Off Limits (5 page)

He accepted the
sweater reluctantly, before holding out the unzipped front. I raised an eyebrow
at him. “Get in,” he reiterated, shaking the jacket once more.

I hesitated for
only a second before aligning myself against Luke and letting him zip up the
jacket. My back crushed against his chest, I was definitely nice and warm. Heat
flooded me almost unexpectedly. “Warm enough now?”

I nodded, not sure
I could manage to speak without sounding husky. It was a jokey thing from
someone who was apparently trying to be my friend, but my cheeks were burning
in the darkness and nothing could stop my heart pounding.

It appeared there
was going to be another phase of me desperately wanting to bang Luke coming on.

We reached the car
in three times the time it should have taken, but we were in fits of giggles
and I’d almost fallen over at least twelve times.  

Luke undid the
jumper and I stepped out, really trying not to act weird. I didn’t want to be
too friendly, but I didn’t want to be obscurely shy, either. Just normal would
be fine.

“I’ll remember to
bring my own jumper next time, I promise.”

Luke chuckled and
unlocked the car, running a hand through his unruly black hair. “That would
probably be a good idea. Now let’s get home, because I’m really starving. We
should have just grabbed some chips before we left.”

I’d been hungry
for a good four hours now and the thought of food was very appealing. I slid
into his passenger seat and rummaged through my bag, pulling out a bag of
crisps. That would at least put us both on.

It was when we
were halfway back that I spotted a familiar car. The smile I’d been wearing as
we joked about Phoebe’s awful taste in music dimmed and I stared in the
rear-view mirror. “Pass me your phone.”

When he hesitated,
I reached into his pocket and grabbed it myself. “Where did you save that
number plate?”

Luke told me
where, his own eyes glued to the car I’d seen now, too. This was going to be
the confirmation we needed.

And as I compared,
my humour slowly drained and became fear. “It’s the same one,” I clasped Luke’s
phone so tight that it was probably on the verge of breaking. “He really is targeting
us.”

Luke slammed the
accelerator on and I felt my stomach drop. I’d never been entirely comfortable
in speeding cars, but for once I could accept it was better than being followed
by that creep.

Surprisingly
enough, the blue car didn’t follow. Knowing they were too scared of a speeding
ticket to catch us up was something, I supposed. “What do we do now?”

“I have no idea,” and
there was no way either of us could know what to do. “Maybe we should go to the
police now and tell them what we know. They might check it out or something.”

“Maybe,” I wasn’t
sure what they would do other than explain how we were paranoid about the fact
we’d seen a car that happened to have the same number plate twice in one day.
We couldn’t prove that it was the same car that had followed us before. “I bet
they wouldn’t even look into it, though. Don’t we need some proof or
something?”

“I guess you’ll
have to google it and let me know or something. I’ve got no internet access at
mine.”

I made a mental
note to do that, but it would be on my mind so much there was no chance I’d
forget. Having an apparent stalker wasn’t something I was likely to just forget
about. “Sure.”

At Luke’s house,
my nerves hadn’t completely calmed. I still found myself staring around before
getting out of the car and my hands were permanently clammy. How was I supposed
to ever feel safe again after this?

Inside, Luke
greeted his mother and we all sat ourselves down in the living room. “Do we
have any chips?” He checked. “I need something quick to put in the oven for us
to eat.”

“Yes! And some
fish fingers, too, and I bought a gorgeous loaf of bread this morning. That’s a
good tea right there.”

He excused himself
and I was left alone with this mother. It was probably awkward enough already,
but I only made it worse by saying something stupid. It had been occupying my
mind ever since I’d been offered the job, though, and I really just wanted to
help.

My parents were
fucked, but at least Angela and Luke could be happy. I might resent him for it
sometimes, but he most definitely deserved better than a chippy. And his mum
seemed nice enough, too.

“They offered me a
job at the same place Luke worked today,” I was rushing my words and my fingers
were white from clasping them together so hard, but I needed to say this before
Luke came back. “And Luke told me about all the stuff you’re going through and…
well, I wanted to offer you half my pay check. And I’m really not trying to be
like charitable or anything like that, I don’t know if Luke said anything, but
my parents are going through a messy divorce right now and there’s really
nothing I can do about that, but well… I really, I really kind of like Luke and
I think he deserves not to have to worry about this so I’m just offering for
him. If that makes sense.”

Angela was
watching me with wide eyes and her mouth opened and closed once in silence. “I
really can’t take money from you, I’m sorry.”

It was of course
the first response, it had to be to be polite, but I really wanted to do this.
My mother spent her spare cash on fancy clothes and stupid furniture that didn’t
fit in our house. It was almost a blessing if she had to spend some of that on
petrol and my insurance. Whereas Luke, he was nice and I was in the stupid
phase where I fancied the pants off him.

I just wanted to
help someone out.

“I know that you
think I’m probably being weird or something, and I’m really trying not to be
patronising, I just want to help. It would only be half my pay check, it
probably wouldn’t even be that much money.”

Angela couldn’t
even look at me, but I knew she was dying to say yes. It was an irresistible
offer and I was genuine. I hoped that came across. “I would pay you back every
penny, with interest, if you wanted.”

