Chapter Twenty-Five: Knock ‘Em Dead, Benny!

I let out a long yawn, tapping my fingers anxiously on the counter of Luke Daniels’ kitchen. He was just staring at me curiously, amused by actions. Continuing to drum my fingers over the smooth countertop, I let out a sigh, pursing my lips together. “I’m bored,” I finally announced.

      “I can see that, Liv,” Luke smirked. “Do you want me to make you food or shit?”

      “You can cook?” I asked in disbelief. This was Luke Daniels, after all. He didn’t exactly strike me as the “culinary-inclined” type. 

      Luke just stared at me for a brief moment, and then shook his head, laughing. “Hell, no! I’m really great at using the microwave, though!”

      “Well, that kind of sucks,” I said, slowly inching my way over to where he was.

      “And why does it suck, Livy?” he questioned, moving over to the fridge in order to look for something.

      I stopped where I was, about a yard away from him, and shrugged my shoulders easily, answering him. “Because I can’t cook either, so who’s going to be the domestic one in this relationship?”

      “Oh,” he stopped what he was doing for a moment, “that does seem rather problematic. Do you, uh, like kids?”

      “No. They’re annoying and short,” I shared my viewpoint on the young individuals. Thankfully, I had dodged a bullet never having to interact with children due to my family and the way I lived, but I just knew that I wouldn’t like them. I wasn’t exactly the biggest “fan” of people in general; so little people couldn’t be much better.

      “Well, so are you, but I still like you!” Luke retorted. I slapped him on the back, agitated that the words had actually come out of his mouth.

      “You are such a freaking pain sometimes!” I groaned, throwing my head back so that I couldn’t see him.

      “Only sometimes? Oh, c’mon, Liv! I thought that I was a pain all the time!” Luke complained in a joking manner. I didn’t say anything in response to that, because right now, he actually was being one of the biggest pains I had ever encountered, and I didn’t really feel like talking to him at the moment. After a few minutes of silence from both of us, Luke suddenly spoke once again, though in a more serious tone than I had ever heard from him before. “Uh, Olivia, can I talk to you about something?”

      I glanced over to him, and his gray eyes were pleading and calm. He looked nervous—an emotion I had become an expert in distinguishing. Slowly, I nodded my head, and he took hold of my hand, guiding me over to a small seating area a ways off from his kitchen. He sat down on a couch, and I sat down right beside him. Our eyes were connected, and he took a deep breath. Shit. I had a hunch that I knew what was coming. He was a senior. I was only but a junior. Of course this talk was inevitably going to come.

      Before he had a chance to break the news to me, I spoke up, saving him from the words. “Luke, if this is about college, I completely understand if you’re going to a place out of state, or if you’re not going at all—”

      “Liv,” he interrupted, but I kept going anyways.

      “Really, Luke, it’s fine. Go wherever you want to school. I’ll be happy for you with wherever you choose to go,” I urged.

      “Liv,” he sighed again, but yet again, I cut him off.

      “Luke, I swear, I’ll be fi—” And before I had the chance to relay that encouraging thought, he shook his head, crashing his lips onto mine. It was definitely an effective way to shut me up, and one that I didn’t particularly mind. Our mouths moved in-synch, and before either one of us could take it a step further, Luke backed away, leaving me breathless. Literally, I couldn’t seem to find my breath.

      “Olivia, please don’t talk for a minute,” he instructed, and I just nodded my head mutely. “I’m actually going to MIT—”

      “As in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?” I demanded, breaking his set guidelines of “not” talking.

      “Yep,” he answered slowly, awaiting my reaction.

      “Luke, that’s actually amazing! I’m so happy for you!” I said with a smile as I took time to digest the information more thoroughly in my brain. MIT. It was a world-renowned college that only accepted the smartest of smart kids. It also happened to be in Massachusetts—Cambridge, to be exact. Cambridge, MA also happened to be the home of Harvard, and be a neighboring city to Boston. Luke Daniels was going to be attending one of the hardest schools to get into in the country, and only be a few minutes away at the same time. Well, this certainly wasn’t turning out how I thought it would.

      “Thanks,” Luke replied, sheepishly rubbing his neck. “But, uh, Liv, where I’m going to college isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

      “It isn’t?” I questioned with my brows scrunched together in confusion.

