Chapter Four

"Oh, i'm so proud of you," Olivia was saying. "Wouldn't it be great if you two got together? I mean, I don't really know the guy. I should meet him. See if he's worthy of my amazing sister."
"Stop it, Olivia," I said, slightly annoyed. "It's not going to happen. I always see him with all these girls... I'm totally not his type."
"But still," she said. "I want you to be happy, Caitlin, and I feel like you won't be until you either find something or someone that'll make you extremely happy.”
Orion had just come home. “Hey, girls.”
“Hi, dad,” Olivia said at the same time I said, “hey, Orion.”
“So here’s the deal, girls. Your mum and I are going to the bank because we’ve got a little of business they want us to take care of. I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but I’m not comfortable with leaving Olivia alone at home.”
“Why can’t I stay home alone?” Olivia whined. She normally acted very immature for her age, especially when she didn’t get what she wanted. “It’s not like I’ll burn the house down or anything.”
I saw mum twitch at her words in the background.
“Leaving you home alone is just not an option,” he said.
Olivia pouted, and then smiled. “Then can I go to London with Caitlin?”
Mum and Orion looked at each other as if they were speaking (or maybe arguing) about this telepathically.
“All right,” Orion said, “but only if you’re with Caitlin the whole time.”
“You should take some homework with you,” Mum said, “so you can sit in the restaurant and work on it.”
“What? I have to just sit in the restaurant?”
“Caitlin will make sure of it. We absolutely will not let you run around the city on your own.”
“But dad!”
“No question about it. Caitlin, she’s in your hands now.”
“Don’t worry about her,” I said. “Get your stuff, Olivia, we need to leave in ten minutes.”
Olivia, thoroughly disgruntled, went to get her things, and in ten minutes, we left for the station.
“Is he here?” she said, practically standing up on her seat, looking for Luke in all the other seats.
I took a quick glance around. “No, he’s not here.”
“Aw! I was so excited to see him!” she sat back down. “I was going to evaluate him, and then if he was good enough, I was going to be your wing woman and try to get him to go out with you.”
“I don’t want a boyfriend, Olivia,” I said.
“You might not want one, but you need SOMETHING!” she said.
I rolled my eyes, and ignored everything else she said until we got to the restaurant.
“Sit here,” I said, pulling out the chair at the table near the front of the restaurant. “So I can keep my eyes on you so you don’t sneak out and go touring London.”
She mumbled something under her breath, but I couldn’t hear it. I decided to ignore her, and get to my usual job of sweeping the restaurant.
After about an hour of the only noise I could hear was listening to Olivia complain on and on about how bored she was, the door opened.
“Good afternoon,” Luke said cheerily.
I was so surprised to see him come in. “Hi, Luke.”
“Luke!” Olivia practically sprang out of her seat. “This is Luke? Hi, Luke, I’m Olivia! I’m Caitlin’s sister! It’s so nice to meet you!”
“So this is your sister,” he said.
“What brings you here?” I asked, slightly curious as to why anyone, especially Lucas, would come here.
“Came by for a piece of cake, of course,” he said, sitting down at the table Olivia was sitting at. “What brings you around, Olivia?”
“Oh. Our parents didn’t want me to be home alone today, so they sent me here. I can’t leave the restaurant, though, because they don’t want me to be alone. And it’s extremely boring.”
“I can imagine,” he said as I set a piece of chocolate cake in front of him. He began to eat it. “That doesn’t sound fun at all.”
“I wanted to come because I thought I’d be able to go out and see London, but no, I’m stuck here, watching Caitlin sweep the floor as I pretend to do homework.”
Luke looked at Olivia, and then to me, and then back to her. “Why don’t I take you out?”
“What?” Olivia and I both said at the same time.
“Well, why not? You don’t want to leave her alone, and she doesn’t want to stay here. You’ve got work, so you can’t go, but I was going to cruise around town, anyway, so why don’t I just let Olivia tag along?”
“I don’t know…” I said.
“Oh, can I?” Olivia said. “Please?”
“What are you going to do with her?” I asked, slightly scared.
“Whatever she wants. Of course, nothing too bad. I’ll take care of her.”
“How are you going to be getting around?”
“On my motorcycle, of course,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Oh, no, absolutely not,” I said. “I can’t have her riding around on a motorcycle. Way too dangerous.”
“Come on, Caitlin, you’re treating me like I’m five. I’m only a year younger than you.”
“I’ve always got a spare helmet,” he said. “So taking her out and about will be no problem.”
“Are you planning to meet anyone?” I asked.
Luke thought about it for a moment. “I was planning to,” he said, “but if I’ve already got Olivia with me, I won’t really need anyone else will I?”
“And what time will you be back?” I asked.
“When does your shift end?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“Then we’ll be back by seven.”
I pursed my lips and raised my eyebrows. “I’m so close to saying it’s okay,” I started, “but I’m still a bit unsure.”
