"Are you out of your mind?"

The words came out harsher than I had intended, but it didn't seem to faze him. Lucas rolled his eyes, standing up and quickly straightening his t-shirt. "I'm not, but thanks for asking. Are you coming or are you staying here, sunshine?"

I gaped at him, my voice accidentally getting the best of me. "You're honestly going to go talk to him? After everything that he did to you? Lucas, he threw you out of his house. Last time I checked, that wasn't exactly the greatest way to tell someone that you care about them."

He shrugged simply, running a single hand through his hair messily. "You worry too much, have I ever told you that? Seriously, though. What's the worst that could happen?"

I stared at him blankly, barely resisting the urge to raise my eyebrows. "I don't think you want the answer to that question, Lucas."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Riley, come on, have a little faith in me. I can take care of myself, easy. Besides, if I can actually talk some sense into him I might be able to move back in and stay in New York. Isn't that what you wanted?"

"Of course I want you here. More than anything."

He smirked slightly. "Then it's settled," he announced with a quick wink before climbing out onto my fire escape again. I barely stifled a groan, following after him somewhat instinctively. See, there were pros and cons of being completely in love with a person. This was one of the cons, obviously.

"I want you here, sure. But I want you living in a safe environment where you can be happy!" I added before he could interrupt again.

"He won't hurt me," he mumbled, almost under his breath. "Come on, sunshine. It's time for another one of those life experiences everyone keeps going on and on about."

. . .

It wasn't until we were actually just a few feet away from his old house that I began to have second thoughts about tagging along. I knew that I needed to be there to calm the situation in case things got too intense, but it was difficult to feel too confident in my own abilities when I recalled how thoughtless and careless his father had acted the last time I saw him. "Lucas, are you really sure about this? We could always try to get your mother to see what a great person Uncle Shawn is again."

"Riley, we tried that already. Didn't work out. Now it's time to at least test out one of my ideas, don't you think?" he asked somewhat teasingly before climbing the steps and abruptly banging on the front door. I hesitated, torn between what to do before eventually giving in, quickly hopping up the steps so I was standing right next to him. He chuckled quietly, but otherwise stayed fairly quiet, simply keeping his gaze locked on the door.

It swung open less than a minute later, and there he stood - Lucas's father, that is. He was holding another bottle of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I pressed my lips together tightly, my nose scrunching up automatically. I had always despised the smell of tobacco, and it always made my throat feel scratchy. I never understood why so many people were fascinated with slowly smoking away their lives, but then again, I wasn't the type of person to really judge.

"I knew you'd come," he grumbled, taking another swig from his bottle before eyeing me suspiciously. "Eh, why did ya have to bring this one along with you? All she ever causes ya is heartache. I was hopin' you might have gotten over that one by now, son."

"Her name is Riley," Lucas said shortly, his eyebrows already furrowing together tightly, arms crossing defensively. "You said you wanted to see me, we're a package deal, so here we are. Tell me why you wanted to see me so suddenly."

Mr. Friar shrugged simply, stumbling into his house again. Lucas and I exchanged a brief glance before reluctantly walking inside, taking this as our cue to enter. I silently shut the door behind me, my nose scrunching up again immediately. The entire house reeked of cigarette smoke and alcohol, and I was about five seconds away from dragging Lucas to California myself. As much as I hated the distance that would be between us, this was the worst environment ever for anyone, especially a teenager.

Nonetheless, I ended up catching up to Lucas and his father, lips still firmly pressed together. Although I didn't agree with his intentions, I knew that this visit honestly meant a lot to Lucas and after all, it was his life. I wasn't planning on meddling again anytime soon after what happened last time.

"I want you to live with me again, boy," his dad said after a couple moments. His words slurred together ever so slightly, a clear sign that he had already had way too much to drink, despite the fact that it was still early afternoon. "It isn't right for ya to be in California while I'm here, all by myself. I gave you a roof over your head, and you just go running to your mother? The one who left you?"

Lucas paused for a long moment, his eyebrows furrowing together tightly again, seemingly too surprised at the man's cruel words to speak.

Well, there goes my plan for keeping my mouth shut and not meddling in his life. Oh, well.

