shouts, he throws the controller out of his hands. I'm thankful that it doesn't hit the ground too hard.

"Hey! Be careful, man." I scold him, he doesn't listen and continues on his tirade.

"See what those two are doing, they're turning us against each other!" He shouts. "Annie has blame in this, you can't keep pretending like she doesn't." Lucas continues. "I'm tired of us having to dodge and weave around the stupid fucking asshole known as Rhys Sinclair. And for what? So Annie can get laid? It's bullshit."

I'm about to shout at him, Nick beats me to the punch. But it's not a shout, it's barely above a whisper. Nick only has a one sentence response, but it's enough to send Lucas into a tailspin.

"Maybe if you learned to control your temper, we could have an actual conversation about this."

Lucas walks over and slams his hands on the counter where Nick is washing a plate, Nick doesn't even flinch.

"You know, Nick." Lucas seethes. "Sometimes I wish you would man the fuck up and really tell me how you feel." With that, Lucas huffs out in frustration and heads towards his room. The door slams shut.

Nick doesn't even look up from the dishes.

Shit. There's clearly a lot of tension between the two of them, and a lot of it runs deeper than what's happening with Annie and Rhys. I think. I want to ask them both about it later, but now is clearly not the time.

"Well." I begin. "That was insightful."

"Shut up, Garrett." Nick grumbles, he tries to rub out a spot on one of the dishes. "This is all your fault."