      “No,” he shook his head. “Liv, do you remember one of the first things you asked me?” He didn’t give me a chance to say anything, and continued speaking, informing me as to what I had said a few months prior. “You asked why I was so set on getting to know each other.” I quirked my head to the side, allowing him to keep going. “Do you remember what I answered?”

      “Of course,” I said with a shrug, “you said that you didn’t know why.”

      “No,” he sighed firmly, “I said that after you didn’t believe my first answer.”

      “And what was your first answer?” I gave into the prompt.

      “I told you that the reason I wanted to get to know you was because my brother was a murderer and your mom was the prosecutor, so figured that I might as well become friends with you, hoping that it would make your mom doubt that Ben could actually kill someone.” When he finished what he was saying, I thought back to probably our second encounter in the library with Brenda—the cantankerous librarian—when I was serving time for my in-house suspension. I could definitely recall him saying something along those lines, but at the time, I just thought that he was joking.

      “But…Ben didn’t kill anyone,” I blurted out, trying to make sense of what he had told me.

      “But your mom’s still the prosecutor, and the guy who died was a rich friend of hers. Something Anderson,” Luke said calmly, watching me cautiously as I absorbed the information.

      “Are you trying to tell me that the case that Ben, your brother, is being tried for, is the same one that my mom has been working on specially for a few months, even though she normally doesn’t deal with homicide?” I questioned, summarizing what I had formulated within. It kind of made sense, but not really. I just wasn’t entirely sure what was going on.

      “Yeah,” Luke answered, looking away from me. “The reason I started hanging out with you was because I thought it could somehow help Ben. I knew he was innocent, but he was in the vicinity of the crime scene, didn’t have a great alibi, and was from the sketchy part of Boston. Of course the cops would peg him as the asshole who did it.”

      “How would spending time with me help your brother?” I scoffed, standing up from the couch.

      “Let’s just say that it wasn’t the most thought-through plan,” he smirked. My heart was racing as I tried to decipher whether or not I had been “used” by Luke Daniels, but then he clarified for me like the idiot that he was. “Look, Liv, I know what you’re thinking: ‘How could he ever do that to me?’ Well, I swear that my motivation was the only thing that I lied about, even though I didn’t really lie about that, either. You just chose not to believe me.” He paused, also rising from the piece of furniture that sat two. “I was honest with you from the start, Liv, and have been ever since. Nothing I ever said or did was fake or a lie, and I really do have feelings for you, Olivia. I like you, plain and simple.” For some reason, I believed him.

      “Why are you telling me this now, Luke? Of all the times, why now?” I demanded, crossing my arms over my chest tightly, as if they would protect me from whatever it was I happened to internally fear. My stomach was beginning to tighten, and I already knew what that meant. My dear “frenemy,” Anxiety, was paying me a visit. This time, though, I wouldn’t let such a powerful emotion control me. I was the one with the off-switch, after all, so this time, there was no way in hell that I was allowing myself to be transformed into the girl with the panic attack. Not today.

      “The trial is today,” Luke said, looking down and not in my direction. “Ben’s innocent. They don’t have enough evidence to convict him, but I’ve met your mom, and I know that she’s going to try as hard as she can to lock him away, anyways.”

      Thinking short and impulsively about what I would say next, I knew that I was probably going to regret it, but said it anyways. “Let’s go.” And with that, I marched over to the front door of the Daniels’ house, determination the only thought in my mind. Luke was following closely behind, and threw on his signature leather jacket, gazing at me curiously.

      “Where?” he asked, opening the door for me as I stepped out.

      “Wherever my mom and Ben are. My mom can be a total hardass in the courtroom, and even though you and I know that Ben’s innocent, she doesn’t,” I said in one fluid breath as Luke jogged ahead of me, going over to his bike.

      “To the courthouse it is,” Luke laughed, though it was a pretty serious matter. He revved the vehicle to life, and without an ounce hesitation because I wasn’t a wimp like most clichéd girls, I jumped right on the back of the motorcycle, just as he sat down. I secured my arms around his toned torso, and within seconds, we were off.

