Exams were over and done, another school year hard earned.  Tonight was the last feast, tomorrow they would leave for London and much of the afternoon been spent passing yearlies back and forth.  Some of his closest friends were graduating this year and it left a bittersweet tang in the air.  His book was filling up with promises of the Summer and beyond, but there was one signature he still needed.  A one Liviana Wiedman.

Liviana Wiedman couldn't decide on a place in his life.  If he stopped to think about it, there'd been an almost evolution over the past term.  At the start of the year, she'd been just Dominik Wiedman's sister. For a couple months, she'd been upgraded in a way, to Gracie's friend.  From there she'd became a girl in his class and he began to notice things.  For a brief moment she'd been a tutor of sorts.  Twice he'd known her as one of the Mean Girls in Slytherin, but here lately, she'd been transformed into something else entirely. 

Luc really just wished she'd pick something and stick with it.  Even if he never ended up bored when she was involved, it would serve to lessen his confusion.  Were they mates?  Were they even allowed to be mates?  Did he even want to be her mate?  It was questions like this that plagued him as of late.  Well, when he wasn't worried about O.W.L.s or Sophie, or life in general as it were. At this exact moment, he couldn't think about much else as he scanned the crowd for the pretty brunette.

If she wasn't with her posse, the group of girls otherwise known as the Monarchy, there was only one place to find her.  The last time he'd followed Livi out here, she and his ex girlfriend left him a bit on the flabbergasted side.  Luc, for his part, did not really intend to be left tongue tied again.  What he planned to say after his initial excuse to talk to her, well... he hadn't really gotten that far.  One step at a time, right?

"Hey you," he smiled some, finding her outside.  "Sign mine, I'll sign yours?"

Liv didn't hide from people, not as a rule anyway. She found it cowardly at best, and really who did she care enough about to dodge anyway? In the last week it had most certainly been the blue eyed boy her best friend formerly called boyfriend. She knew she and Gracie were ok, but she also knew that the other girl hadn't really bought the line Liv threw out about why she had been spending time with the enemy. It was strange to think of him in that term; "the enemy".

As serious as he and Gracie had gotten, as bad as it had been when it ended...there was no reason for Liviana to be talking to him. She certainly shouldn't have his hoodie tucked away in her trunk. She shouldn't have been sad they stopped studying together. She shouldn't have been looking for him without looking for him at every meal and then after when she'd sneak a smoke. Every hand on her shoulder should not have brought a wave of disappointment when the face that greeted her did not belong to Lucas Norwood.

But it did. Short though their interlude had been she found herself missing him. The thought of an entire summer without seeing or talking to him made her...much sadder than it should have. The fact it mattered to her at all made her a little sick of herself. Liv didn't take other girl's boyfriends. She didn't need someone else's cast offs. Of course this last week had almost seemed like a reprieve, she had been so consumed with tests she didn't have time to think about Luc much at all. It was nice not to agonize over him.

Of course that all went up in a puff of smoke when she heard his voice. Unlike the last time he'd snuck up on on her in the courtyard she wasn't puffing away on a cigarette ignoring the rain. In fact the Scottish weather had lifted and the sun highlighted the flecks of auburn in her dark hair. She killed the smile at her lips but there was no hiding the happy glimmer to her brown eyes as she took his yearbook, "Mind your signature. I already had to threaten Huxley to keep him from just drawing a giant knob. Idiot," her tone mildly amused as she took his yearlie.

"I promise, no knobs," he chuckled, taking hers in exchange. "A pair of tits is much better, yeah?"

All joking aside, Luc couldn't deny this wasn't the easiest thing in the world.  They'd not done much talking in the past couple of weeks and much to his disappointment, the weirdness hanging between them hadn't dissipated for it.  There was only so much jerking around he was willing to go through for a girl, even the great ones could wear him out after a while. Being attracted to Livi hadn't done him any favors so far and Luc didn't see his odds improving any time soon.   With Summer on the rise, it was kind of now or never, really.  Come tomorrow they wouldn't be seeing each other till Fall and who knew what could happen over the next couple of months. 

Maybe that's why wrote what he did.  He'd meant to write a quick, see you in the fall like he had with most everyone he wasn't especially close with, but that wasn't what came out.  Despite himself, teasing inside jokes snuck their way into his note and suddenly he could think up several reasons to see her.  If he could just buy himself some more time, maybe he could make sense of it all.  The fact of the matter, confusing or not, he did want to see her.

