CHAPTER 28

"-and you actually thought that was a good idea?" Sydney asked him, her curly hair falling out of it's signature messy bun. Her face was flushed from laughter, her eyes gleaming in amusement. There was a brightness in her features that Luke had become accustomed to. She was seemingly always happy, full of life. Sydney was like the living embodiment of an indie film.

"I don't know. It didn't sound like a bad idea." Luke protested, his arm wrapped around Sydney's back. They were sprawled on a couch in a cheery room filled with furniture upholstered in various shades of yellow and orange. Golden vases were filled with bouquets of freshly cut sunflowers and marigolds. In fact, it was the same room where Luke had first been introduced to his selected, though, admittedly he hadn't remembered that when they had ended up here.

It was only after Sydney mentioned it that he realized this was where they had first met. She seemed to think it was a romantic gesture, showing how far they had come. Luke hadn't bothered to correct her. After all, that did sound much better than him simply forgetting.

"In what world does roasting marshmallows in a vat of boiling water sound like a good idea?" Sydney questioned. She barely managed to get the sentence out over her high-pitched laughter. It was endearing really.

"They did melt." Luke told her. "They were just...waterlogged."

"I wonder why?" Sydney asked rhetorically. "Nah, I once tried to make macaroni soup using one of those microwavable macaroni bowls." She said seriously.

Luke chose not to mention the fact that he had never seen a microwavable macaroni bowl. It didn't sound particularly appetizing though. "Macaroni soup?" He asked.

"I thought it was an actual food. That is not true. Turns out it's what happens when you put too much water into a macaroni bowl. I would not recommend it." Sydney used her left hand to try and tuck the loose curls that had sprung out of her bun behind her ears.

"That makes it sound like you ate it."

"Well, at this point I still thought it was actually food and I had to see if it tasted good!" Sydney insisted. "What would you have done in my situation?" She asked him.

"I probably would've started by reading the directions." Luke deadpanned.

"Directions are for the weak and stupid. Real chefs use their intuition when it comes to cooking." Sydney joked. She dropped her voice an octave to try and sound like a military general. Luke laughed at her weak attempt at an impression and her weak attempt at being serious. Sydney, much like Luke, just wasn't a serious person.

"Real chefs don't cook their macaroni in a microwave." Luke answered easily, making his voice match Sydney's. At least he was pretty sure that they didn't cook macaroni in a microwave...did they? As Luke had never actually cooked macaroni, nor read the recipe or instructions for it, he couldn't be sure. Did the palace even own a microwave?

Luckily Sydney didn't seem to think his sentence was anything other than perfectly reasonable. Okay, that's good. He must have been right then. Microwavable macaroni wasn't real macaroni. Thank God. That would have been highly embarrassing. "Well, most colleges don't come with stoves in their dorm rooms."

"What a shame. No real macaroni for you then." He teased her, starting to tickle her neck.

"Luke." She got out between bursts of laughter. "Luke." She continued laughing as Luke tickled her neck. Finally, laughing so hard that Luke was surprised she could form words. "Stop, I'm ticklish." She exclaimed, giggling loudly.

Luke stopped tickling her at that, looking at her face. "Sorry. Hey, are you wearing contact lenses?" He asked, noticing for the first time.

Sydney sat up, "Yeah. I usually wear glasses, but the stylists for the selection thought it would be better if I wear contact lenses. They must have gotten my prescription from my medical records because they had them ready when I came over."

"I didn't know that." Luke said.

"Well, I don't usually introduce myself by saying that I wear glasses. Isn't it kinda dorky?" She asked him.

Luke couldn't very well say yes to that question, now could he? "Of course not." He assured her. "What did your glasses look like?"

"Promise you won't laugh?" Sydney bit her lip nervously.

"It really depends on what you say they looked like." Luke told her.

Sydney grimaced for a second. "Fine. They were purple and had magic wands in the corners. I believe they were called the Fairy Princess lenses." Sydney said, anticipating Luke's reaction.

"Fairy princess glasses?" Luke clarified to make sure he heard right, already chortling at her description.

"Lenses." Sydney corrected. "But, yes. You got the general idea. " Sydney admitted bashfully.

"I met your parents. You're telling me they let you wear fairy princess glasses to college?" Luke couldn't exactly believe it. Her parents had seemed like nice, sensible people. How they let their eldest daughter wear those glasses was beyond him. Surely she would get teased for them. Here he thought they actually cared about Sydney's feelings, yet they sent her off to school in glasses that had a magic wand on them. It was ridiculous.

"My mother told me they went with my hair." Sydney crossed her arms as she spoke, pursing her lips in indignation.

"And you believed her?"

"Of course I did."

"Well, I would love to see them." Luke said hopefully. He could do with a laugh right about now.

"No. Nope. No way. You are never, ever, ever, and I mean ever, seeing those." Sydney vowed. Luke sighed loudly at that, causing Sydney to giggle. Oh well. He was a prince. If he really wanted to see them it shouldn't be too hard to find a picture of her with them on.

He wasn't going to do that though. Just because he could, didn't mean he should. He had some moral standard. If Sydney really didn't want him to see it, he wasn't going to disrespect her privacy like that. Luke wasn't about to go against her wishes. It was morally wrong. A total abuse of his power and position.

No matter how much he really wanted to.

"Fine. If you insist." Luke said remorsefully.

"I do insist." Sydney smiled in relief.

"Such a debbie downer. You know, if I had an embarrassing goth stage, which I didn't by the way, I wouldn't get rid of any photos that had to do with it." Luke told her seriously. He wasn't going to judge her for the glasses, just laugh at her.

"That's only because you wouldn't be able to get rid of all the pictures, and you know that. Also, I seem to remember you wearing a bright orange baseball cap with a turquoise sweater. Now that was embarrassing."

