| torn up

~ chapter 45 ☁️

'Oh really?' He sneers, releasing a deep chuckle that has my eyes flickering to meet his and judging from the cheeky glint in them I can already tell that I'm not going to like what comes out of his mouth next. 'Is that a bit of sourness I'm detecting, Willow? You don't need to be jealous just because one of is actually getting laid.'

My cheeks are instantly set alight at his taunt and this time he doesn't even try and stop me from pulling my hand away from his to lean over and smack him right in the middle of his chest.

'Shut up!' I whine with red cheeks, wanting to hide my face in my palms at his words as I land a couple more light punches at his upper arm in retaliation at his success at poking fun at me.

The whole time, he's sniggering at me, not even flinching from the force of my hands before eventually breathing out to stare back at me once I stop hitting him and sit back into my seat.

'...I'm going to go now.' I finally and quietly muse, my cheeks still rosey and head still shaking at the cheek of him.

I'm biting my lip, struggling to come up with the right words to say now we're finally parting. I should say something before I leave, at least thank him for tonight even if he did take me out to make it up to me. But should I say anything else? I don't know.

Either way he doesn't give me much time or space to think, quickly reaching out to grip my wrist again before I've even made a move to hop out of the car.

'My ring, princess?' He quips in a low voice with a raised brow and a slight smirk, dark eyes staring right into my own and seemingly into my soul.

'Oh, yeah.' I exclaim with a vigorous nod of my head, having completely forgotten about the black ring on my right hand as I pull away from his grip to shrug it off and hand it over to him.

'I meant to check for the one that might be in your room but yeah, that one too.' He admits with a snicker, taking it from my hand before once again raising those green eyes of his to my face in a questioning manner.

'Oh, okay, give me one second.' I murmur with a determined nod before quickly turning around and climbing out of the car.

I can feel Eli's eyes burning a hole into the back of my head as I make my way to my house, stopping before my front door to get my keys out of my pocket. I could just technically knock on the door for my Mum to open it. I know she's home, she told me she would be at this time and plus her car is parked outside. But I'd rather not because I don't really want her to see Eli. When I had told her I was going to watch a movie earlier today, I had made a point of specifically not mentioning who I was going out with.

You see, my Mum loves Eli, she always has. Even when we were little, out of all my childhood friends, it was always obvious she had a soft spot for Eli. God knows why, even back then, he was the devil incarnation as a child. Her fondness of him only grew after Ciara's death and even now, despite the fact she rarely sees him partnered with how his Mum is constantly fretting to her about how she worries about him and his troubling and rebellious ways- my Mum still thinks the sun shines out of his backside.

Either way, I'd rather she didn't know I had been out with only Eli this whole time and can't even begin to think of the places her mind might wander to should she find out. She's mentioned a couple times in the past about how Eli and I would be cute together- disgusting, I know. I wonder what she'd think if she was actually aware of how he practically set out to ruin my high school life after Ciara's passing. I'm positive she wouldn't be fantasising about having him as a future son in law then.

Her attitude towards him is why I'm currently making an effort to be as quiet as possible and silently thanking Eli for having turned his car and thus lights off while he waits for me. However it seems I didn't need to after all a second later, when I've just turned the key in the lock only for the door to fly open seemingly on its own.