felicitygs | alphabet challenge

Two OCs, Lucas and Phee; Lucas if the kid from prior drabbles, but Phee hasn’t appeared before. I’ve been working on a short story involving the two of them. This is about when and how they met. Phee’s nervousness about her name and all that won’t make sense without that, sorry, but it is what it is and this is mostly for me.

O. Wicked

It was seventh grade when they first met. They met at the park, entirely by accident, and Phee spent a few minutes trying to mentally to brace and half-terrified.

She’d heard stories about Lucas–Luke–about how he always caused trouble and was good for nothing, about how he was a thief and probably stole all the clothes he wore. She remembered hearing people call him lie smith and silver tongue when they found out his middle name. Honestly, she knew she should be a lot less afraid of him than she was, but he was really the last sort of person she’d want to run into because for all his lies, his were the stories most often repeated.

“Op, sorry, sorry, you ‘kay?” he said, catching her before she stumbled.

“Okay, and yes. Yes.” She mentally cursed herself for correcting him, but it was habit at this point.

“Great! ’m Lucas.” He held his hand out. “You wanna get an ice cream? My treat, make up backing into ya.”

“I’m….” and she paused, because she very much did not look like Orpheus today, not even slightly, which was kind of the point but also made this much more difficult than it needed to be. “Phee,” she said, half-rushed and half-tense, waiting on him to call her on it.

“Phee,” he repeated; there wasn’t doubt or derision or anything. Just delight. “Well, Phee, it’s great to meet you. Are you a chocolate or strawberry kinda gal?”

“Neopolotin,” she said, something easing in her chest.

“Well aren’t you smart, picking one of everything,” and he flashed her a wicked smile, hot and fierce as the sun.