👉👌Luke's POV👌👈

"But she's so pretty!" Hunter argued.

"She's also over forty!" Sean countered.

My friends and I were currently at my house to study, hang out, and watch a movie. We were currently at the movie portion because we decided to mix hanging out with the movie since Audrey and Layla were anxious to watch Mother's Day and the rest of us were in no mood to argue.

Until Hunter complimented Julia Roberts saying that she looked amazing in a red Bob and I jokingly said.

"You sound like you would want to go out with her."

And when he nodded and said "yeah" all hell broke loose.

"So you're telling me that you don't think that she's at least a little bit attractive?" He asked.

"Of course she's attractive-" Layla started.

"Thank you! My case is closed-" He stated, prepared to bow until Layla interrupted him.

"Buuut..." She continued. "If you were to date her, wouldn't the age gap bother you?"

"Nope." He answered immediately.

"So you're saying that if a woman, who was obviously over forty, came up to you on the street and asked you out, you would say yes," I ‘asked’.

"Well I don't usually meet my girlfriends on the street," He joked.

"Just answer the damn question," Aubrey said, surprising all of us since she sounded frustrated with him.

"Well yeah," He said. "If I liked the way she looked."

We were all quiet -satisfied- then, playing the movie until Sean said.

"She's actually fifty."

"What?" Aubrey asked, mirroring the rest of our looks of confusion.

"She is actually 49, turning fifty this year," He said, clearing up the confusion.

I grinned.

"You have great taste Hunter."

He rolled his eyes.

"She's still hot you know," He said.

"I know."

We all continued to watch the movie as Kate Hudson's character found herself with her racist parents in her house while her Indian partner played with their son outside.

Definitely a mess.

I looked over at Layla, watching as she stayed completely focused on the movie.

Layla and I didn't talk,

As far as I know she's still avoiding me.

But our friends are not interfering and she is basically acting like I don't exist.

Though it makes things a little more tense, there is nothing I can do. She's avoiding me and I am determined not to apologize when I now know it's not my fault. And now we're stuck with the awkward situation between us that basically can't be solved on my part.

So I'm just relaxing, trying to make the most of the time I am spending with my friends. Even if I'm not even talking to one of them.

"Wait, she didn't tell him the truth?" Aubrey asked as she watched one of the characters blow up on the screen. "Oh now that's bad."

I would explain more about what was happening on the screen but I think I spoiled enough of the movie already.

Let's just say that the drama is juicy and we're all into it.

"Oh, she better grovel if she wants him back now," I found myself saying.

I couldn't help myself at this point.

Everyone looked at me but I could care less.

I had a marriage to save.

—————

"I totally should've gotten his number," Layla sighed.

We all started laughing and she looked at us as if she was confused.

We finished watching the movie and planned on playing cards but soon found ourselves just sitting on the floor talking.

No real topic, just talking about whatever came to mind. And somehow we never felt the need to bring up the cards again.

"What?" She asked.

"You realize that you still had a boyfriend at that time right?" Aubrey asked.

"Well duh," Layla replied. "It would be a just in case number. Plus that guy wasn't even that serious and we broke up like a week later."

"He bought you a promise ring," Hunter said.

"It was twenty bucks," She deadpanned. "If he wanted me to be serious he should've thought harder before he went to Walmart."

She just sipped her drink while we all started laughing again.

Layla is a nice girl but she's a little...."only give me presents that are fifty dollars and over" in her way of thinking.

She was all gushes and "that's so sweets" when you took her out to late night picnics at the park where all you ate was cheap pizza and homemade cake. But the moment you tried to get her to enter a thrift store for "a cool present" she would take her ass back home so quick there would be a trail of fire behind her.

So the fact that she was telling us this is not surprising.

"So you have one with Rick too?" Sean asked.

Layla tensed but smiled, trying not to show how the conversations made her feel.

"I did," She said. "For the first two weeks. Then I realized that I really wanted him, so I deleted all my ’just in cases.’"

"Aww," Aubrey smiled. "That's so sweet."

Hunter, Sean and I smiled as Aubrey squeezed Layla and squealed but only I saw how fake her smile was.

And I understood her too well at that moment and frowned, not noticing that I was doing so I only realized my mistake when Sean was speaking.

"Luke, what's up?" He asked.

I looked up to see everyone looking at me,

Including Layla.

Though everyone else looked as if they were waiting for me to answer she looked like she was asking,

Telling me to keep quiet.

But I couldn't look at Layla that long without anyone noticing and soon Aubrey was also looking at the girl she was holding only moments ago.

She looked back at me and I knew that this wasn't going to be ignored.

"Luke, Layla, what's been going on between you two?" She asked, ignoring how Layla seemed to creep away from her. "You guys always seem to avoid looking at each other and when you do it's only when the other isn't looking, not to mention the fact that you don't even talk directly to each other anymore. You practically act like the other person doesn't exist!"

She was losing her temper and though we all knew that it wasn't a good thing, none of us made an attempt to calm her down.

"Sean, Hunter, and I talked about this and I said that we shouldn't interfere but you guys have been like this for weeks! You need to solve this." She ordered. "Now."

"Aubrey-" I started.

"I mean it."

"We aren't-"

"Now."

"No!" I yelled. "We are not talking about this now, Aubrey. We'll talk about this when she's ready, not when one of our friends decided that talking about it in front of the whole group is a good idea."

I was glaring at Aubrey by this point and she looked completely and utterly shocked. I have never spoken to her like that. Hell, I barely even say no when it comes to her but now I was completely contradicting her even when she started to lose it.

I was basically telling them that this was serious.

No wonder she thought that the rest of them needed to be here.

I sat back down, finally composing myself enough so that I didn't look like smoke was coming out of my ears.

We were all silent, obviously not wanting to address the huge elephant in the room.

"So," Hunter started, clearing his throat when it came out husky. "Anyone want to play president?"

"Yeah, let's play president." Sean agreed, failing miserably as he tried to act normal.

"Do you want to play?" Hunter asked us.

"Sure," I replied.

"I'll play," Aubrey said.

"Why not," Layla added.

We all got down to business, playing as if nothing was wrong even though we knew the opposite was true.

But it was fine,

Layla and I could deal with our friendship later.

—————

I got off the bus, practically running as I made my way to the school.

I walked through the parking lot and was about halfway through when someone was grabbing my arm pulling me back.

"HEL-" I managed to get out before they were covering my mouth, squeezing my lips together so I couldn't speak.

I know that move.

I quickly turned my head to see who was holding me and wanted to relax when I realized that it wasn't Rick.

Of course I was still panicking because some guy was now dragging me behind the school away from where Conner was supposed to meet me, but at least it wasn't Rick.

That one fact that made the whole situation just a little better was now cruelly untrue when he led me over to where Rick and some other guy I had seen around the school were standing and grinning when we came.

"Well would you look at that." Rick started. "Luke Coleman, how wonderful to see you again."