Free Falling (Best Friend 2)

His whole body seemed to relax as he closed his eyes and gulped. “Thank you,” he whispered. His eyes opened, glistening in the dim light of his bedroom as he smiled down at me. “Thank you. I promise I won’t ever do that again, not ever. You’re my life, Maisie, and I almost lost you. I won’t ever do anything to jeopardise that again. I’m so sorry.” His voice was earnest and full of emotion as he spoke.

I nodded. “I know you are.” That was the truth, I knew he was sorry, and I knew how important I was to him.

“I’ll spend my life making it up to you, I promise.” He bent and kissed my cheek, and I felt everything fall back into place, just like it was before all of this happened.

“How about you start right now?” I suggested, raising one eyebrow suggestively as I hitched my leg over his hip and pulled his body closer to mine.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth and let it out as a low groan as his mouth headed towards mine. I smiled against his lips and melted into his embrace, giving myself over entirely, body, mind and spirit.

Two hours later and we had only just dragged ourselves out of his bed. For ages I’d just laid there in his arms while we talked about random stuff, with the TV showing nothing in particular in the background. In my eyes, it couldn’t get any more perfect than that. I’d wanted to stay in that moment forever, never moving forward or back, just frozen in time with him. Unfortunately, being an eating machine, his body had something else to say about my staying in bed forever plan.

“There’s nothing much in here,” I muttered, frowning into his half empty fridge. I picked up the remaining two eggs and the packet of suspicious looking ham. “I guess we could make a ham omelette?” I offered, turning my nose up at the prospect. The ham looked like it had been open for a while, the edges curling in a stomach wrenching way.

His arms wrapped around me, his bare chest pressing against my back as he pulled me away from the fridge gently. “I have a great idea,” he said into my ear before kissing the back of my neck softly and playing with the edge of his T-shirt that I was wearing.

I tipped my head to the side, smiling now. “I thought you were hungry,” I teased.

He chuckled, taking the eggs and ham out of my hands and placing them onto the counter top. “I am hungry. Which is why I was going to suggest that we get dressed and take a drive over to that little café that you like, the one that makes those muffins with the cranberries?”

I gasped, my eyes widening with excitement as I turned in his arms and grinned up at him. “Yeah?” I chirped. “I love that idea!” The café he was talking about was a quaint little old fashioned tea room that we had found once when we were camping. It was about an hour drive from here, but the muffins and pastries were to die for. Luke and I had made a point at stopping there whenever we went that way to camp.

He grinned, tracing my lips with his index finger. “I thought you might. Come on then, let’s get dressed and go. It’ll be like a date.”

I grinned ecstatically. If he was going to be making this much of an effort to make it up to me then I was a seriously lucky girl. “Race ya,” I joked, shoving myself out of his arms and dashing for the stairs. He chuckled darkly, and I heard his heavy footsteps behind me. He caught up with me before I even made it half way up the stairs. I gasped as he swept my legs out from under me, pulling me into his arms and crashing his lips down to mine. I giggled against his lips, wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him back instantly. Of course I’d known that the running away from him action would bring out his playful side, so no doubt the trip to the café would be put on hold, at least for a while anyway.

The café was just as lovely and romantic as I remembered. We had been the only ones in there, sitting in the corner, feeding each other iced pastries and muffins while the early afternoon sunshine shone in through the window. The lady even recognised us and gave us a free refill on our coffees. It had been perfect; every single second of the day with him had been spectacular, and I didn’t want it to end. I didn’t want to have to share him with other people again when we went back to school.

“I can’t wait to go to college,” I mused as he threw money down on the table to cover our meal.

He looked up at me and grinned. “Me either, it’s going to be great. Just me and you, away from everyone and everything that’s happened here. It’ll be like a fresh start for both of us,” he replied, holding out his hand to me.