"Here," he handed back her book, "Knob free as promised."

"Only if they're as fabulous as mine," Liv had to bite her lip to keep from forming a cheeky grin as her delicate script filled a rather large section of the last page. She didn't mean to snoop but she couldn't help but notice the garish red signature of Flickwick and try to out-cute her. It was difficult of course because other people would be seeing her signature obviously and... things were just complicated in general between them. She didn't want to say too much or give some underlying message away with girlish wording. It would be much easier if she could openly flirt and/or mock him. In the end she did a little of both. She also poked fun at her recently reaffirmed title of pretty pretty Princess.

When he handed back the emerald bound book she glanced quickly at the blue ink and chewed the inner corner of her mouth for a second, sort of bouncing on her toes as she cradled the yearlie to her chest, "Only five excuses? I thought Claws were supposed to be the clever ones, what have you been wasting your time on"? In the back of her mind she was groaning at her own open flirtation. She had no business doing that. Then again he had no business looking at her with those big blue eyes and twisting her stomach up in knots. She hadn't ever noticed him much before their little-big row in the library. He was just a boy that Gracie liked; usually when a friend became interested in a boy they ceased to exist in the realm of boy-dom for Liv.

Indeed for most of the past year Lucas had not been a "proper" boy to her. He was damaged goods, and she didn't take anyone's left overs. She didn't know what it had been that had made her offer to help him in History, what had then pushed her to try and make him understand and ultimately fail at understanding what living in Slytherin when your name came with expectations was like. She didn't know why she had made up with him or why she was flirting with him now. It all felt very out of character for the person she considered herself to be. She might have been a bitch but she was a bitch with morals; with a distinct sense of boundaries...and now she was ignoring them, "I believe your assignment was at least ten. You really should get on that Narwhal".

"Actually, it was fifty," he grinned, remembering the note exchange during History of Magic class.  "What, are you going to give me detention then?" 

Seriously?  Where had that come from?  It not been so long since he'd had a girlfriend (Gracie to be exact) that he had any business making such comments.  Livi tended to bring that out in him, she'd say something and inevitable Luc couldn't just walk away from a perfect opportunity to bounce it back to her.  It created a great bantering air in the library... right up till Luc dropped the ball.  It bounced around smashing whatever air might or might not have been building and playful quips turned to dark jabs.  Needless to say, that might very well have been the end of everything. It turned out in the end, Luc caught the ball again and they'd been carefully playing with it ever since.  Things were still shaky, but given the circumstances, better then he could have expected.   

Blue eyes dropped from her face to scan his yearly, chuckling slightly as he went.  Princess indeed.  At the same time she warned him about not helping him next year, she implied they'd be seeing each other.   "I am going to miss you," it was out of his mouth before he even realized it.  "I mean," he looked at her again, snapping the book closed.  "It's more I," right... now words wanted to escape him.  "Fuck," he sputtered some, slightly frustrated with himself.  Shaking his head slightly, he moved closer cupping her face with his hands.  Without further hesitation, or idiotic sputtering for that matter, he pressed her lips to hers.

"I didn't know if you'd really be capable of fift-" and then he caught her completely off guard. He'd miss her? How could he miss her? They weren't friends, not really. They had no business together and no business pretending otherwise. She looked at him, lip caught awkwardly between her teeth as she tried to think of something to say. What could she say? It didn't matter that she knew exactly what he meant or that she had had the same feeling. It didn't matter that her heart hammered against her chest and her cheeks wanted to flush crimson. No, what mattered was the fact that not so very long ago he had belonged to her best friend. He had kissed her best friend; he had been jealous and demanding. He was a dreadful boyfriend - but why would that even matter to Livi unless her brain was skipping steps to a place she wasn't sure she wanted to even be.

And then he made everything worse because he kissed her. He kissed her and there was a spark. She had always believed that to be some romantic fantasy; no one really saw fireworks. His fingers felt warm against her cheek and for once she wasn't thinking about whether or not she was wearing the right lipgloss or how she should tilt her head. She wasn't hoping someone saw or thinking about how he'd be a proper bragging right to the other girls. Luc was not a trophy and the kiss was not a prize. It was a moment, a real live moment and it felt like it was trying to shake something inside of her loose. Naturally her hand came to rest over his, fingers curling a little as she leaned in closer. Obviously his mouth short-circuited her brain for a moment, as her fingers gently moved his, laced together.

