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Chapter Sixteen: "Nothing."

PHILLIP WAS DOING his stretches when Lucas came in.

It seemed at home Lucas rarely ever had his beanie on and even though he looked really attractive with it, he also looked really attractive without it. Especially when his hair wasn't gelled in the spiky way but was wet and patted down on his head. God what is wrong with me?

He had his hands behind his back and a hidden smile on his face as if he was clearly hiding something. I narrowed my eyes at him. We've talked a bit. It wasn't like major 'let's talk about life' conversation but most of the time I was about Advanced Functions.

Let's face it. It was the only class we both had together and it was possibly the main thing we talked about especially when either of us did not understand one of the questions.

Lucas may hate Advanced Functions but in reality he was a wiz at it.

Anyway, he walked over to me, practically sliding in white socks. He wore Roots sweatpants and a sky blue shirt. My teeth bit the inside of my cheek to prevent me from smiling like a complete idiot.

"Hey Canada girl."

"Hi Turtle."

He rolled his eyes, that smile on his face was growing. "I'm still going to say that it's going to get old fast."

"And I'm going to say that it isn't."

"So I know that you're kind of in the middle of something but I kind of couldn't wait."

"Wait for what?" I asked slowly, narrowing my eyes.

He moved his hands that were hidden behind his back to show me two equal halves of a fruit. It had a green exterior and the inside was a reddish pink with seeds inside. I blinked. "Fruit?"

"Not just any fruit. A guava." He moved his hands around and the look on his face that was filled with excitement made me want to laugh at how cute he looked.

"We're trying one now? Not later?" I was hinting that we would be able to talk later.

"Yes now. I found out we've had these in our kitchen and now I can finally taste them."

He handed one to me and I took it, twisting it in my hand. "Ready?" He asked.

"Yeah." I said, raising it up to my lips.

At the same time we both took a bite out of the fruit and immediately it tasted sweet-kind of like kiwi. "This is good."

"Really good." Lucas added. "I could make something out of it. A cake. It's not impossible. I've seen it done but never tried it."

"You can make a cake? From scratch? Like one of those layered cakes?" I asked him.

He nodded. "Yeah I usually get bored a lot and end up in the kitchen."

"I'm his taste tester." Phillip speaks up from across the room. His body was in a bridge, his face upside down as he looked at us with a smile on his face. I could see his face slowly turning red as he lifted himself back into standing position only to put his body and hands forward into a handstand.

"So you can cook."

"Basically but I like making desserts more than anything."

"So you're an artistic baker?"

"If you want to use simple terms than yeah I guess so. But if it came down to being an full time artist or a baker I wouldn't know what to pick." He took that as a chance to sit down on the ground and I followed suit beside him.

"Is it that hard? To choose between that?"

"What do you want to be?" He suddenly asked me.

"A professional dancer. I thought it was obvious."

"Of course it was obvious but why?"

"Because I love to dance. It's something I've been doing forever and I want to keep doing it. Plus I've wanted to dance backup for Beyoncé since I was eleven and I kind of-maybe want that dream to happen."

Lucas smiled. "It's not like you kind of, maybe know the entire dance to Single Ladies do you?"

I tried to bite back a huge smile and my eyes wavered around the room like I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Then his eyes widened. "Holy crap you know the whole dance."

I laughed. "Yes I do know it. Beyoncé has been Queen back then and is now. She's one of my idols."

Lucas nodded in understanding. "See you know what you've wanted to do your entire life. I'm still thinking. I could be an artist but I could also be a baker. I've been told that becoming a baker or a chef even is a more realistic career choice."

"You know you can probably find time to do both in the future right?"

"I know but I've been told that becoming a baker or a chef even is a more realistic career choice."

"Why?" I asked watching as he twisted that ring on his middle finger two times before glancing over at me.

"Because it's hard to make it in the world as an artist. It's complicated. I can do it. I just feel like-" He abruptly stopped talking.

"Like what?" He didn't say anything, instead he took his gaze off of me and stared at the floor he was sitting on. "Lucas..."

"I feel like one day eventually all my creativity will stop and I will run out of ideas when the world or even myself will pressure me to make something new. I feel like all the colors I will think of one day will disappear and I'll just be...drained."

Like his painting.

He laid back after saying the last word, exhaling loudly and his beanie falling off his head exposing his hair. His hair that wasn't gelled in spikes but made him look a little more mature than he usually did as it was parted to the side. I watched him close his eyes and think.

I don't know what I was thinking. I never really do but I reached over and grabbed his hand, the one with the ring on his middle finger. It was completely unexpected and it showed on his face too as his eyes opened. "What are you doing?"

He didn't seem freaked out nor did he remove his hand from my grasp. There was one thought going through my mind, that he had nice hands. "Um...this ring. I've seen it a couple of times. I just wanted to know what it meant to you."

A hint of a smile played on his lips. "Oh I got it years ago. Back then it was bigger on me. Joey and I used to play tricks all the time and switched places when we were younger. I got this because it was easier to tell the difference between me and him."

"So you guys pulled a Parent Trap?"

"Yeah we used to switch places a lot back then. Now it's more you see me without glasses or a beanie and a person easily mistakes me for Joey even though we have different hairstyles."

"Like that day when Lydia slapped you?"

"Especially the day Lydia slapped me," Lucas muttered, his hand tensing in my grasp. "I frankly don't know what my brother sees in her. She's..."

"A bitch?" I suggested, not watching my mouth.

Lucas raised an eyebrow at my choice of wording but contemplated the thought by tilting his head at me and a small smile was on his lips. "I was going to say two faced but that may work."