I placed my hand in his, letting him help me out of the booth. I smiled at his words. That was exactly what I felt too. With us going away to college together and moving to another town hours away, there would be nothing there to remind either of us of the bad things that had occurred recently. “Sounds great.” His arm slipped around my shoulder as he guided me out of the little café, both of us waving to the owner on the way out. I climbed in his Jeep, watching as he walked around to the driver’s side. The little smile on his face made my heart melt.

As he got in and started the engine I suddenly realised I didn’t actually want to go home. I liked being out here with him, with no one to bother us, and no need to worry about some psycho that wanted to hurt me. A sigh of disappointment left my lips as I scooted down into the seat, trying not to let my feelings show on my face. I didn’t want to ruin this happy day, but I couldn’t get my mind off of the fact that everything would be different once we got home.

“What’s up, baby?” Luke asked as he backed the car out and headed in the direction of home.

I shrugged, not really knowing how to explain that I was just fed up with feeling frightened all the time; that I was fed up with looking over my shoulder and not knowing what was going to happen next. “I just don’t really want to go home. You know, the police thing and stuff,” I explained. “I just wish it was me and you all the time and that all that other stuff would just disappear.”

“Hmm,” he mused, nodding in agreement. “Why don’t we just go away for a bit? Just pack up and leave together for a while or something?” he suggested casually, as if that was just something that could happen.

I laughed at the hopefulness in his voice. “Luke, we can’t.” I shook my head at how silly he was being. Maybe he’s had too much sugar from all those muffins!

“Why not? I’m being serious. Let’s just pack up and leave, screw everything else, just me and you together.” He glanced over at me, keeping one eye on the road as he continued, “I can protect you. All this stuff will stop, the phone calls, the flowers, all of it will just go away and then it’ll just be us. We’ll travel for a while, see some sights, and do some of the things you’ve always wanted to do. It’ll be perfect.”

It sounded so nice, and I unconsciously started playing that out in my head. Us waking up together every day, falling asleep in his arms, no pressure, no more being frightened. Everything sounded so great, but I knew that was impossible, at least for the next few weeks it was impossible anyway. “We have our finals, we can’t just up and leave,” I protested. A frown lined his forehead as he looked back to the road and sighed deeply. I chewed on my lip and reached out, taking his hand and pulling it onto my lap as I stroked his knuckles with my thumb. “Luke, it sounds great, and if we didn’t have finals then I’d be saying heck yeah let’s go right now, but we have responsibilities, we have to graduate in order to get our places in college. We can’t let something like this ruin everything we’ve worked so hard for,” I persuaded.

His grip tightened on my hand as he nodded dejectedly. “Yeah I guess.”

“There’s just three more weeks left of school now, let’s just get those out of the way and then we’ll think about it, alright?” I bargained, wanting to take the sad expression from his face. We hadn’t made any plans for the summer, and travelling for a month or so would certainly be fun.

He sighed and nodded, bringing my hand up to his mouth, planting a soft kiss against my palm. “Okay.”

I smiled and settled down into my seat, watching the road stretch out ahead of us. Everything seemed chilled and relaxed when I was with Luke; nothing seemed to faze me because I knew that whatever happened he would look after me, just like he always promised he would. I looked over at him from the corner of my eye, feeling a little smile tug at the corners of my mouth. I couldn’t wait for those three weeks to be over with so that we could live out his plans. He was right, it would be perfect and I couldn’t wait. He caught me looking and smiled over at me. His brown eyes were soft and tender as they caught mine. “I love you, Maisie.”

My heart stuttered as I nodded in confirmation, I didn’t need him to say the words, I already knew it, I always had done. “I love you too.” He grinned that dazzling smile and turned back to the road, turning up the radio a little more so the soft tones of The Script filled the car.

After a while I remembered that I needed to charge my cell phone. “You have your phone charger in the car?” I asked, digging my cell out of my purse.

