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"Hey Lia" Emily appears through the front door with Oli in her arms

I was leaning against the kitchen counter, a breakfast bar in hand "Hey Em, what's got you so happy?"

"I think I found a house" she squeaks

"You did?" I fix Oli in my arms when Emily hands him to me

She nods excitedly

"I'm so happy for you" I squeak "when are you leaving?"

"Two weeks, so far" she turns on the oven "you having dinner?"

I shake my head "I'm working at seven so I'll just get something there"

"How's school going?"

"Good, Cam's wasn't in She's actually on a trip with her mom for the week but I was talking to Tyler and seemingly I'm the latest gossip article"

"Fun. What for this time?"

"Something to do with mr blue eyes, Tyler's words not mine"

"Send me the link when it comes out" she grins "can you put Oli in his high chair I better feed him"

I nod and do as she said "I better go get ready for work anyway but I'll talk to you later"

When I got to my room I decided to change into a plain version of my earlier outfit: black crop top, cycling shorts and cropped denim jacket. I tied my hair up into one of my high ponytails

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Work was quiet and quite frankly boring. I had a few locals pop in which kept me amused for awhile but now it's an hour to closing time with only a few people scattered around that looked ready to leave any minute but my work policy was that I still couldn't close until a minute past 2am

The door creaked open and I looked up to see Ryder walking in. He was wearing a black tshirt that stuck to him in all the right places and some grey shorts

"What are you doing here?" I ask

"I've got an idea" he sits down on one of the bar stools and I put a beer on front of him before leaning against the bar

I raise an eyebrow "what is it?"

"So I hate you and you hate me yeah?" He leans forward so our faces are only inches apart. I nod trying to keep my heart rate at a steady pace "so why don't we put that hate to use"

"Like friends with benefits?"

"Think about it the benefits would be great and we wouldn't have to deal with anything serious"

The door once again creaked open and I stood back and looked up. It was a girl who looked to be in her early twenty's with long brown hair

"Hey how can I help you?" I ask her as I walk to the other end of the bar. I highly doubted she was in for a drink at half one in the morning

"I was just wondering if I could hand in a form to work here?" She smiles nervously

"Yeah sure I'll take it and make sure it gets to the boss" I give her a friendly smile

"Really? Thanks so much" she hands me the form before making a quick exit

I look back at my next problem in hand. I cross my arms and lean against the counter behind me "so what do you think?" He asks

"You were literally just staring at that girl"

"I was staring at you" he corrects me and I roll my eyes

"Where were you this morning?"

"When?"

I huff "when I went to class and we had to do project work but my partner had disappeared"

"Oh then, coach called me in for a meeting he wants me to join the team again" he explains looking down like he's stuck between a rock and a hard place

"Are you going to?" I ask

He sighs "there was a reason I stopped" when I don't say anything he continues "I have secrets too Talia"

Understandable "all I'm going to say is that you were their best player and you really seemed to like it so don't rule it off straight away"

He nods "you were a pretty bomb cheerleader yourself"

I laugh "don't remind me. Their excuse for kicking me off the team was that my bum was too big for the costume"

"You did turn a few heads on the field, it helped us with winning" he grinned

"Things used to be simple back then" I smile "well that's when you weren't throwing the ball at me to knock me off the triangle"

"Didn't you sprain your wrist from that?"

"Broke it, thank you very much"

"We have done some shitty things" we both laugh

"tell me about it" I give it a minute before I speak again "not to sound cliché or anything but if we do this whole friends with benefits thing you can't sleep around with other girls" He nods but I still feel the need to explain myself "I know it's not exclusive or anything and no one needs to know but it's more a self respect thing"

He smirks but I interrupt him before he can say whatever it was he was going to say

"I haven't agreed yet"

I got into bed a few minutes after I got home but I couldn't sleep. What was I going to do? What Ryder said may be fun but am I going to end up getting hurt? Can you really do the whole friends with benefits without catching any feelings? Was he even serious or was he trying to make a fool out of me?

I huffed and turned off my bedside lamp. I snuggled up in my bed and willed myself to go to sleep

My alarm woke me the next morning and my muscles felt tense as hell so my decision to go to the gym was so much easier, I always found it a stress release and Ryder's bombshell was causing me a lot of stress

It only took me a few minutes to be sitting in my car "why are you overreacting it's literally nothing" I mutter to myself

Just over an hour later I was finished in the gym and on my way to school

"Yo Thalia, Wait up" I turn around to see Sean jogging my way

"Hey Sean, what's up"

"Not much, I was just wondering if you knew if Cammywasintoanyone" He says that last few words so quickly I almost miss them but I decided to make him say it again anyway

"Huh?"

He coughs awkwardly "is Cammy into anyone"

I grin "let me just put it this way, if you were to ask her out she definitely wouldn't say no"

A grin makes it way onto his face and at that moment Tyler starts to walk towards us. I walk ahead of Sean and turn around so that I'm walking backwards "she's back Saturday" I wink

"Hey Tyler" I grin walking beside him towards the back of the school

"What's got you so happy?" He smirks

We take a seat at one of the tables "there's lots to be happy about. The weather for starters"

"It's been like this for a few days now" he deadpans

"Still it can put you in a good mood" I stick my tongue out at him

"And by the way your sitting with us at lunches"

"Us?" I ask

"The table you and Camilla sit with sometimes? Remember us? Me, Helen, Sean, Ryder and a whole other bunch of idiots" he sarcastically responds

I roll my eyes, enjoying Tyler's sarcasm. It was oddly one of my favourite things when someone got your sarcasm and could also give it back to you "Fine"

Unfortunately classes flew by up until break. I always find that's what happens when you don't want to do something but I didn't see a way of me getting out of it and I also didn't need the 'populars' to think I was suddenly scared of them without Cammy. I mean I talked to the majority of them but you still had the ones like Helen and the ones who came into the bar when I was working. I'm also pretty sure they wouldn't be happy to see me

"Talia sit beside me" Tyler shouts as soon as I get in earshot of him

I nod before walking over and sitting beside him. I was at the seated in the middle of the table and Ryder just so happened to be sitting on front of me, something I'm pretty sure Tyler has planned

"Why's she here?" Helen snarls over at me

"Helen" Tyler warns but I just grin at her while batting my eyelashes. My actions seem to rile her up even more, so much that her face flushes

"Problem?" I ask giving her a open mouthed grin

"You're such a-"

"Helen shut up" Tyler interjects

A few minutes later Helen decides to try a different tactic to get under my skin. She stands up and saunters towards Ryder. Her hands landed on his shoulders before rubbing them down his chest. I make eye contact with him for the first time but quickly look down

"Hey baby"

I'm not looking down five seconds before I'm looking back up "Helen get your hands off me and I swear to god if I have to tell you again I won't hesitate to tell everyone that you made up the story about us sleeping together"

Her face flushes for an entirely different reason "n...no one w..will believe you" She stutters

"Wanna bet?" He turns to her "now sit back down"

Helen lied about sleeping with Ryder? Ryder let people think he actually did?

I made eye contact with him once more but this time I didn't look away. How many people had he let lie about sleeping with him?