Movement out of the corner of my eye made me turn and drop my hand from Lucas'. Phillip started doing a round off back handspring towards Lucas and I, landing perfectly with his arms in the air. That's when I realized I still had work to do for his solo. I had vision it out perfectly last night after we had spent a couple of the days looking for ideas. He was a pretty easy kid to work with and his skill was amazing at his age.

I got up as he walked over to us. "Okay Lucas leave."

"What?"He faked a face of disbelief.

"Yeah leave. We have work to do."

"Why can't I stay?" Because you will distract me and I wouldn't be able to get any work done.

"Because you're a distraction."

Lucas groaned, putting his beanie on his head and reaching a hand up. I stared at his hand for a second before reaching to help pull him up. Our hands held together for possibly a second too long. It could've been my imagination but is swear it.

That's when Phillip decided to break out hands apart leaping up between us with a grin. "Okay bye Lucas."

I held in laughter at his attitude while Lucas rolled his eyes. "Bye Sydney, bye you little pest."

Phillip stuck out his tongue at his brother and Lucas did the same before walking away and out of the ballroom. "So..."

"So what?" I narrowed my eyes at Phillip, watching that bright smile quickly change into a sly once.

Phillip shrugged, moving over to the centre of the room to start off beginning of what he had for his dance. "Nothing."

"You know something." I pointed out, standing in front of him.

Phillip pretended not to know what I was talking about. "I know nothing."

"You know a lot. I mean you're pretty bright for an eight year old."

That witty smile on Phillip's face dropped as he sighed. "I'm an eight year old that can barely read."

"You can read Phillip."

"It's hard. The letters look...confusing when I read. I don't like having dyslexia."

"I'm pretty sure no one likes having it but you can work your way around it. I mean you can do anything. You can dance, you can do gymnastics, you can be Leonardo the leader of the Ninja Turtles and you can read. It can hard but you do anything you want to do."

Phillip looked up at me with his big blue eyes before wrapping his arms around my waist in a hug. "Thanks Sydney."

I hugged him back briefly before we let go and I smiled at him. "Okay get into position."

About two hours later, Phillip and I had finished the dance easily even though we went into a little bit of overtime. That's when Liz had came into the room as Phillip was finishing out the ending of it all. He looked up and waved to his mom as she came over.

"Sydney your mum going to be late so we agreed for you to have dinner and you can finish up any homework here."

"Oh okay thanks." I said, holding in a breath at the thought of having dinner with this seemingly perfect family.

Before I could say anything else, Phillip had grabbed my hand and quickly dragged me out of the room only for us to bump I not another one the Cahill brothers. And it was a Cahill brother I wasn't particularly fond of.

Joseph Cahill narrowed his eyes at me. He had a fencing sword in his hand and the cover mask thing held on by his body and the crook of his elbow he ran a hand over the skin between his lips and nose as he assessed me. "Sydney right?"

I didn't say a word to him but I nodded. I figured he would know my name but I shouldn't have expected him to remember. Joey looked down at Phillip. "Greg wants you to meet him in his room for something."

Phillip nodded, giving me a brief smile more running away. I watched him disappear before I turned back to Joey wondering why the hell he sent Phillip away. "I want to talk to you." He said, already walking towards the direction Phillip had gone.

Did that mean I had to follow? By his tone it clearly did and even though I didn't want to, I did because surely I would get lost in this maze of a mansion.

"About what?" I asked, falling a pace behind him.

"About Lydia." Joey said as we turned a corner and he stopped in front of a room. He had barely opened the door but threw his fencing equipment inside before closing it.

"Why do you want to talk to me about your girlfriend?" I asked as we continued walking.

I couldn't see his face but I could tell by the way he rolled his shoulders he was getting slightly annoyed. I didn't care. "Because I want to talk to you about her."

"Okay talk."

"I want you not to do whatever the hell you did the other day."

"Oh you mean standing up for my friend?"

"You weren't standing up for your friend."

"Clearly Octavia didn't want to talk to Lydia at the moment considering there is still the fact that her old best friend had played a game under the sheets with her back then boyfriend."

Joey tensed up even more as we continued walking but then he scoffed. "You're such a prude. It's called sexual intercourse." How did he talk about that so easily? And not the topic of sex itself, but the idea of his girlfriend having sex with someone else?

"I don't think you came here to talk to me about biology."

"Clearly I didn't," He sneered. "I don't want you talking to Lydia like that again."

"I can talk to whoever I want the way I want." I almost spat at him.

This must've impact him more than I had hoped so because Joey stopped walking and I almost bumped into his back. He turned around to face me and bent down to my level with wasn't by much but it made an impact. "Listen here and listen good Sydney Acosta. I am telling you to not talk to my girlfriend like that again. She didn't like it and I didn't like it. You got her mad that means that you got me mad. So if you do that again I swear I will find a way to make the rest of your high school life miserable."

With the anger in his eyes and the way his jaw clenched I should've been frightened. Damn I could've been frightened but I held it back stared right back at him. "I doubt you could make that possible."

Joey shook his head and bitterly laughed. "Trust me. I'm not just a student at Hamilton Academy of the Arts. I'm a Cahill at Hamilton Academy of The Arts. Not even...I'm Joey Cahill. I can make it possible."

He moved back and turned on his heel. "Hurry up, dinner is about to start."

I hesitated. I could've been scared but right now I was considering finding my own way out of this house and taking the bus all the way home was tired and didn't really want to walk in the near dark especially when Liz let me stay for dinner.

I took a deep breath, trying to forget the way he had whispered in a way that belonged in a horror movie and followed him with at least ten paces distanced between us.