car keys • a.i.

one

"But mum," she said, dangling the keys between her fingers while looking down at them with disgust. "It's embarrassing."

Isla was one of those people who was always eternally grateful for everything that she had in her life. Everything, that is, apart from her car. That dreadful car that her mother had bought her for her eighteenth birthday that had cost a mere hundred pounds at some awful car auction.

"You should be lucky that you even have a car, Isla," her mother started. "A lot of girls your age would do anything to have a car."

Isla exaggerated a sigh before throwing the keys to the ground and turning to the door of her mother's house. Her father was no longer around - he sadly died in a fatal car accident when she was only five years old.

She suddently felt very embarrassed as she realised that she needed her car to drive back to her own apartment, so she turned on her heels and shamefully went back over to where her mother was standing to pick up the keys before heading out of the front door, slamming it shut.

The engine to her car roared and jolted as it did every single time that she attempted to start it, and quite frankly she was sick of it.

Once it did start, however, the car successfully managed to get her back to her apartment without blowing up.

Her apartment was on the sixth floor of the complex and was a good size for her. It had one bedroom, a large kitchen and a modern living room, along with a bathroom that had an amazing bath. It also had the best air conditioning that Isla had ever experienced - it was a God send in the Summer.

Once she sat down on the couch, she let out another long sigh. She had never made it into college so she had taken on a job in a small coffee shop instead. The pay was sufficient enough to pay for her groceries, essentials and, of course, her car insurance.

Her mother paid for her rent. The deal was either a good car and living at home or having her own apartment and shitty car. So obviously, she went for the latter. What eighteen year old wants to be living at home anyway? Certainly not Isla.

There was a knock at her door, followed by a familiar voice shouting; "Isla, are you home?"

"Yeah, door's open," she shouted back.

She looked over to see the tall blonde entering her apartment with an oversized book in his hand.

"What's that?" she asked, gesturing towards the book.

"It's your recipe book," he said matter-of-factly. "I was cleaning out the apartment and I found it in a cupboard."

"I have a recipe book?" she questioned, not remembering ever owning such a thing.

"Yeah. The one from when we were nine, remember? We used to get my mum to buy us cake mixes and we would follow the recipe in the book rather than on the back of the box."

"And we fucked up every single time because the measurements were different in the book, yet we still insisted on using it?" Isla giggled, suddenly remembering those events.

"Yeah," he laughed. "I brought along cake mix. I thought you might want to bake cakes again with me," he said excitedly with a massive grin on his face, holding up a blue plastic bag containing a box.

Luke Hemmings had been Isla's best friend since the age of seven when they were both enrolled in their new school in London. They were, and remained, inseperable. Even after recently leaving school and both finding jobs, they always made sure that they found time to hang out.

Isla rolled her eyes. This was a very typical gesture from Luke.

So sure enough, they spent their Sunday afternoon baking cakes.

"Do anything nice this weekend?" Luke asked while spreading some white icing onto a slightly burnt cake, his tongue poking out between his lips as he concentrated. They hadn't seen each other since Friday night when they went for a late night walk around the park near the apartment complex. Luke and Isla didn't live far apart at all - infact, Luke, his mother, his father and his two brothers all lived in the same apartment complex as Isla. They did, however, own a much larger apartment. Theirs had a total of four bedrooms whereas Isla's only had one.

"Not really, was working on Saturday," she said with a sigh. She sighed a lot. "Did you?"

"Nah. Hung out with Ash for a bit on Saturday night and had a few beers."

"Ash?" she questioned. He had never mentioned an Ash before, and for a split second she thought that it might be a new girlfriend of his, though Isla knew that she would be the first person that Luke would tell if he were to have a new girlfriend.

"This rich guy who I met at a party a few weeks ago. He's pretty cool and buys me alcohol."

"But you're old enough to buy your own alcohol," Isla stated, wondering why Luke would need someone to do that for him.

"But I don't always have enough money to buy my own," he retorted. "Alcohol doesn't come cheap, you know."

Luke had been the type of person who liked to have a drink every now and again for around three years now. However, recently Isla had been noticing that the 'now and again' had been becoming a lot more frequent.

"You're going to become an alcoholic," Isla laughed unsurely. She knew that although Luke was the most kind hearted and caring person that she had ever met, he did have a problem with drinking. Isla so badly wanted to help him, but he insisted that he didn't need nor want help.

Luke groaned. "I am not."

"So Ash," Isla started after a few moments of silence, wanting to change the subject so that their little baking session wouldn't be ruined by yet another 'alcohol talk'. "Is he hot?"

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yay yay yay chapter one :-)

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