      Though I couldn’t fully appreciate the ride because we were on our way to try and stop an innocent Ben from plausibly getting convicted by my intense mother, it was definitely more relaxed than the other times I had ridden with Luke. I wouldn’t say that we were “dating” necessarily, but there was definitely a mutual understanding that something was going on between as. As Luke had said a few days ago, it was something bad, but something, nonetheless.

      I rested my chin on Luke’s back, pretty sure that he was surpassing the speed limit by quite a few miles. The wind was blowing in my face, and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Boston wasn’t the biggest city in the world, but it wasn’t small, either. Luke happened to live in one area of it, and even though I sucked at anything having to do with geography, I was pretty sure that the courthouse was downtown, quite a bit away from Luke’s house. It was only about 12:30 in the afternoon on a Friday (THE had given us the day off because of some BS “holiday,” which was why we currently weren’t rotting away in Hell), so court would definitely still be in session.

      After about twelve minutes of blazing past streets in a hurried blur, Luke finally came to an abrupt spot in front of a giant building on the water. It was pretty modern looking from where were with lots of glass, and didn’t appear to be the place that one just walked into without a purpose. We both got off of Luke’s motorcycle, and then stared in awe at the large structure that taxpayers’ (aka our dear parents’) money had funded. It was definitely nice architecturally, though I didn’t understand why a boxy building couldn’t just suffice.

      We both glanced at each other, as if to ask, “What now?” for we hadn’t exactly verbalized a proactive plan with one another. My heart was beating fast with adrenalin, and I sensed that Luke was the slightest bit tense as well. I grabbed his hand, and walked straight over to the two large class doors looming in the distance. It was an intimidating building, but that was probably its sole and only job—to look intimidating to would-be criminals.

      When we walked in, there was a front desk like at a country club or hotel, and I figured that since my mom never answered her phone during the work day, my best bet was to go over to the information desk, asking about her whereabouts. After rushing over to the marble station with a lady in glasses and tight bun sitting behind it, I waited a minute as she spoke on the phone. She was about my mom’s age, maybe a few years younger. Her face was contorted into a frown as she jotted down something, nodding as she mumbled, “Uh huh,” into the receiver. A few minutes passed by of her talking on the phone, and then she finally put it down, noticing us within seconds.

      “Uh, how can I help you two?” the woman asked, glancing between Luke and I. We definitely made an odd pair: the “bad” boy in the leather jacket and scuffed jeans and the “weird” girl with no style about her whatsoever.

      “We’re looking for Elle Ross,” I told the lady in my best “I-know-what-I’m-talking-about-and-my-parents-make-more-money-than-you” tone.

      “Elle Ross?” she questioned skeptically. “What would you two kids want with one of the best prosecutors in the city?”

      “She’s my mother,” I said sweetly. “It’s an emergency, and I know that she’s in court, but we need to see her.”

      “What’s your name?” she sighed, scribbling something down on a yellow legal pad.

      “Olivia Ross,” I answered as I felt my hand being squeezed. I looked down to see that Luke had taken hold of my hand, and smiled slightly. It was comforting to know that I wasn’t alone, but with someone else—even if he was partially the reason that we were here in the first place.

      “Well, Olivia, your mother is in courtroom 12A today, working on a high-profile homicide hearing,” she told me. “You can go, but are you sure that whatever you have to tell her can’t wait?”

      “I’m positive,” I said quickly.

      “Okay, the room’s just down that hallway,” she pointed over to a long corridor, “sixth one on the left.”

      “Thank you so much, ma’am,” I thanked her as politely as I could. Luke and I then practically sprinted (I threw all my past aversions to running out the window in this one frame of time) down the hall, both with the same important objective in mind. We came to the closed door of the courtroom, and then slid in, trying to create as minimal sound as possible.

      After walking in, I immediately spotted the basics: rows of wooden benches, the jury, two areas where the defendant and prosecutor (my mommy) were sitting, press, and the judge’s bench. The room was about half-filled, and was a moderate size as courtrooms went. It wasn’t the biggest, but it wasn’t the smallest my any means, either. I spotted the back of Elle’s head, and then my eyes drifted over to where Ben was. He was wearing a suit, and looked calm, which was odd, because even if he was innocent, he was still in a courtroom, which was always scary.