"I don't mean to intrude," I started slowly, barely keeping my tone civil. "But you did throw him out of his house. He had to stay with a good family friend of mine until his mom came out to New York. All because you seemed to think that this roof was big enough to cover the both of you, despite its large size."

The man stared at me for a long moment, his distaste painfully obvious in his expression. So far, I hadn't made the greatest impression on either of Lucas's parents, and somehow I knew that wasn't a good thing. But right now, I had much bigger worries. "Who does that thing think she is, coming in here and trying to scold me? She don't even know me, and even if she did, nothing gives her that right to say anything at all."

My father would so be cringing if he heard the way the man spoke. His inner teacher would probably have a heart attack or something, come to think of it.

Lucas snapped out of his apparent daze, quickly stepping in between his father and I. "Riley's a person, and you're acting like an ass. That isn't exactly the best way to get me to live with you again, you know? Because actually, it's making me think that maybe living with Mom wasn't the worst thing ever."

His father waved his hand dismissively, not even fazed by his son's words. "Whatever, boy. If you want to be around your little girlfriend, you need to be in New York. Not California. That thought must have occurred to you by now, right?"

Lucas exhaled, fleetingly glancing over at me before looking at his father yet again. "Yeah. I know. In fact, that's the only reason I'm even here right now. She's my only real reason to stick around in this city, so of course I want to stay. But staying with you wasn't exactly the greatest experience of my life."

The older man scoffed. "Please. Who are you to judge? Held back in school, kicked out. You're the biggest disappointment I've ever had the displeasure of knowing."

That was it. "You know what, you're going to regret saying all these things someday," I said quickly, standing up a little straighter. Let's call it a random burst of confidence. "Knocking the people around you down certainly isn't going to make you feel better inside, so I don't understand why you're saying these things. It won't fix you, it'll only do the opposite if you have any kind of soul or conscience at all. One day, you're going to look back on your life and realize everything that you have been missing out on. But by then, it'll be far too late for you to fix anything. Because after awhile, certain things can't be fixed. Not once they've been purposely broken beyond repair."

Lucas glanced over at me, eyebrows raising in surprise. "Riley, what are you doing?"

"It wouldn't be a good idea for you to stay here. It isn't healthy for you, and there has to be some other option," I said quietly, forcing a reassuring smile. This felt like letting him go all over again, and truthfully, it really, really hurt. But it was the right thing to do, he deserved a decent place to live with an alcoholic parent and a house that smelled strongly of booze and smoke. "Can we please go?"

His father rolled his eyes at the both of us, setting his bottle on the table and tugging a lighter out of his jeans pocket, lighting up his cigarette. "Yeah, follow your little girlfriend. If anyone's going to regret anything, it'll be you, boy. You're the one that sin't going to have any family left."

Lucas pressed his lips together tightly, glancing between his father and I before nodding slowly. "Let's go, sunshine," he muttered, gently wrapping an arm around my shoulders and leading me out of the house. His father didn't even bother to call after us, probably already too caught up in his beer bottle and cigarette to care about much of anything else. Lucas pulled the door open and we quickly exited before he closed it behind him, much quieter than I had anticipated.

"He's wrong, you know," I said softly, skidding to an abrupt halt. Lucas stopped, as well, reluctantly turning to face me, his eyebrows slowly raising again.

"What do you mean?"

"You still have tons of family left," I reminded him quietly. "Not only do your have your aunt, you have tons of other people, too. You have my parents, Uncle Shawn, Auggie, Maya, Farkle, Joshua, even Aunt Morgan and Uncle Eric. And ... well, me," I added hesitantly, smiling sheepishly. "You always have us, and you always will. We care about you, Lucas. A lot. You don't need to be blood to be family."

Lucas paused for a long moment, just kind of looking at me before finally cracking a small smile. He opened his mouth, then abruptly clamped it shut again, apparently at a loss for words. Another short moment passed before he chuckled lightly, almost breathlessly, before gently pressing his lips against mine.

. . .

A/N: Hi, guys! Thank you so much for your reviews! Every single one of you guys are all so incredible and wonderful, and I feel so lucky that you guys actually took an interest in my story. Feel free to leave your thoughts on this chapter! It honestly makes my day to hear what you guys think! :) You're awesome!

Also, I still don't own Girl Meets World. Oh, well.