“There’s no point
in putting you in even more debt. Just take the money.”

I’d never really
done anything genuinely nice for someone before. I mean, minor things, of
course, but I’d never given to charity or volunteered or gone out of my way to
do something. This took limited effort and it made me feel incredibly good
about myself.

I was consumed in
a hug. “I’ll never be able to repay you for this.”

“I don’t want you
to, and I don’t want you to tell Luke, if he starts acting all soppy then I’ll
be really sad. I just want things to stay the same, but for him to not have so
much of a burden, you know?”

“Thank you,” it
was a teary hug that went on almost uncomfortably long. I really didn’t want to
end up sobbing myself. “And I’m sorry about your parents. I know it’s hard
right now, but you can always talk to me.”

Giving someone
money was a way to buy instant friendship, I supposed. I wasn’t even entirely
sure what I was doing here, doing this.

Phoebe would
probably hate me if she ever found out I not only knew about this, but was
actively trying to help and hiding it from her.

Luke came back
into our hug and fixed me with an uncertain look. I just shrugged. “I told her
about my parents.”

“Ah,” and then the
conversation turned to the stupid things that had been happening in the news
recently. It was easy and light conversation that I missed having with my own
parents. Even though they’d been technically separated for months, they’d
always been civil and that was all I’d cared about.

I munched on my
food contently, finally not having to worry that my stomach would make an
embarrassing noise. I really wanted to avoid feeding Luke ammunition.

When it was time
to leave, I hovered in his hallway and could barely bring myself to look
outside into the darkness.

There was no way I
could drive home tonight, both Luke and I knew that.

“You should sleep
on my sofa and then drive home in the morning. We’ll drive to school together.”

“Thank you,” I
kicked off the one shoe I’d managed to put on. “I really just didn’t want to
drive tonight.”

He smirked, “yeah,
I really wouldn’t have fancied it myself. And I probably wouldn’t have forgiven
myself if this creepy stalker man tried to nab you. This is probably the best
solution.”

I ignored the
slight fluttering in my stomach. The same would apply to anyone. “Yeah, I think
so too,” I decided to just avoid any kind of emotional response to his last
sentence. Maybe I was coming up to my period if I was this sappy.

“Well, I guess we
can watch a film or something,” he checked his watch, “my mum will be heading
to bed in a few minutes. She has to start work at five in the morning.”

He explained what
was happening to his mum and she gave me an odd sort of smile, just warning us
to keep the noise down.

“Let’s go get
pyjamas and a duvet whilst my mum’s still up and then we can come pick a film,”
Luke suggested, following his mum up the stairs. “I don’t think either of our
pyjamas will fit you, I’ll see if I’ve got an older, smaller pair or
something.”

I disappeared into
the bathroom with the threadbare pyjamas he handed me. “I would offer you some
boxers, but that might be a bit too weird,” he smirked as I shut the door.

They were too big
for me and I looked completely ridiculous. The shirt came down to my knees and
I had to pull the string incredibly tight to keep the gingham bottoms up around
my waist. I was definitely going to trip over the excessively long trouser
legs. After washing my face and noting how pale and ill I looked without my
make-up, I made my way downstairs.

Luke had already
draped a quilt and a pillow over the sofa and was crouched down by the DVD
cabinet. “Kick Ass okay? I’ve had a bit of a craving to watch it for the past
few days. I’ve got popcorn in the microwave.”

Cuddling down
under the covers and snatching the pillow for myself, I agreed that was cool. I
loved that film and popcorn was always welcome.

When the opening
began, I really tried to concentrate, but I had to ask the question. “Which one
of us do you think that weirdo is after?”

Luke sighed,
huddled up under the covers on his own side of the sofa and looking like this
was the last thing he wanted to talk about. “I really don’t know,” knowing
would have probably been worse, really. At least this way we were completely in
it together. “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that would piss someone off
so much they’d ever stalk me.”

“I guess I’m a
girl. Girls have to put up with creepy stalking stuff sometimes, right? Then
again, I’m sure guys do, too. I don’t think I’ve ever pissed anyone off. I tend
to stay out of people’s ways most of the time. I mean, I don’t like Phoebe’s friends
that much, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never shown that to anyone.”

“I really don’t
think we’ll know until he wants us to.” I supposed we’d mentally agreed this
was a man. His silhouette had definitely looked manly. “And I don’t want to
know what will happen then. We need to figure something out, really, instead of
hoping he just pisses off one day and gets bored.”

I gripped the
covers and lost my appetite for the popcorn that was sitting between us. “I’ll
google the police thing tomorrow and see what it says. There must be something
they can do.”

“I hope so,
because we’ll never get near him. Maybe we can do a search on his number plate
and see what that brings up. It might be online somewhere who it’s registered
to.”

“That could work,”
my hopes weren’t exactly soaring, but talking about it with Luke when he
managed to remain calm definitely had me feeling better about everything. I
would have sent myself mad if I was by myself. Staying over had been best for
me, even if it was a bit of a nuisance for Luke. “I’ll try and stop thinking
about it now, I promise.”