      Luke dragged me down the aisle separating some seats, and right over to the row behind Elle. He tapped her on the shoulder, for it appeared as though they were taking a recess, and she sharply turned around, ready to pounce on the individual who had dared to touch her flawlessly expensive designer suit. When she realized that it was just Luke and me, her gaze softened, but not a ton.

      “Olivia, Luke, what are you two doing here?” she hissed in a muted tone.

      “Ben Daniels—the guy being tried—is Luke’s brother and he’s innocent, Elle,” I told her in a hurry.

      “He’s—that young man is your brother?” my mom gaped at Luke in disbelief.

      “Yes, Ms. Ross. He didn’t do it. I understand that the victim was a friend of yours, but I swear, my brother didn’t do it. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he didn’t do it,” Luke rambled, speaking fluently and strongly. “Oh, and though it’s probably not the best time to tell you, Olivia and I are dating.”

      “We are?” I raised a brow, just as Elle said, “You’re what?”

      “Dating,” Luke repeated the six-lettered word that made my heart swell. “I mean, what else would you call this, Liv?”

      “We don’t have time to discuss this right now,” Elle said hurriedly, “but congratulations, I suppose? Luke, are you positive that your brother is innocent?”

      “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t,” Luke said with an uneasy gulp. The woman who had brought me into this world stared at the boy I was apparently “dating” for an elongated moment, and then let out a sigh.

      “I’ll see what I can do,” Elle finally said. “You two should go wait in the hall. Don’t be in here for this.”

      We both nodded eagerly at her words, but before exiting the room, Luke pulled me over to where Ben was sitting, and gave his brother an awkward hug, for he happened to be handcuffed. “Nice bracelets, Benny-boy,” Luke joked.

      “Nice girl, Lukey,” Ben returned, winking at me as I gave him a small wave paired with a soft grin.

      “She is nice, isn’t she? Hot, too,” Luke said, slinging an arm over my shoulder.

      “Dude, you know that her mom is sitting, like, five yards away, right?” Ben smirked.

      “What’s your point?” Luke blinked, planting a light kiss on the top of my head for emphasis on the aspect that he didn’t actually care who was in the room. Ben bit his lip, looking between the two of us and then sighed. “Listen, Benny-boy, we have to go out in the hall because Liv’s mom asked us to, but we told her that you didn’t do anything, and hopefully she believed us.”

      With Luke’s final sentence echoing in my ear, I stepped away from the two brothers, and went over to my mom once again. I didn’t want Ben to get locked up for something that he didn’t do, and even though I was pretty sure that Elle had heard us out, there was always that slim chance that she hadn’t. “Mom,” I called her attention, aware that I wasn’t referring to her by her first name. She always preferred “Mom” over “Elle” for some unknown reason.

      “Olivia, what’s the matter?” she asked, spinning around to face me. “I thought that you and Luke were going out in the hall.”

      “He’s innocent, Mom. I swear,” I said, staring into her dark brown eyes as she stared into mine. “Mom, he helped me deal with a panic attack. He can’t—”

      “When did you have a panic attack?” she demanded, her eyes growing wide with concern.

      “A couple weeks ago,” I shrugged, knowing that I was going to have to tell her an abridged version to the story. “Luke and I had to go over his house to get something, and Ben was hanging out with a few friends when we got there, and I just lost it. He helped me calm-down. He didn’t kill anyone, Mom.”

      “Like I said before, I’ll see what I can do,” she said, apprehensively leaning in, attempting to give me a “comforting” hug. I hugged her back, despite the awkwardness, and then we both released each other. She nodded at me, and I nodded back, returning to Luke.

      “Knock ‘em dead, Benny!” was what I heard come from Luke’s mouth the moment I came up next to him.

      “No,” I said, madly shaking my head, “I’d strongly advise against ‘knocking them dead.’ That’s kind of the idea that landed you here in the first place.”

      “Looks like you’ve got a girl with the looks, emotional-damage, and brains, Luke! Nice one, bro!” Ben smiled approvingly at me.

      “Yeah, yeah,” Luke brushed it off as I flicked his ear. “Ouch! What the hell, Liv?”

      “We have to go,” I informed him. A look of understanding passed over his face, and without another word to his brother, he dragged me out of the courtroom.

