Something had felt wrong the second she had left the bowling alley.

It had been a regular afternoon -- only a few customers, and a lot of sweeping up after kids who couldn't quite understand that rubbish bins existed. Nothing had felt different or wrong, though. It was only when she stepped outside, locking up behind her and feeling the crisp wind batter her skin, that she felt it.

Something was off.

She hovered by the glass doors, waiting. All she could really hear was the howling wind, and with only the faint silver light piercing through the night, she couldn't see anything suspicious either.

But, as she began walking towards her street, she could have sworn she could hear things.

The thrumming of footsteps -- and yet, whenever she turned her head over her shoulder, she saw nothing. Then, as she moved faster, she heard some sort of rustling and even a strange sound of someone clearing their throat.

And yet, no one was behind her. No one was around her.

It was just her, the stars, and the pathway.

Only when she could feel eyes burning into the back of her neck did she pull out her phone.

Bryan. She should message him. He was basically her boyfriend, after all, right? He would care.

Hey. I am walking home from work and I think I'm being followed. I'm scared.

His reply came instantly. And yet, it made her sink.

you're probs just making it up in your head. dw just let me know when you're home

But she knew she wasn't making it up. The footsteps were growing louder. She could hear them as loudly as the rattling in her heart. And, through the corner of her eye, she could have sworn there was a glimpse of a shadow trailing after her own.

So, without even thinking, she swiped to Luca's profile.

Hi Luca. I just left the bowling alley and I think someone's following me.

A few seconds of nothing. Then, she saw three dots.

He was typing.

And yet, Annabelle felt stupid. Why would she tell him? What would he do?

I'm on my way. Where are you at now?

She remembered typing up the street name. She remembered sending it through.

From there, everything became hazy.

There was a sound -- a loud grunt, and then someone was lunging from her side. A man's shoulder dug into her back, and her feet could barely hang on, and she was on the ground and gravel was shredding at her hands, and, and, and--

A hand wrapped around her neck. Pushed.

Her vision bled into blackness, and for a second, the air just slipped away from her.

But she had seen the man.

Al. The catfisher. From her first date.

Somehow, with whatever desperately flailing part of her heart that still could feel, she forced herself onto her elbows and sank her teeth into the skin of his arm. He screamed, loosened, and there it was -- a moment to breathe.

Adrenaline poured through her. She was instantly lashing out, her knee finding what she hoped was a groin. But pain splintered right up her leg, and she felt him push her head back onto the path, sending a sickening crack of agony shredding through her head.

It hurt. Lord, it hurt. Like someone had just ripped all of her hair out at once.

Her fist was smeared with blood. His hot breath was heavy on her face.

And she was sure it was over. It was the end.

Then, she saw another fist come swinging down onto Al's face. She saw blood spray through the air as Al was knocked off her, as another man came into view.

Luca.

Luca, in a freaking apron, was there.

She saw him grab Al by the collar, saw the older man spit into the waiter's eyes. Then, as they tumbled onto the ground, tussling on the cold rocks, she heard the sirens.

She took a deep, shaky breath. Then, her wobbling feet pushed herself up, and she was waving her arms and screaming.

"Here! Help us!"

The police were there in seconds.

From there, Annabelle just remembered feeling dizzy. She remembered the police questioning her, remembered first aid coming to plaster her head with bandages, remembered them wrapping something around Luca's bleeding fist.

But most importantly, as the darkness swept over them and Al was sent away in the police car, she remembered Luca reaching out for her.

"Are you okay? he asked.

She stared blankly at him. "I'm okay. Are you okay?"

"No. I was really scared for us both."

Then, somehow, she was in his arms. She didn't know she was sobbing, but she did feel the tears falling down to her chin and the snot dribbling over her lips. She did feel both of them trembling, shaking, feeling ever so cold in each others' arms.

"We're okay," she whispered to him. "We're okay."

And they held onto each other for a long, long while.

It had felt wrong to part ways after that.