He nodded, reaching out and pulling his in-car charger from the dashboard, plugging it in for me and holding out the end. I smiled gratefully and plugged it in, waiting a few seconds before attempting to turn it on and then fitting it into the little drinks holder in his car. A couple of minutes later my cell beeped. I picked it up, looking down at the screen to see that I had a new text message from Charlotte that had been received when my phone was off. I smiled and opened it, still singing along to the music. The words died on my lips as I read the message.

‘I know you said not to, but... I just got the phone number from the cell phone company database. Here it is. Seriously, let one of the boys call it and frighten the crap out of the guy!’

Then there was a cell phone number after it. I gulped, reading the message again with wide eyes. Seeing it there, glowing in the fading daylight, made everything come to a head. It seemed to make everything more real somehow. Now that I had the number I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I shouldn’t do anything with it; the police had the number but couldn’t trace it because it was a pay as you go with no contract or fixed address. I shouldn’t get involved. Just like I told Charlotte in the first place, I should just let the police do their jobs and wait for them to contact me again so that they could trace the call like they wanted to.

But seeing it there was just too tempting. Maybe I could call it. Maybe the guy would answer and then… what? What would I do then? I frowned down at it, confused and a little afraid of it. I wanted to call the number. Curiosity was getting the better of me. I started thinking that maybe I’d recognise the voice of the person and then I could tell the police who to look into. Maybe it would be that easy and then it would be over. My mind was whirling, dreaming up and dismissing scenarios so quickly that it made my head spin.

Without thinking anymore about it, I clicked on the number, bringing it up on my screen. My thumb hovered over the green call button as I fought with myself, trying to debate if I was going to do any damage by actually calling the person. The chances are it would be switched off, like it always was when the police tried to call it. But what if they actually answered? What would I say then?

“Everything okay?” Luke asked, looking over at me with one eyebrow raised. I cleared my throat and nodded, still undecided. “Who was that from? Not that Zach guy again.” His voice was practically a growl as he said Zach’s name.

I shook my head slowly, unsure how I was going to tell him that Charlotte had illegally hacked the phone company and found the number of the guy that was calling me. I gulped, knowing he would be mad at me for getting involved. “No. Charlotte found the phone number of the person that’s been calling me. She’s just text it to me,” I mumbled, my words all mashing together as I spoke. He obviously understood though.

He straightened in his seat, his hands gripping the wheel so tightly that his knuckles went white. “She what? How? What the fuck, Maisie?” he ranted, reaching to grab my phone from my hand.

I shook my head and quickly moved it out of his reach. “I could call it. Maybe then I’ll recognise the voice and everything will be over, I can tell the police, and they can investigate and arrest them. It’ll be over,” I countered, looking at him for his opinion.

His opinion was clear across his face though, I could see it clearly enough. He was horrified, totally against the idea by the look of it. Again my finger hovered over the call button. “Don’t, Maisie, for Christ sake don’t,” he cried, reaching for the phone again.

I pushed his hand away quickly as he slammed on the brakes of the car, screeching us to a halt just as we were about to cross a bridge over the river. I was thrown forward against my seatbelt from the force of the stop, my ribs and chest instantly burning and aching from the pressure. “Damn it, Luke! What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, pulling at my seatbelt to try and get it to loosen but it was no good; the quick stopping motion had made it too tight across my chest and lap.

“Give me the phone!” he barked, holding out his hand for it.

Car horns blasted behind us where we were blocking our side of the road. “Luke, people can’t get past,” I observed, nodding my head at the traffic that was queuing up behind us pretty quickly.

He shook his hand in front of me again. “Give me the phone,” he repeated.

I gulped and pressed the call button, knowing that as soon as he took my phone off of me he would delete the number so I couldn’t call it. His eyes went wide as I put the phone to my ear, hearing the little tinkle where the phone connected to the line. Almost immediately a bell like sound came from behind me. I frowned, looking over the back of the seat to the footwell behind me. The sound seemed to be coming from there. I flicked my gaze up to Luke only to see he had his eyes closed, his head hung dejectedly as the bell sound continued in the background, muffled by the song on the radio.