New Love

Chapter 3

Today had been great, one of the best days I had had in such a long time. After our family hug in the kitchen we decided to go out shopping for food. It had taken us around 3 hours to get there, get what we need, pay and then get back again. Most of the time we were there I was holding my stomach laughing hard. Their constant bickering over things like what flavour crisps we should get had me in absolute stitches. Not to mention their terrible puns that seemed never ending, and yet always got a laugh out of me.

We got all sorts of things like pizzas, cakes, fizzy drinks. Well it was mostly junk food and ready meals because none of us were really all that good at cooking. But tonight I decided that because they were letting me stay with them, I would cook them one of the only things that I was able to cook; lasagne.

I was busy finishing off the last couple of layers when Jai walked in the room, coming over toward me.

"Luuuuuc?" Jai whined in my ear while standing behind me and leaning on my shoulders.

"Yes Jai?" I questioned, although I already knew what he was going to ask; the same thing he had been asking pretty much since we walked in the door after we had finished shopping.

"How long until it's ready?" I giggled to myself at how much he sounded like a four-year-old before I turned to face him with my hands on my hips.

"How many times have I told you mister," I started, pretending to tell Jai off. "It will be ready when it's ready, and not a minute before." I finished, winking at him before turning around to put the lasagne in the over to cook.

"Something looks good." I heard another voice say, and I turned around to see Luke looking at me with a hint of something in his eye, smirking slightly.

"You mean smell. Something smells good." Jai corrected, clearly not noticing the intentional change in Luke's sentence. I blushed hard and turned towards the sink to start the washing up. Had I caught Luke staring at my ass? Was that the reason why he was smirking? No, impossible. I continued the washing, becoming oblivious to the conversation that was happening behind me. When I turned my head to look over my shoulder I noticed that I had been left alone. I let out a breath that I hadn't known I was holding and proceeded to set the table, adamant on having a meal at the table, knowing full well it wouldn't happen often.

Once the lasagne had finished cooking, I placed it on the table along with a plate of bread rolls before calling out to the boys, letting them know it was ready. Footsteps thundered towards the kitchen, both boys clearly excited about having a meal that had been home cooked compared to frozen. They sat down and started tucking in, before pausing and looking at me with a look of guilt across their face. I had a huge smile across my face, amused at the behaviour of both of them. I proceeded to sit down myself and started eating my own dinner, letting them know that I wasn't upset about them tucking in.

Once we had eaten we sat down in the living room to watch a movie. After some arguing we decided to go with Pirates of the Caribbean series. Half way through the first film I got up to make popcorn cause let's be honest, you can't watch a film without popcorn. Or so I thought. In stead of eating the popcorn, we ended up throwing it at each other and running around the house trying to hide.

I can't even remember the amount of times Jai fell over, face first each time. I was just grateful that they helped me forget what happened only the day before. I was also glad that my bruises didn't hurt as much, most probably because I was having too much fun to notice.

After we had finished running around like the lunatics we are, we quickly cleaned and hovered the living room before realising that it was 11 o'clock. We hadn't noticed that we were tired until Luke let out a yawn which was then followed suit by Jai and then me.

I needed to be up early in the morning, which made me regret how long we had been up for as it meant that I was not going to get much sleep. Now that I was no longer with John, I decided that I would finally be able to do what I wanted to do, which in my case was go get a job so that I didn't have to rely on others.

I applied online for a couple last night, and I had gotten a response earlier today, telling me that they wanted to meet me. I didn't want to tell Jai or Luke about the interview because it wasn't a definite thing. However as soon as I found out, they would definitely be the first to know. Well, after me of course.

I didn't really have any friends except for Jai and Luke. This is because when I started dating John, he somehow managed to scare them all off so that I had no choice but to talk to and rely on him. Yet Jai stayed with me throughout everything. And I meant everything. Including the first time John abused me.

Just before I was about to go to bed, Luke knocked on the door, checking in on me to see if I was ok. It was really sweet of him, and it made my heart flutter.

"Luke, you can come in you know." I told him before I turned around pick up my phone which had been off since I left yesterday. I pressed the power button down until the screen flashed, telling me it was booting. I quickly looked at Luke before looking back at my phone.

"Thanks Luc, I just wanted to make sure that... Luc? Are you ok??" he said, concern written across his face as he looked at me.

I was looking down at my phone as the list of un-read messages flashed across my screen. They were all from John, and none of them were pleasant. They read;

What the fuck do you think you're playing at? Do you seriously think that you can leave me? I don't think so!

I see that you have packed all your stuff and left! Well trust me when I say don't come crawling back to me.

You fucking bitch. I hate you and I don't ever want to see you again.

All of these messages scared the crap out of me, but it was the last one that caused me to drop my phone in terror.

Luke picked up my phone just as Jai walked into my room. He clicked on the button to open it and then proceeded to read it out loud;

"If you think that you can leave me like this then you are mistaken. I will find you and make you pay for this. And don't even bother calling the police because if you do, it will only get worse for you when I get my hands on you..." Luke looked up from the screen to look at me.

The message was serious. He wasn't joking and this is what scared me the most. My stomach started churning and I quickly ran to the bathroom, only just making it before I was sick.