We sat quietly for a few minutes. Lucas looked to be deep in thought. He glanced at his empty glass a few times and swirled around the half melted ice cubes. He seemed to be trying to decide if he needed another drink first, or if he was just going to talk.

I didn't care what he decided, I just wanted him to hurry up and tell me. Whatever it was he was going to say, it was obviously going to be something juicy and useful. The anticipation was tickling me and making my feet wriggle with excitement.

"I'm just telling you this because I need someone to help me," said Lucas.

"Of course," I mumbled impatiently.

"I can pay you," he said. "I know you must need money if you are working in that crappy coffee shop with that lecherous old perv."

"Oh. Err, yeah," I said.

Money was something I hadn't really thought about. I had been putting off dealing with it after my parents had died. I had been ignoring the phone calls from my dad's lawyer.

I knew that both my parents had large life insurance policies. And they had mentioned to me the details in their wills the last time they had updated them. So I wasn't sure of the exact amounts, but between their savings and life insurance payouts, I probably had at least 3 million dollars. Plus the house in New York would go to me, and our old house in London that was being rented out, now I thought about it.

Of course, most of that would probably be in a trust fund until I was older. But either way, as soon as I talked to the lawyer, I wouldn't have to worry about money.

Although, maybe it would be a good excuse? If Lucas thought I was doing it for money, he wouldn't question the real reason I was helping him.

"Yeah, I do need money," I said. "I was, umm... Saving up to go to college?"

Yeah, that sounded believable. College was expensive, it was the kind of thing less well off girls would need to do jobs to pay for.

"If you would just pretend to be my girlfriend, I would pay you," said Lucas.

"Oh, right. Yeah," I said.

Being paid to be a pretend girlfriend? I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that. I kind of sounded like he wanted to pay me to have a relationship with him. Like I was some kind of prostitute or something? Wait, that did not sound so good.

"The thing is..." Lucas started to say. "It's just..."

I was not going to have sex with him, no matter how much he paid me.

"I'm gay," he said.

Wait, what now?

"That's why I need a girlfriend," he said.

I was confused. "You need a girlfriend because you are gay?" I said. "Wouldn't you be better off dating a guy?"

"No, you don't understand," said Lucas.

Yeah, he had a point there. This did not make sense to me yet.

"I can't be gay," he said. "That's why I need you."

"You want me to make you straight?" I asked.

"No, well, kind of," said Lucas. "I want you to pretend to be my girlfriend so people think I'm straight."

"Can't you just tell people you're gay?" I asked.

Lucas gave a cynical laugh. "Not in my family," he said. "They like things to be a lot more traditional."

"Urgh," I scoffed. "That's so homophobic."

Lucas stood up and placed his empty glass on top of the fridge. Then he slowly paced around the room.

"It's my family, I can't change them," he said. "I can only change myself."

I didn't know how to respond to that. It sounded so sad that I felt an overwhelming pity for him. To be forced to lie about your sexuality like that must be horrible.

But in the back of my mind, I was also running over the possibilities. If his family were as homophobic as he said it could give me plenty of options for revenge. I felt a little bit guilty about the idea of outing him like that. But then, he had murdered both my parents, so he did kind of deserve it too.

I was torn between pity and anger. But it was the kind of anger that clawed away deep inside. An anger that slowly devoured you from the inside. I knew that in the end, the anger would overcome me. I would let Lucas get close to me, then I would betray him.

I stood up and went over to hug Lucas. "I'll do it," I whispered into his ear. "I'll be your pretend girlfriend."

Lucas sighed with relief, then hugged me tightly. "You don't know what this means to me," he said. "I've never been able to talk to anyone like this before."

I could feel Lucas rest his head on my shoulder and start sobbing softly. I rolled my eyes at him, before putting on the act as a concerned friend.

"Hey, don't be upset," I said. "We're dating now, you should be happy."

Lucas wiped his eyes, then looked at me with a grin. "Yeah, you are right," he said.

We hugged again for a moment, while I tried to think of my next move.

"So, err, what have you told your family about me already?" I asked.

"Oh, not much," said Lucas. "Mostly just a physical description, as I said before. Short, blonde hair, and very attractive."

I blushed involuntarily at his compliment. "Is that all?" I asked. "Nothing about my personality?"

"Well, no. Sorry," said Lucas. "They're guys, they weren't really interested in that part."

I shook my head. "Yeah, I guess not," I said. "But I suppose we should still get to know each other a bit better, if we want to make it believable."

Lucas looked deep in thought for a moment. "Well, from your accent, I'm guessing you're English. Right?" he asked.

"Yeah, that's correct," I said. "And you're American?"

"Italian-American," said Lucas. "My grandfather was Sicilian."

"Oh, okay," I said.

"Where should we say we met?" Lucas asked. "I thought maybe in a club?"

"I don't know, I've never been to a club before," I said. "Would it be easier to stick with the truth and say you met me at the coffee shop?"

"Hmm, good point," he said. "Plus someone might have already seen you there."

Lucas rubbed his chin for a moment before speaking again. "How old are you?" he asked. "And when is your birthday?"

I paused to think about that. If I told him my real age of 17, he might think I was too young. I needed to be older, but not too old.

"Err, I'm 20," I said. "And my birthday is the 17th of May. How about you?"

"23, and November 16th," he said. "Wait, May 17th? That's in two weeks."

"Err, yeah," I said. With everything that had happened this past month, I had forgotten all about my 18th birthday coming up.

"Cool, we'll have to have a party for you," said Lucas.

"I guess, I don't have anything planned," I said. "Probably would have just had my friends from school come round. Err, I mean, my friends from when we used to go to school together."

"We can have a party for you here," said Lucas.

"Oh, umm, yeah I'm not sure this would really be the kind of place my friends would want to come and party," I said, trying to be tactful.

"Hmmm, maybe a different venue would be better," said Lucas, thoughtfully.

I shrugged, then stayed quiet. I still had a lot of other thoughts to process before I was ready to have a proper conversation with Lucas. The fact that he had told me he was gay was still confusing me.

I mean, the fact that he was gay wasn't really a surprise. When I thought back to his Instagram page I had gone through, there were a lot of pictures of him with other guys. I even remembered a few where he had his arm around another cute guy that looked about his age. Maybe that was his boyfriend?

But the thing that confused me was the fact that he had decided to come out to me. It wasn't like we were friends, I barely knew him. It was so strange.

"Hey. We've been in here a while," said Lucas. "The others will wonder what were are doing."

"Yeah, it feels like we have been in here for a long time," I said, as I pulled out my phone to check the time. "Oh, shoot. I didn't realise how late it was."

"Why? You got somewhere else you need to be?" Lucas asked.

"Yeah, my, err, roommate was expecting me home for dinner," I said. "She was cooking meatloaf tonight."

"Okay, come on," said Lucas, with a smile. "Let's say goodbye to the others then I'll get you home."

And with that, Lucas reached out and took hold of my hand and led me out from the small private room.