Instead, after he had called the restaurant to ask them to let him off for the night, Annabelle invited him over to her house.

Had she not been so frazzled -- so damned tired and confused and frantic -- she may have felt embarrassed having him come in and see her clothes slumped all over her mattress and the pile of dishes in the sink.

But she felt nothing.

Just relief. Pain. Exhaustion.

"How's your girlfriend?" she asked him. "Christina, right?"

Luca seemed distant, too. He was in another world as he followed her into the kitchen. "She's good. I'll be seeing her again in a few days." Then, feeling for his face, which already had a purple bruise smudging his left cheek, he added, "Are you seeing anyone?"

"I am. His name is Bryan. He's got blue hair." She threw open a cupboard. "Tea?"

"Sure."

"What type? I have English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Turkish Breakfast, Earl Grey, Egyptian Breakfast, Antarctic Breakfast--"

Luca finally broke into a smile. "Whichever one is easiest to make."

"They're all the same. Bag in cup. Water in cup. Then sugar. Then milk."

"The milk should come before the sugar."

"No, it should not," she threw back.

He was moving closer now, a playful yet warning look there in his eyes. "Annabelle, if you dare put the sugar first..."

Annabelle reached for the jar of sugar. Held it ever so innocently in her hands.

Then, she was squealing with laughter as he caught her by the waist. Before she could rip herself free, he was swinging his arms for the sugar jar, prying it from her hands and sliding it far, far away.

But, for a moment, as he held her, she froze.

It didn't feel weird. It didn't feel wrong. His hands on her side, his grinning face staring down at her as if he enjoyed seeing her smile.

But he had a girlfriend.

And she had a boyfriend.

Sort of, anyways.

Luca let go suddenly. As if he had a similar train of thought.

"I was thinking about you earlier," he said quickly. "I really have to thank you. I wouldn't have met Christina if it wasn't for you."

Annabelle felt her heart sting a little at that. "Oh, it was nothing. I wanted to thank you, too. For the night where we took the photos and hung out. You helped me feel calm."

"It was a really fun night."

"It was." She switched on the kettle, eyeing the sugar. When she saw Luca reach protectively for it, she laughed, adding, "It was nice to have a friend."

That caught his attention. "Do you not have any friends?"

"Honestly? No." Annabelle shrugged. "It's hard. All the girls at work are still in school, and I'm too old for them. My only real friend is Candy, who is the old woman next door. "

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's nothing. Pathetic of me, really."

Luca shook his head. "No, no. I don't have friends here, either."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he answered. "It's hard to find people these days that you can truly feel like yourself around."

Annabelle smiled gently.

She understood that completely.

"Well, if you ever wanted to be friends, I would love that," she told him.

"I would love that, too."

Then, silence.

He looked at her. She looked at him.

Then came their awkward, relentless laughter.

"So, now what?" she blurted out. "What do friends talk about?"

He threw his hands up. "I don't know! I thought you'd be better at this than me."

"Why would I-- Luca. I just told you five seconds ago that I had no friends!"

"Well... why not?"

The question caught her off guard. She flailed her hands for a bit, before sighing. "My friends are back at home. I grew up in the country."

His face lit up. "So did I."

"Really? What did you guys have?"

"Chickens." He made a face, adding, "Lots of chickens. You?"

Annabelle almost felt like a part of her was stirring. It had been a long, long time since she had thought about home -- or, at least, since she had spoken about it with others.

"Goats and cows," she told him.

Once again, his eyes shone. "I love goats."

"What? They're horrible," Annabelle shot back. "One of our goats broke my bedroom window like four times by just slamming his head into it."

Luca made one of those beautiful, thoughtful chuckles again. Annabelle tried not to feel her insides melt.

"If all your friends are there, why did you move here?" he asked her.

Annabelle shrugged. "I wanted to find a job, save up and study."

"Study what?"

"Engineering. Something to do with space. The stars."

She waited for the laughter. But there was none. Instead, Luca nodded.

