In Over My Head -- Final Chapter Is Up!

So, Chapter 7 is up. One more chapter, and then it's over. Of course, then I'll post the start of the sequel.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Anna came into the house through the back door, Lucas was sitting at the kitchen table. There was glass of chocolate milk in front of him, and he was aimlessly shredding the corner of an electric bill receipt between his fingers. He looked up at Anna and smiled softly.

“Sit down.” He offered, and after a hesitation, she took the seat across from him. “I was worried you might not answer the phone when I called.”

“I almost didn’t.” she admitted. “I came over here to talk to you and you threw me out.”

He nodded. “I know how it must’ve made you feel, and I really am sorry for that, after everything that’s happened.”

She reached over and snatched the receipt from him so she could have a turn tearing it into tiny pieces. “Did David come to you, or you to him?”

“He came over this morning.” Lucas shook his head. “You two are so alike.” He told her, and she looked startled.

“Why does you saying that make me sick?” she asked him sarcastically, and he half smiled. “Are we going to talk?”

“We are talking.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Funny. Where’s David?”

“Probably asleep.” Lucas said with a shrug. As if on cue, the bedroom door opened and closed. “Or not.”

David stuck his head around the edge of the doorjamb. “Sorry to interrupt you guys, but I’m going to shrivel up and die if I don’t get a drink.” Lucas nodded at him, and he walked into the kitchen. Anna hissed through her teeth.

“Couldn’t you have put some fucking clothes on?” she snapped at him.

David looked down at himself as he walked towards the fridge. “My business isn’t flapping around in plain sight.” He pointed out. “It’s good enough.”

Anna scowled and glared at Lucas. “I really don’t know what you see in him.” She muttered.

David opened the fridge, grinning. “Yea, Lucas, what do you see in me?” he asked, rummaging around on the top shelf.

Lucas felt like getting up and kicking David in the ass. “Do you remember you bitching about constant interruptions?” he asked David’s back.

David straightened and gave him his best innocent pout. Lucas rolled his eyes. “Come on, she asked a very, very good question. One that I think deserves an answer.”

“I’m going to kill you.” Lucas told him, and David laughed and went back to digging through the fridge.

“Are you guys a couple now?” Anna asked, and David froze. Lucas said absolutely nothing, but a smile spread across his face. Very slowly, David stood up again, and the look on his face reminded Lucas of a man who’s just had the death sentence passed down onto him for a crime he didn’t commit. He laughed, unable to help himself.

“Well, that is a very, very good question.” Lucas mimicked, and ignored David’s murderous glare. “One that I think deserves an answer.” He tilted his head at David, grinning. “David? What are we?”

David shrugged, trying to mask his very obvious discomfort by acting nonchalant. “You’re mine.” He said simply. Lucas shook his head and gestured for him to elaborate, and David rolled his eyes and slammed the fridge door. “What, you want me to say it out loud? Fine. You’re my boyfriend, we’re going steady, no touchy feely with anyone else, flowers and dates and-.”

“Okay, okay.” Lucas laughed under his breath. “I got your point.”

David scowled. “Now I feel like an ass. I hate that word. Boyfriend,” He shuddered. “It’s so… gay.”

Anna squawked out a startled laugh and clapped her hand over her mouth. Lucas looked at her, and she was beet red. “I’m sorry.” She mumbled through her fingers, and then burst out laughing again.

“I do agree with him.” Lucas told her, and she shook her head at him.

“You two are fucking nuts. You mean to tell me that you’re perfectly okay doing dirty sex things to each other, but the boyfriend is gay to you?” They both nodded. “Nuts.”

Lucas smiled at her. “I’m sorry he keeps interrupting.” He reached across the table and took her hand, lacing their fingers together. “I’m really glad you wanted to talk.”

“Lucas, didn’t I just say no touchy feely with anyone else?”

“Go back in the bedroom, or when Anna and I are done talking, I won’t do as I said I would.” Lucas told him flatly.

David rolled his eyes and stalked towards the room. “Fine, but I’ll do what I said I would.” He shot over his shoulder as she disappeared from sight.

Anna sighed and waited until the bedroom door slammed shut. “Are you happy, Lucas?” she asked him softly, studying his face. “Is David what makes you happy?”

Lucas thought about what he was going to say for a long time before he spoke. “Yes, David is what makes me happy. But he’d not the only person I need in my life. You’ve been my only friend for so long, and I don’t want to lose you.” She turned her head away, looking miserable, and he sighed. “Anna, I really didn’t know how you felt about me. If I did, we would’ve had a serious talk about my sexuality a long time ago. I never wanted to hurt you with this.”

