Luca squinted his eyes at Ashton's words, and he breathed out amusement—a small snicker wavering under his breath.

"That's funny Anders, real funny."

Ashton grinned, showing off his pearly white teeth, "I don't think it's that hard of a task."

Luca shook his head, and darted his eyes around the room, looking everywhere except Ashton.

"Why even try?"

His voice was a whisper, and Ashton recognised it to be almost sad and empty—like suddenly the whole dynamic in the atmosphere had shifted and Ashton didn't quite know how to handle it.

"Well. I bet you're a great guy. And someone like you, someone who's quiet and isolated, you just hide that part away from everyone else. And you don't let anyone in," Ashton said after a moment, hoping he didn't say something wrong.

"Yeah just fuck off," Luca muttered, "Is this something you normally do?"

"What?" Ashton frowned.

"When you try getting a girl. Do you usually chat to their siblings or something? Is that just an aspect of your whole scheme to make it seem like you actually, genuinely like her?"

Ashton's eyes widened as Luca spoke—the string of words making him completely baffled and confused.

"What..? No. I don't do that. I don't use girls like that.." Ashton replied, doing well in keeping his demeanour calm.

"Really? So what about what happened with Valeria Garcia? Chloe Rodgers? Sadie Hunters? Himari Gori? Shall I keep going on?" Luca quizzed, raising an eyebrow.

Ashton's mouth fell agape, "Dude what the.. Do you fucking keep track of all the girls I date?"

Luca simply laughed, "Please. The whole school knows when you date a girl and dump one. You have a reputation, a list of names and I do not want Betsy's name on that list."

A long, heavy sigh escaped Ashton's lips and he ran his fingers through his mop of messy blond hair as he tried not to get too worked up.

"You don't get it. I'm not like that anymore. I don't plan on being like that with Betsy because what I feel for her is genuine. And some of those relationships were real, but Betsy is a whole new level of real. She's perfect." Ashton explained, his thoughts bleeding into words as he confessed his feelings.

Luca though, wasn't having any of it, "I don't believe you. I'm not going to give into anything that you say so fucking stop messing with my sister and stop trying to talk to me."

Ashton groaned audibly and allowed Luca to storm off to his room, leaving Ashton alone in the kitchen to wonder with his thoughts.

Luca hated him, he didn't trust him, he didn't want to talk to him, he wanted him to back off from Betsy, he didn't think once when putting him in his place, he avoided him as much as possible, he somehow knew of every fuck up he had made and was ready to use it against him and it all irked Ashton so much.

Luca wasn't as easy to persuade as his sister was—to like him, that is.

And yet here he was, aching and itching to keep trying—to make all of that switch around completely and he had no idea why he even wanted to, but he did.