As their palms made contact her brown eyes flew open and she pulled back - suddenly acutely aware not only of what she was doing but that she was doing such a thing in broad daylight where anyone might happen upon them. "You! No! You can't do- not with me," she was sputtering as she hit him with her yearlie, eyes frantically glancing around the courtyard. She couldn't see anyone but that didn't mean that they hadn't been seen. She would have to do damage control as soon as possible. All the while her mind racing she kept thumping him with the hard emerald hued book. "Why would you? You DATED MY BEST FRIEND! Do I look like the sort of girl who just goes around kissing other people's boyfriends? I do not need Gracie's castoffs. I cannot...WHY would you do that"?! Two little distress lines formed in her forehead as she bit her bottom lip, upset enough to cry but trying desperately not to.

Lucas had kissed a few girls in his time, and if Sophie could be considered an accurate judge, he was pretty good at it.  Kissing was fun, it didn't always need to mean something, and most of the time, it didn't.  Did he date every girl he kissed?  Of course not.  Sometimes, a kiss was just a kiss.  Sometimes, wanting to kiss someone so much beat out the actual kiss in question.  Sometimes it just needed to happen to get it out of the system so he could move on with his life.  This... this was not just a kiss. 

Livi responded, her lips moving against his, her body coming a bit closer.  One hand moved to her neck, while the tangled with hers.  Nervous energy hummed through his body, twisting the knot he'd been working on in the pit of his stomach.  The now or never, the finality, the hype... all of it worth every second he got out of it.  All at once it ended.  Not naturally, but abruptly and hastily and much, much too soon, in his opinion.  Livi jerked away, yanking him violently back to reality as she went.  No, wait, that was her smacking him her yearlie.

"Ow! Stop! What is your problem?!"  Not two seconds ago, she'd been into it and now he was the bad guy?  He wasn't allowed to do that?  Do what?  Kiss her? What kind of reasoning was that?  Why not have pushed him away to begin with, why kiss him back and then make a big deal out of it?  How did that make sense?  What was with girls?  No, not just girls, what was with Livi?  The girl been burning hot and cold for weeks now, mixed signals to the max.  Lucas grabbed the book before she could raise it up to smack him again.  There was only so much patience he had for getting hit with books.  "No more."

There wasn't anything he could do to stop the oncoming tirade.  It spilled out of her lips, loud and harsh, just as bad as the book been.  Or maybe it was that face she was making, scrunching just a bit in all too familiar way.  The pathway to tears started with that look and he wasn't entirely sure how to deal with that. Livi didn't need, or want Gracie's cast offs.  It always traveled back to Gracie. She kept asking why.  Why would he kiss her?  Why would he think it be okay? 

"Because I wanted to, that's why," he finally blurted out.  "What do you want me to say?  I'm sorry? I'm not sorry, Livi.  I like you and I thought you liked me too."  He shook his head some, she had valid arguments, the past was the past and it wasn't going away.  It didn't negate how he felt about Livi.  The girl drove him a bit mad, but that also was part of the appeal.  Despite the headaches, she kept him interested.  "Yeah, I dated Gracie.  Yeah, I get you two are best mates, but you know what?  I still like you and that has shite to do with Gracie."

Liv fumbled as he took the book away, just snatched it out of her hand. If she had been thinking rationally she would understand but instead she found herself flailing after it trying to grab it back though his height and the length of his arm put it out of her reach. He was telling her no more but she wanted to keep hitting him because she couldn't slap the shit out of herself. She just couldn't win. All this time she had spent telling Gracie it was nothing, telling her it was just exams and stress about family. She had been lying - but even more than Gracie she had been lying to herself. Lucas mattered; what he thought mattered, what he felt mattered, the way his eyes crinkled just a little when he laughed - it all mattered so much that it made her betray the only person who had ever been completely loyal to her.

Knotting her fingers in her hair she half turned away from him, "Salazar's knickers; for someone who is a fecking genius you are completely draft; and you'll never bloody get it"! She couldn't hide the desperate exasperation in her voice, she couldn't keep her throat from closing up, "Why don't you understand Lucas? It has everything to do with Gracie," looking at him helplessly she just shook her dark head, finger and thumb pinching the bridge of her nose. "You were awful to her - it was never enough for you, no matter what she did. It didn't matter that she let you closer than anyone, it didn't matter that you got the title you still hurt her". She was trying to collect herself but found secrets spilling past painted lips as though someone had popped a bottle of champagne.