“I know that.” She reached the hand Lucas wasn’t holding up to swipe at eyes. “After I left here, I was so mad at you, but… I’ve thought a lot about how things have been between us, and looking at it, looking at the way I am, it disgusts me. It really does. The way I treat you, it’s just... disgusting.” She looked at him again and tried to smile. “Everything has just been so out of control lately, especially me. I feel like the biggest bitch.”

Lucas squeezed her hand gently. “You are a bitch, Anna. But I like that about you… when I’m not the catching end of it.”

She laughed and burst into tears at the same time. Disentangled her fingers from his, she put her face in her hands and let out a strangled, sobbing cackle. “I’m sorry.” Her words were muffled by the palms of her hands. “I’m so sorry.”

Lucas stood up and moved around the table. He knelt down beside her chair and hugged her. She put her arms around his neck, shaking. With laughter or tears, he couldn’t quite tell. “You’re such a drama queen.” He whispered to her, smiling, and she laughed out loud and pulled his ponytail gently.

“I think you kind of qualify as I queen more than I do right now.” She quipped, and Lucas pulled away, mock scowling at her.

“I’ll have you know that I was on top, thank you very fucking much.”

She clapped her hands over her ears and shuddered. “No more information, please.”

He smiled. “Okay.” He stood up. “So we’re friends again?”

She nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

Lucas sat back down, this time beside her instead of across from her. “There’s something else, though. And David needs to be here for it.” She sighed and nodded. “DAVID!” he shouted, making Anna wince at the volume. “COME OUT HERE!”

The bedroom door slammed. “I’m not at your fucking beck and call, you pompous bastard!” David stomped down the hall. “I’ll have you know I was busy going through your porn, so this had better be pretty fucking-“

“Sit down.” Lucas cut in, and David folded his arms across his bare chest and glared at him. There was a fresh cigarette behind his ear. “Please.” David muttered something that sounded suspiciously like ‘asshole’ under his breath, lit the cigarette off one of the stove burners, and sat down across from Anna. “The three of us need to talk.”

David and Anna were both silent. Anna was staring at a spot just below David’s face, a mixed look of fascination and disgust on her face. Lucas realized she was staring at the bite mark he’d left, which was now a bright red welt, the ring of teeth indentations seeming almost deep enough to bleed. He didn’t realize he’d caused that much damage, and he blushed.

“David, could you go put a shirt on, please?” Lucas asked softly, and David lifted his chin defiantly and blew a smoke ring at him.

“It’s fine.” Anna squeaked, and looked down at her hands. “I don’t mind.”

Lucas sighed. “Listen, you two obviously spent some time together while neither of you were talking to me. I need to understand what that was. You two hate each other.”

Anna shrugged. “We were both feeling sorry for ourselves. We were both really bent out of shape about you. We figured out we could both bitch and complain about you to each other. It was…” she searched for the words. “…it was like a common ground we could meet on. Neither one of us was being pleasant or anything.” She glanced at David. “He said he still hated me.”

David shook his head and tapped cigarette ash into the glass of chocolate milk on the table, earning him an evil glare from Lucas. “I kind of do hate you, Anna. I mean, you want what is mine. How can I not?”

Anna nodded slowly. “I get where you would say that, I really do. I feel that same way, sort of. I mean, Lucas was my best friend, and I had serious feelings for him, and then you just show up out of nowhere and scoop him up.”

David smiled. “Well, I had a higher success rate at landing him in bed than you did.” He remarked, and she smiled despite herself. “I mean, Lucas is a really smart guy, so if he can’t see the parallels between you and me, I’m shocked.”

Anna thought about this. They really were very much alike. She wondered what that meant on Lucas’s part of it, and decided it really didn’t matter. He’d chosen David. She was just going to have to get used to that. She looked at Lucas. “You want a truce, don’t you?”

Lucas nodded. “Exactly. I’m not saying you two have to be all buddy buddy with each other, but for my sake, please, stop going at each other’s throats. If you want to my friend, Anna, and if you want to be with me, David, then you’re just going to have to learn to deal with each other.”

Anna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She’d decided, waiting for Lucas to call her, that things had to change for her. That she couldn’t stand to be this way anymore. David would be a huge stepping stone for her. She nodded. “Yes.”