      When we got to the hall, we were both silent. I was just praying (to whom, I wasn’t sure) that Ben didn’t get sent away and that my mom realized he couldn’t be guilty, and I could only assume that Luke was doing the same. He was pacing back and forth on the carpeted floor of the courthouse, and I just stood, my eyes glued to the door of courtroom 12A.

      “So, we’re dating?” I finally said to try and distract us both from the issue currently at hand.

      “Yeah,” Luke said, ceasing to pace in order to look at me. “Well, I mean, if you want…”

      “Well, what would dating Luke Daniels entail?” I inquired.

      He smirked at me, taking a few steps over so that our bodies were just inches apart. “Kissing,” he said smugly. “Lots and lots of kissing.”

      Before he got a chance to demonstrate one of the “benefits” of dating Luke Daniels, I turned the mood serious, because it wasn’t exactly the best time or place to spring into a spontaneous make-out session. “He’s going to be okay, you know that, right?”

      “I know, Liv,” Luke muttered, “I know.”

      Instead of proceeding on the track that we had been headed, our mouths connecting with one another, Luke merely wrapped his arms tightly around me, and just held on. I stretched my own ligaments around him, and we hugged, standing in the middle of the Boston courthouse, waiting for the verdict of his brother’s trial. Neither of us moved for a long while, and though my eyes began to droop at a point, I didn’t allow them to close. We were waiting for Ben.

      What felt like hours passed by in a haze spent hugging, and then finally, the door of courtroom 12A shot open, people practically running out. Some were frowning, others looked elated. I was just searching for two faces, though—Elle and Ben. Finally, I found the familiar face of my mother, stern and reserved as always. I dragged Luke over to her direction, and when she saw us, a genuine, Elle Ross, legit-as-Kara-Kent’s-obsession-with-the-color-pink smile appeared on her face.

      “The police are going to reopen the investigation,” she told us with that “odd” expression of “joy” on her face. “As long as Ben doesn’t decide to skip town in the next few months or actually commit murder, he should be all good.”

      “Thanks, Mom!” I exclaimed, finding my arms latched around her frame before I could control my instincts. She hugged me back briefly, and then pulled away, grinning at Luke.

      “Thank you so much, Ms. Ross,” Luke said, also smiling.

      “Of course,” she returned, her lips pursing together once again and that bizarre smile disappearing. “I have some paperwork to do, but I’ll see you at home, okay, Liv?”

      “Sure,” I nodded happily. In a flash, she was gone with the wave of people as I allowed the new information to soak in. Somehow, she had stopped Ben from going to jail for something he didn’t do. It was incredible.

      “Lukey! Livy!” someone shouted with so much exuberance in their I tone that I thought they would explode. Ben Daniels came barreling towards us without those nifty, law enforcement-allotted, metal bracelets on his wrists. He smashed us into a group hug, and then literally kissed both of our foreheads.

      “Where’d your bracelets go, Benny?” Luke asked with a mocking frown.

      “Thanks to Olivia’s mom, they got repossessed by some asshole cop,” Ben said gleefully. “Thank you guys so much.”

      “We didn’t really do anything,” Luke pointed out.

      “And neither did you,” I added with a smile of my own. It was like the act was contagious or something.

      “You came,” Ben said, “which was definitely something. Thank you.”

      “Any time, Benny, any time,” Luke said, hugging his brother—another feat that seemed to be spreading like the flu. “I’d just recommend not getting involved in murders you didn’t commit next time, though.”

      “Will do, bro,” Ben saluted his younger brother. “Now, you two should go, like, kiss or something. I got my snazzy ankle bracelet off, so there are a few places I’ve been dying to hit!”

      “Go gallivant off into the sunset to your favorite strip club, Ben, we can probably deal without you,” Luke smirked. Ben smiled even wider than he already was, and then left the two of us alone once again. “So,” Luke began, grabbing hold of my waist, “what do you say, Liv? Should we kiss or something?”

      “I guess,” I shrugged. And then, like in any cheesy romance novel, the “bad” boy leaned in closer, and kissed the “weird” girl. As endings went, this was probably one of the most cliché of sorts, but it didn’t matter. This wasn’t your typical, run of the mill, boy-meets-girl relationship—this was much, much worse. This was something “bad.”