"I had to pick up those pieces, I had to watch her wall up again - you did that to her," Liv's voice wasn't angry or accusing - she sounded helpless, confused even. "And now? Now we flirt in class and we fight and I see where it could go and I can't do that to my best friend," she was pacing now and felt like hyperventilating. This was why she kept everyone but her siblings at bay, this was why she trusted only the people who had pulled her cowering from whatever cubby space she'd find when her father visited so he couldn't take her away. For all their posturing the only person who understood Livi was Gracie and she could lose it all. "She's not just my mate Luc; she's like my sister. Whether I like you makes no difference because I love her," Liv hadn't ever said as much to Gracie - but Luc had a history of making her say things she never would otherwise.

Luc held the book out of reach until Livi stopped reaching for it.  At that point though, she'd tipped over into some other brand of ridiculous, somewhere Luc didn't know how to navigate.  No, Luc didn't get it.  Not right away anyway.  Right now his mind was still preoccupied and maybe a bit annoyed.  Girls and their minefields, no matter where you took the conversation, it was always going to blow up in your face.  No answer was the right answer and gray issues were a whole lot messier then keeping things black and white.    This could just be about Livi and Luc and they could figure out the rest of it later.  Livi, however, wanted to make this entirely about Gracie.  Why did girls do that, he wondered.  Why did they pick at a thread until the whole jumper unraveled around them? 

Nobody liked to hear awful things about themselves, especially awful things they knew about themselves.  The dark bits were just that, meant to exist, but not discussed.  Defensive armor piled up in him, ready to lash out if she took real proverbial swing at him.  Everyone had flaws, Luc's just happened to turn him into a possessive asshole.  It was like a switch in him, one minute perfectly rational and the next... he went somewhere else.   Other boys became the enemies, a friendly smile had to be flirting, and how could Gracie pay them more attention then she did her own boyfriend?  A lot of it been built up in his own head.  Luc wasn't proud of how he'd acted, but Gracie wasn't exactly innocent in the whole thing either.  They'd been perfectly wretched to each other and anyone who said otherwise was blind or lying to themselves.

"Gracie's not the only one who got hurt."  If Luc had to guess, Livi was doing much of the latter.  She cared about Gracie, loved her even and that trumped whatever she might be feeling for Luc.  Luc respected that, but he also wanted it to not matter.  There two sides to every story, but Livi didn't seem all that inclined to listen to his.  He didn't want Livi to think of him in his darkest light, but he didn't know how to make her see otherwise.  It was the first time he wished Livi was as selfish as her reputation made her out to be, if only because he was feeling incredibly selfish at the moment.  But, she wasn't and neither was he, and if nothing else, they had loyalty in common.   He held out the book for her to take, "Have a good Summer, Wiedman."

"Maybe not; but I didn't have to piece you back together," her voice was small as she looked at the ground. She wasn't an idiot she knew that Gracie flirted and that the more you told her not to do something the more she should do that very thing. She was well aware of her best friend's flaws - but she also inherently understood the why of it all. Luc was so busy being jealous he didn't see all the things Gracie had given him - how hard she had tried despite the fact it was hard for her to be with one person; to trust one person. That was the trouble with being on the outside; you did see it all - but you also had a vested interest in the side closest to your heart.

She didn't want to hate him; she didn't think she could (she never really had)...but she didn't want to feel this way about him either. She didn't want to want to kiss him, she didn't want the pained look on his face to tug on the heartstrings she wasn't supposed to have. If Livi were the ice queen everyone thought she was it'd be easier to look at him and just walk away - or kiss him again and not care that it would hurt Grace. She wasn't though, she never would be. Despite all the posturing and her ability to feign disinterest in the human species Liv loved hard. It was the chink in her armor, once you mattered she couldn't make herself believe you didn't again - no matter how much she might want to.

Taking the book back from him she slowly raised her eyes and gave a helpless shrug, "You too Lucas...See you," she was going to smile but couldn't muster it. Instead she turned away and headed toward the nearest entrance to the school. That was it, maybe now it was done. She'd have to tell Gracie of course...because they didn't lie to one another; but maybe she didn't have to tell her today. Maybe it could wait until there wasn't that heavy crushing pain in her chest. Maybe they could get through the feast and the train ride home and then everything would be ok. Maybe she wouldn't have to miss him... or at least maybe she wouldn't have to admit it to anyone but herself.