“Please, Caitlin?” Olivia begged. “Please, please, please, please, please, please?”
I sighed. “You’ll take care of her?”
Luke put his hand on his heart. “Like she was my own sister.”
I was relieved. He was going to treat her like a sister, and not one of those slutty girls he was always with. But still, I barely knew the guy.
“I dunno,” I said. “It’s like I’m sending you off with a complete stranger.”
“Stranger?” Luke said, sounding offended. “Stranger? I’m a stranger to you? After all we’ve been through?”
“We haven’t been through too much,” I said. “Talking on the train, you saving me from a couple of drunk people who really weren’t bothering me too much and were actually kind of funny.”
Luke shrugged. “I’m fine with whatever you choose. I’m not doing this for myself, I’m doing this for Olivia.”
“Come on, Caitlin!” she begged again.
“What about your homework?” I asked.
“Please don’t start that, you’re sounding like dad,” she groaned. “I can always finish it later, I don’t even have that much. I’m a senior, for god’s sake, I don’t even need to finish my homework! I’ve already done my college apps and all, why should I even bother?”
“Because—”
“Just let me go. One day. And I’ll be fine. I’ve got Luke with me. And even if Luke turns out to be a total creeper, I can still take care of myself.”
Luke looked a bit confused. “Um, I’m not a creeper, in case you wanted to be certain.”
I sighed, tired of this argument. “Fine,” I said. “You can go. Be back at seven, sharp, or else I’m telling mum and Orion about this.”
“Yay!” Olivia said, jumping up and down and flinging her arms around me. “Don’t worry, nothing bad will happen! Thank you so much! Let’s go, Luke!”
“Don’t worry about her too much,” Luke told me as Olivia was running out the door. “I’ll take care of her. You can trust me.”
“You’d damn better,” I threatened, trying to sound as menacingly as possible. “For your own sake.”
“She’ll be fine, Caitykins,” he said.
“Because if she comes back and tells me if anything bad happens, of if I hear that you’ve done anything to her, I’ll—”
“Hey, hey,” he interrupted. “She’ll be fine.”
I didn’t say anything more as I watched him leave.
The next few hours had to be the most nervewracking of my life. I couldn’t stop worrying about Olivia, and what Luke could be doing with her. I started envisioning things they could potentially be doing, like going to strip clubs or bars. Olivia was still too young to drink, but would Luke enforce that? Also, if Luke got drunk, and was driving the motorcycle, and they crashed… what if Olivia died on the streets of London? I kept picturing the bloody corpse of my sister. That was, of course, before I began imagining the naked body of my sister next to the naked body of Luke. What if he seduced her? Would Olivia actually do that to her boyfriend? She was known to make a few bad decisions.
The clock struck seven. I averted my eyes to the door, and did not look away. They still weren’t back. Where were they? What happened? What could Luke have done to Olivia?
What felt like fifty years later, the door opened, and Olivia and Luke came in, laughing. They immediately stopped, though, when they saw my face.
“Hey, Caity-cakes,” Luke said. “You look a bit…”
“You’re late,” I said. “You said you’d be back at seven.”
“It’s seven oh eight!” Olivia exclaimed. “That’s, like, barely even late!”
“I heard you’d be back at seven sharp,” I said.
“Sorry, that’s completely my fault,” Luke said. “You see, we went to this party and—”
“Oh, a party, huh? What happened at this party? Lots of sex and booze?”
Luke laughed, but Olivia looked offended.
“I’ll have you know, that the party was totally calm, and if I just hadn’t come out of a place like this, I would have found it incredibly lame, but I had fun anyway because I had to keep reminding myself that at least I wasn’t here, wasting my time sitting around and talking to you.”
“Really? What exactly did you do at this party?”
“They mostly played show tunes and Disney songs,” Olivia said, her lips quickly twitching into a smile. “There was more singing along than dancing, but it was still fun.”
“And this party was the only thing you did?”
“Of course not! It was just the last thing we did. Luke took me out to an actual restaurant, where we had actual good food. And then we went around on his motorbike and saw some of the sites. London is actually a really awesome city. It’s a shame that you don’t get to see more of it, having to be cooped up here the whole time.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Well, I suppose I’m glad you had a good time. Thank you, Luke, for doing this.”
“It’s really no problem at all,” he said. “We’ll just relax here for a bit, and when your shift ends, I don’t mind taking you girls down to the station so you can hop on your train and get home.”
“I guess I can trust you after all,” I said.
“I told you everything would be fine,” he said.
My shift ended faster than I thought it would, and before it, Lucas was dropping me and my sister off at the station.
“Bye, Luke!” Olivia said. “Thanks for taking me around today! I had a blast! We should do it again sometime, real soon!”
“Count on it! And we’ll bring Caity-cakes along with us,” he said. “I’ll see you two around.”
“Bye,” I said. “And thanks again.”
He smiled and winked at me.