Aussie: A Bad Boy Second Chance Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

me.
    Even keeping me from getting into trouble, he always looked out for me. This one time I saw him smoking, and I asked if I could try it. I begged him to let me take a drag on his cigarette, but he refused, saying it wasn’t good for me. Hell, I only wanted to do it because he was, and I looked up to him. I adored Luke.
    If somebody was being mean or rude to me, he’d stop them in their tracks. When I’d go to the beach, collecting and studying marine life, sometimes his surfer friends would mock me and call me a nerd. He’d have none of it. I was no more than thirteen or fourteen at the time. By the time I’d turned sixteen, he’d kept his friends away from me for other reasons. I’d developed and he knew they’d just use me. He was my protector, quietly watching over me.
    We used to lie on his bed and watch movies at night, but once we got a little older, that stopped. Instead of me, now he was sneaking girls into his room. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous. Of course I was. He’d always had plenty of attention for me, and now suddenly his interest was in these other girls.
    While I was quieter and less popular, Luke was confident, almost cocky. Though, he didn’t come off as arrogant. He was a nice guy; he just wouldn’t let you fuck with him. He held his own ground. Ha, when we were seniors, he didn’t “ask” a girl to prom, he simply told her she should go with him. Sure enough, she did. They ended up at a punk club. He had his own way of doing things.
    He tried to get me to stand up for myself. Tried to get me to be more outgoing, but I didn’t have the same confidence he did. I’d always been quieter, keeping more to myself. I mean, I had friends, but I certainly wasn’t a popular kid at the time.
    “What have you got to lose?” he’d ask. The popular mantra that he pushed on me in a positive way, while using it negatively on himself at times.
    He was the guy every other guy wanted to be. He was the guy that every girl wanted to be with. Only in his final year in school, that all changed. Everything changed. It would never be the same again.
    When he was gone, it shattered me. He was the one I looked up to, admired, and wanted to be like. He fell apart. Life fell apart. I crumbled when he left. It took until my sophomore year in college to finally move forward. He was gone. Accept it or not, it was reality.
    All my memories of Luke swirled through my brain – both the good and bad. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Why hadn’t he called? Shit. What did I have to lose? I could call him . I should call him.

Chapter 7 – Luke
     
    I’d finally saved up enough to move out of Brian’s place. After searching around, I found a small apartment on the outskirts of Santa Monica. I had just enough money to get a few things, the basics, but I was starting from scratch.
    My ex friends with benefits psycho, Megan, was trying to track me down. I told Brian not to tell her where I moved to. She wasn’t taking the hint. Thankfully, he had my back and told her he didn’t know.
    Although I was close to the beach, I still hadn’t made time to head down there. Hopefully, soon. I’d taken a big step toward getting my life in order. I was proud to finally get a place of my own, and avoiding Megan would be an extra bonus. She was looking for money, drugs, whatever, and I wanted no part of it. She’d leave message after message, but I ignored them.
    She must have used somebody else’s phone, because her name wasn’t on the caller ID when I picked up.
    “Where are you, Luke? I’ve been trying to reach you,” she whined.
    “I moved.”
    “What do you mean moved?”
    “I left. And stop calling, okay? This thing we had, it’s done. It’s been done, but you don’t seem to be taking the hint.”
    She huffed into the phone. “You’re an asshole. Whatever…”
    I clicked off the phone, not wanting to hear anymore. She’d get it eventually.
    Only she didn’t. She called me back. Fuck. It