"You know, I wasn't happy about Emma trading her early shift with me, but she didn't tell me you were working an early shift too." Eli grinned as he put his apron on.

Amy laughed. "What are the odds?"
The bell then rang, signalling some new customers had arrived. Amy looked to the door to see Noah and Audrey. She nudged Eli. "I need to get this girl a coffee so can you talk to them?" Amy asked, nodding her head in Noah's and Audrey's direction.

Eli nodded. "Sure. But I need to ask you something."
"What is it?"
"Do you wanna have some fun later?"
Amy raised an eyebrow and laughed. "Do you know how dirty that sounds?"

Eli chuckled and shook his head. "I didn't mean it like that. I mean like... an adventure. I'll give you an idea of my meaning of fun is."

Amy paused for a moment before nodding. "Okay sure. Once our shift's are over though. I don't wanna ditch my job because I need the money."
Eli laughed and nodded. "Sure. Now finish that coffee, we don't any angry customers."

***

"So, why have you brought chicken?" Amy laughed as the two made their way across the grass, towards some barbed wire with a hole in. "And why are we trespassing?"

Eli scoffed. "If anything, you'd be the last person to be worrying about trespassing. Besides, let's just think of this as an unconventional entrance." He said, smoothly going through the hole in the barbed wire so he was on the other side.

"My mom never told me to go anywhere with a stranger."
Eli rolled his eyes and smiled. "Please, we know each-other well enough - I'm you're escort! I'm not a stranger, I'm... just strange."

Amy laughed and followed him so they were now both in the restricted area. "You've got that right."

Eli lead Amy to a house, with the signs MODEL HOME and LAKEWOOD'S NEWEST DEVELOPMENT.

She laughed. "Why are we heading towards this house? This is getting creepy - you're getting creepy."
"Good. It should be." He smiled. "This is the rush we want, right? The fun, the excitement of almost getting caught, okay? Doing something a little dangerous."
Amy raised an eyebrow.

"Just let the thrill help you forget everything." Eli finished, turning on the lantern and signalling for her to follow him.

Amy stood there for a moment and sighed. She had to admit, this did seem fun, but she was still slightly worried about getting caught. Nevertheless, she shook the feeling off and ran to catch Eli up.

"It's a unit they use as a model. So I guess they just abandoned it when the construction stopped." Eli explained.
"So they just left everything here?" Amy scoffed. "That's weird."

"I need to tell you something, okay?" Eli said, sitting down. "You have to promise not to make fun of me."
"Okay..." Amy said, biting her lip and sitting down next to Eli as he opened his bag of chicken.

"So, you know how my mom is... difficult and my difficult I mean a total mess. I'm the only adult between the two of us. Sometimes when I'm feeling sick of it, I make up other lives." He began.

Amy raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Sometimes it involves sneaking into other people's houses."
Amy chuckled. "I believe that is called home invasion."

Eli smiled. "Technically yes, but I prefer to call it 'Goldilocksing'."
Amy paused for a moment before trying to stifle a laugh.
"Hey, don't make fun of me, okay?" He chuckled.

Amy let the laugh out and took hold of the wine bottle. "I'm not. It actually sounds kinda fun."

Eli raised an eyebrow as Amy poured both of them a glass of wine. "Really?"
Amy nodded, placing the bottle back on the table. "I'd actually like to try it."
"What? Like-"
"Yes, I want to play 'Goldilocksing' with you." She cut Eli off.

He smirked and nodded. "Okay. But make sure your friends don't find out. Kieran's already making up stuff about me, if they know, they'll never let you see me again."

Amy scoffed. "They're not my parents. I can do what I want." She smirked.

The two sat there in silence for a while before Amy spoke up again. "So, how did you find this place?"

"Desperation. I mean, Lakewood is not exactly Atlanta and I needed something to do." Eli told her.
"Do you hate living here?" Amy asked as she took a bite of her chicken.
Eli shrugged. "I did at first, with all the shit Kieran was giving me and not being able to make real friends. But then I met you."

Amy's eyes softened as she smiled. "Well, I'm glad I made things better for you in Lakewood."

Eli took a gulp of his wine before turning back to Amy. It was only then that they both realised how close they were. Amy noticed Eli was leaning in even closer. For a second, she sat there motionless, but soon found herself leaning in too.

Before their lips could touch, the smoke detector went off.
"Is that?" Amy asked, pulling away as Eli got up.

"The smoke detector, yeah. Come on, we've gotta get out of here." He said, grabbing hold of her hand and dragging her out of the living room.
He opened the front door, but the two jump back at the sight of the front garden in flames.

"Oh my God!" Amy almost cried as he slammed the door.
Eli tightened his grip on Amy's hand and pulled her to the window, but the curtain's caught fire the moment they got there.

"How are we gonna get out?!" Amy cried.
"This way!" Eli directed her to the garage, where he opened the garage door and they both ran down to the empty road. Amy was tears as she fell to the floor, coughing and spluttering.
"We need to get out of here, okay?" Eli said, kneeling down in front of her.

"We need to call the fire department!"
Eli stopped her. "No! We just broke in and they're gonna blame us for this!"
"But if it was our fault!" Amy argued.
"I have history with the police, okay? And I was just trying to do something fun for you and this is gonna go really badly-"

Amy stood up and grabbed hold of Eli's hands. "Okay, we're leaving, we're leaving! It's too late now they're probably already on their way!"
"Exactly!" Eli exclaimed. They ran down the road and back to the barbed wire. He let her through first, before soon following.

Once they were far enough from the scene, Amy fell to floor, out of breath. She laid her back on grass and looked up at the sky. Eli fell beside her as they listening to faint sounds of sirens.
He turned to her and laughed. "See? We're okay and they'll never know it was us."

Amy turned to him, still taking deep breaths. To her surprise, she let out a chuckle. "That was kinda fun."
Eli grinned. "I knew it would be."

Amy sat up at the sound of voices, getting closer. They both quickly got up. "We need to go."
Eli nodded and grabbed hold of her hand again. "Agreed."