Spin The Bottle

36 | Truth

His mum smiles. "Okay fine."
She stands and picks her handbag before heading for the stairs.
"I'll be going out tonight to meet a client at 7."

"Uhm... Okay."

***

The next day, Brooke picks Stephanie up and they head for school.

"Turns out my parents got a call that I skipped school," Steph tells Brooke who's driving.

Brooke laughs. "You didn't know? The school calls the parents when a kid's absent."

"I didn't know. You should have told me so I'd have prepared myself for the questions," Steph huffs.

What she didn't expect yesterday was for her parents to arrive from work and the first thing they said to her when she had let them in was "Why did you skip school, young lady?"

She was taken aback for a few seconds before her mum explained that the school called.

"What did you tell them was the reason you skipped school?" Brooke asks.

"What I initially told you," Steph shrugs.

"Bad girl," Brooke smirks.

Brooke parks her car in a parking space when they arrive at school. They get out of the car and later end up at Steph's locker. Steph enters her locker combination and opens it. She shrugs her backpack off her shoulder and then pulls a jacket -- Chris' jacket -- after unzipping it.

"Is that his jacket?" Steph hears Brooke ask as she puts it into her locker.

"Yeah," she glances at Brooke to see a simper on her face which makes her to roll her eyes.
"You really should stop having all those crazy ideas in your head. Chris and I are just friends. I don't like him, B."

"But you still like Luke?" Brooke quirks an eyebrow.

"Unfortunately, yes." Steph continues to sort through her locker so her back is facing Brooke.
"I intend to avoid him throughout today."

Brooke purses her lips as she sights her boyfriend and Luke walking over. "Too late for that."

Steph realises what Brooke means just as the boys reach them.

Is the universe against me or something? Steph asks herself.

"Hey babe," she hears Cole say as he hugs Brooke.

"Sorry about yesterday, Luke." Brooke tells him.

Steph takes a deep breath. She can't pretend she doesn't know they're here. She shuts her locker and turns around to face them.

"Hey guys," Steph forces a smile with her gaze on Cole.

"I need to talk to you, Steph. In private." Luke announces, without preamble.

That's exactly what Ivy said yesterday and look what happened, Steph thinks.

"Okay. We'll leave you two to talk." Cole says.

"See you later, baby girl." Brooke smirks as Cole drags her away.

Steph watches them instead of facing Luke who wants to talk to her. When they're out of sight, she finally looks at Luke.

"Hi," he says now that he has her attention.

"Hey." She espies his face for any bruises but only sees a tiny cut on his lower lip. Luke notices her scanning his face.

"My face? Ivy used something to cover it up. Luckily, he didn't break my nose."

"I heard what happened. I'm sorry," Steph mutters.