"I came here because my cousins needed help with the restaurant," he said. "So I moved to help, and also get some money. I want to study, too."

"Study what?"

"Psychology. I like people."

Annabelle ran her gaze from his bruised forehead to his leather shoes. "You'd be good at that."

"I don't know. I'm not the smartest."

His words were so soft -- so small -- that she nearly grabbed him by the shoulders to shake him.

"You're very smart, Luca," she told him. "Trust me on this. Just because we aren't in college or whatever, doesn't mean we're stupid. People who think that are the stupid ones. No one should hold that against us. You hear me?"

She hadn't meant to rant. She certainly hadn't meant to imagine Bryan in her head, and the way he always seemed to look down on her whenever she spoke about wishing she could study like him.

But she had seen his sneer in her mind. She had seen his messages, telling her that it was all in her head, when she had desperately needed his help.

But Luca caught it instantly. "Did something happen to you, Annabelle?"

"What?"

"What happened?"

Annabelle made a small face. "My date makes me feel stupid."

"You're not stupid. You're one of the smartest people I know."

"The first time you met me, you saw me screaming in a bathroom after I got fooled into dating a man twice my age," she pointed out.

And, even as she said it, it hit her. Like a wave.

Al's arms around her neck. His hot breath.

"We all have our moments," Luca said simply.

And something in his gaze was troubled, too. Like he, too, was imagining the screaming pain that they had been in only hours ago.

Annabelle forced herself to smile.

"What's your moment, Luca?" she asked abruptly. "What are you bad t?"

"I can't grow chest hair."

He said it so quickly, with so much conviction, that Annabelle had to laugh. "What?"

"I can't grow chest hair or facial hair. All my cousins can, but I can't. It's humiliating."

"It's just hair, Luca. Surely there is no big deal."

He gave her a face that screamed, It is a big deal.

So, rolling her phone from her pocket, she began to research. Within minutes, as he poured the water into their cups for her, she found it.

"Okay," she said, placing the phone down. "Luca, take off your shirt."

"What?"

"Take off your shirt."

To her surprise, he slowly raised his hand to the top button. Undid it. Then, the second.

As she reached for the knife, though, she saw him quickly rebutton them up.

"I told you to take your shirt off," she said.

He frowned. "Yes, but then you got a knife."

"I'm not stabbing you." Then, rolling her eyes, she added, "Besides, if I did stab you, I don't think it would matter if your shirt was done up or not."

"You're scaring me."

"Shirt. Off. I'm getting the onions."

"What?"

Annabelle reached for the phone. Held it up to the WikiHow page on her screen.

"Rub the onion onto your chest using a circular motion," she read out. "Once the surface of the onion is dry, cut about five millimetres of the onion and continue; this can stimulate hair growth because onions contain sulfur, a mineral known to help with hair growth."

Luca blinked. "This has to be made up."

"You can't know until you try it. Lie down."

Then, somehow, despite her hands that hadn't stopped shaking and the coldness that hadn't left her heart, she found herself really laughing as Luca plopped himself onto her mattress. Somehow, she found herself rubbing a cut up onion over his chest, both of then squinting as the onion made their eyes water, both of them arguing over whether she was rubbing it correctly.

"You're digging way too hard."

"I'm not? I'm being so gentle."

"Also, circular motion, Annabelle. That's a square."

"Shut up."

By the end, Luca's chest smelt awfully of onions. And Annabelle just couldn't stop smiling.

"Is this weird?" she asked him, gesturing at the onion.

He made a face. "Yeah. But we've always been weird together, haven't we?"

"True. But, for real, once you start growing chest hair, you better remember to thank me for this onion rub."

"Of course."

He sat up, buttoning up his shirt. Annabelle tried not to stare at the smooth ridges over his stomach.

"Thanks again, by the way," she told him. "For coming to save me."

He shook his head. "That's what friends are for."

"Cheers to friendship?"

Their teacups clanked.

"Cheers to friendship."