David was staring at her, and when she opened her eyes and looked at him, he nodded as well. “You’re right.” He admitted. “We have to learn to get along.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard.” Anna told him. “I thought I had the right to hate you because of what was going with Lucas, but I was wrong. We really are very much alike, and maybe, if we start over with a clean slate…”

David nodded and stood up. “Okay, Anna. I’ll agree to a truce on one condition.” He heard Lucas groan, but ignored him.

Anna looked up at him warily. “What condition?”

“You have to give me a hug.”

She snorted. “No fucking way, you’re practically naked.”

“Exactly.” He walked around the table to stand next to her chair, putting a huge swing in his hips and causing Lucas to laugh hysterically. David leaned down until Anna’s face was within an inch of his own. “You’re going to have to get used to it. I hate clothes.” He held his arms out. “Come on. It’s not like you’re going to catch the gay or something.” Lucas was snorting laughter helplessly into his hands, and Anna had the feeling that if she didn’t one up David right then and there, her life involving him was going to be one big mess of teasing and sex jokes. She couldn’t handle that, and she didn’t want to lose Lucas. She stood up.

“Okay, David. Catch.” She saw the look of confusion on his face a split second before she used his shoulders as leverage to launch herself onto him. He shouted in surprise and nearly fell as she wrapped her arms and legs around him like a leech. His hands came up and caught her before she could slide down, and landed directly on her ass. His face turned a brilliant shade of red, and she grinned and wiggled her butt against his hands.

Lucas wolf whistled loudly, and Anna gave David a huge, wet smack of a kiss directly on his forehead. Then she slid down off of him, laughing at the embarrassed, disgruntled look on his face. “You asked for it.” She reminded him, and patted his cheek.

Lucas watched the two of them immediately get into a shouting match. They were both yelling and waving their arms around, but they were also both smiling. Lucas supposed it was as good as he was going to get.

He thought it was just fine.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two Weeks Later

“I cannot fucking believe I passed.” David mumbled, staring at the report sheet in his hand. He nearly ran face first into an open locker door, and Lucas shot his hand out to pull David aside. David looked up, astonishment clear on his face. “I passed the history quarterly.”

Lucas smiled. “You studied very hard.”

“Because you used sex as a reward.” He slipped his hand into Lucas’s, lacing their fingers together, and watched Lucas blush and look around. He rolled his eyes. “Honestly, Lucas. You are more than willing to do the raunchiest, most unsanitary things to me with your mouth while behind closed doors, and yet for some reason you’re too embarrassed to hold my hand.” He yanked his hand away, scowling.

“It’s not that it-“

“Whatever, Lucas.” David snapped, and hurried his step a little. Lucas glared at his back for a moment. Then he reached out, grabbed David by the collar of his shirt, and spun him around. “What, are you-“

Lucas pushed him into the lockers with a loud crash, making David’s eyes widen. “I’m not embarrassed by you.” Lucas told him, brushing David’s lips with his own. “And don’t whatever me.” He licked David’ bottom lip, his hand sliding up David’s side, and David shuddered against him.

“P.D.A.s are really fucking taboo.” Anna remarked from Lucas’s side, and they both jumped. She rolled her eyes at them. “Quit fucking pawing at each other already. Jesus, you’d think you two would get sick of it eventually.”

David’s hand slipped under Lucas’s shirt, his movement blocked by the length of Lucas’s jacket. “I don’t think I’m going to get sick of him any time soon.” Lucas looked down at him, one eyebrow raised, and David pushed his fingers into the waistband of Lucas’s pants. Lucas leaned into the touch, and they both grinned at the exact same time.

Anna started wailing on both of them, shouting loudly and incoherently. David cackled and pulled away from Lucas to avoid her hands, using the taller boy like a shield. “He started it!” he yelled, and Anna reached around and tried to grab him.

“Okay, okay, knock it off already!” Lucas shouted, and they both stopped, laughing at each other. “Christ, you two are like little kids.”

Anna wiggled her way in between them and slid an arm around each other their waists. David looked up at Lucas curiously, and Lucas shrugged. They let Anna pull them towards the double doors that led outside. The three of them piled into David’s car.

The drive to David’s house was surprisingly quiet, considering Anna was in the car. They had all planned on driving out to the lake tonight to have a bonfire. Lucas had rented a campsite right on the lakeshore, and they’d stashed their supplies in David’s garage, because his house was closest to the highway, and it would get them on their way faster.

But when they neared the house, David leaned forward, scowling. “What the fuck is going on?” he muttered, slowing the car to a stop in front of his neighbor’s.

There was an ambulance and two police cars parked in his driveway, and a fire truck in the street. Every one of them had lights flashing. David was out of the car and running across the lawn before Lucas could even react.