Betting on You

50

f i f t y

As soon as we were in the safe confines of Luke's room, he was walking over to his bay window, not wasting any more time.

"Alright," he sighed, pulling back his curtains. "Are you sure about going over? I'll hold on to you but you'll have to be paying attention, alright? Maddy?"

I had already ambled over to his night table, seeing a picture frame lying face down. I picked it up, curious, and felt my heart flutter seeing that it was the photo of Luke with his arms around me, lips to my cheek, at our family barbecue. The one that had been on his dresser, all those months ago, that I had seen in the 'burn box' that he had given me. "I look good in this photo."

"Maddy?"

"Hm?" I looked over my shoulder to where Luke was standing, and his eyes noticed the photo in my hands before he decided not to acknowledge it.

"Are you ready to go over?"

I frowned. "Go over where?"

"To your room."

I blinked. "Uh. No, I will definitely not be doing that."

He blinked too. "You told me you'd go across."

"Go across and do what?" I giggled, placing down his photo. "My window is locked, silly. Ooo, movies!" And I was rushing over to his desk.

In my peripheral, I noticed a wave of emotions flickering across Luke's face, and where I thought annoyance or frustration would have been one of them, nervousness was. It was the most prominent. "Why didn't you say that before I brought you in here?" he sounded slightly stressed, but I picked up the movies in the corner of his desk.

"10 Things I Hate About You?" I raised my brows. "She's All That? These are girl movies."

Luke was by my side instantly, gently snatching the DVDs from my fingers. "Are you paying attention to me?"

The blush on his cheeks was my next distraction. "Why were you watching these?"

"We need to decide how you're going to get to your room," he ignored me, shoving the movies under a stack of papers on the opposite end of his desk. "Maybe we can sneak back out and I can help you sneak into your room? And then I can be the one to leave through your balcony?"

"No! I wanna stay here!" I skipped over to his bed seeing papers scattered all over it, along with his laptop. "Ooo, what were you working on?"

"Maddy," he sighed, grasping my wrists. He used his other hand to gently grasp my chin, turning my face to look at him. "Focus."

"On what?"

His eyes studied mine for a moment, the dull blues of his eyes looking sadder and more tired up close than I had expected. "You can't stay here."

I frowned. "Why not?"

"Because," he huffed. "Because when you wake up here, sober, you're going to think that I... you just won't be happy that you're here, okay? You seem drunk enough that you won't even remember calling me or being here, but I can't risk anything else. You need to go home."

"But I wanna stay here with you."

"No," he gave me a sad smile, dropping his gentle hold on my wrist and chin. "You don't."

"Yes I do," I stepped back. "I wanna stay here."

"When you're sober-"

"I don't care," my voice raised, my tone getting defensive. Why didn't he want me here? Wasn't I the one that was mad at him? So if I'm not mad at him right now, then everything should be fine. "I want to stay here. You can't make me go. Please don't make me go."