"It was for Halloween!" Luke insisted. "It was supposed to be an 80's theme. The tabloids just took it out of context." Despite what had been written in most papers, it was actually a Halloween costume. Some lucky photographer had managed to snap a picture of him that didn't include any of the decorations or anyone else in costume. Said photographer then proceeded to sell it to every magazine in Illéa, which printed ridiculous -and untrue- stories about it.

Luke's personal favorite was his picture being spliced with Choo the Chinchilla in a spot the difference outfit.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." Sydney told him. "I'm not judging."

Laughing at her statement, Luke pulled her onto his lap, where he pressed his lips against hers. She was eager, obviously looking forward to this moment as they spoke, Unlike the first kiss they had shared in the middle of the night in the palace's large kitchen, they were both ready for this one, they both wanted it. There also was no judgemental cook looking over Luke's shoulder, making sure they didn't go too far. That was a good thing since he was fairly sure that Sydney being on his lap would have constituted going too far in the cook's opinion.

Luke didn't care though.

Not when he had this pretty, smart, funny girl in his arms.

After his chat with Sydney, and many more kisses than he would like to admit, Luke knew he had to get going. Was he happy about leaving her? No. Of course not. Despite his personal preference though, he simply had to leave. He had organized a date with Samantha later in the afternoon that he had to go get ready for, both physically and mentally.

Yes, he felt horrible for going on a date with Sam while another woman's lipstick was still visible on him. For the first time in his selection, in his life maybe, he felt dirty. Ashamed of himself. The whole concept of the selection included dating 35 women at once, but the...grossness had never really set in until now.

It made no sense.

Why were celebrities ripped apart in the papers for cheating on their girlfriends, yet people were applauding him dating 35 times that amount. People were thirsting over the news, waiting for any tidbit of who he preferred.

The whole idea was disgusting when you really stopped to think about it.

Still, there was a time and a place for deep philosophical thoughts, and it most certainly wasn't now. He'd save these musings for his dark bedroom, for those minutes between him closing his eyes and actually falling asleep. That time was usually preoccupied with him trying to count all the tiles in the wall opposite his bed, but he'd make an exception for tonight.

Maybe in an effort to make himself seem as little less "I was kissing someone else 10 minutes before this." Luke changed into a white button down shirt and a pair of khaki pants. More preppy than he would usually choose, but he was having some major inner turmoil right now. At least white was supposed to represent innocence. That was something.

Luke made his way to Sam's room, after asking a kind maid for directions (Look, maybe it had been two and a half months, but he still was't the best at remembering stuff. Especially rooms.) Her hallway was mostly deserted. The rooms were assigned by province in alphabetical order. The closest one to Clermont was Angeles, meaning that Quinn's room was seven doors down. It must get lonely, but he knew that moving rooms would be a major undertaking. It was easier to leave the girls where they were, even if it meant that they were isolated from each other.

Luke really hoped that they knew it wasn't intentional. It was just bad luck on their parts, not an attempt to pit them against each other.

He should probably mention that. He didn't want any of them to think that it was just to further the competition. Yeah, he'd say something about that at dinner today, just to make sure that it was clear. The only question was how he would work it into the conversation.

Luke rapped on Sam's door, her maid coming to answer. "She's ready, Your Highness." The maid informed him, curtsying quickly. Nodding at the woman, Luke pushed past her into Sam's room.

All the guest rooms in the palace were beautiful, elegant, refined...tasteful. Sam's was no exception. It was luxurious. Somehow though, despite the lavishness and extravagance the room contained, Luke doubted it looked that way when Sam first moved in.

For one, Luke was sure that no standard room in the palace would be painted in such a garish shade of pink. The brightness was almost blinding. She must have been one of the first selected in decades to take the palace up on the offer to repaint. When she moved out of this room, whether it to be to a mansion in Angeles or back to Clermont, some interior designers were going to have a job stripping and repainting the room. In its current pink state, they couldn't very well put any guests into it.

Any guests over the age of seven that was.

"I picked out the color myself." Sam piped up, disturbing Luke from his thoughts.

Of course she had. Luke nodded. "I...it's a bold color." Luke said as a way of an answer. He wasn't entirely sure he could say that he liked it while keeping a straight face.

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Sam seemed impervious to his neutral words. "I know." She stated proudly. "That's why I chose it. I think it makes a nice contrast with the bed." She pointed to the king-sized bed, Luke winced as he took it in. The bed was as bright as the walls, only instead of being pink it was a horrid shade of yellow. This girl needed some decorating help. How could someone with such good fashion taste pick out such terrible decor?

Some of life's many unanswered mysteries.

Luke didn't say anything in response to the bed, he wouldn't be able to make it through the sentence without laughing. "Are you ready to go?" Luke asked, surveying Sam's appearance.

Her lush dark hair had been curled and put into a braided sort of bun. Luke was sure there was an actual name for the hairstyle, but he didn't know what it was. He never really paid attention to girl stuff like that. Sam was, surprise surprise, wearing a pink romper. The romper was made out of gauzy material with heart patterns on the bodice and ruffled sleeves. Where Luke was wearing high-end sneakers for the trip to an outdoor mall, Sam had opted for a ridiculously high pair of pink velvet heels. She carried a white shoulder bag with a gold logo in the center. Luke didn't recognize the brand, but he assumed that it was some new designer. Sam seemed like the type of person to have connections to the hottest new designers and collections.

"Can Farrah come?" Sam asked quickly. Luke was about to ask why before it dawned on him that she was talking about dog-Farah. Not Farrah-Farrah.

At the sound of hers-sorry, his- name, the small chihuahua let out a series of high-pitched yips. Wincing, Luke put a hand to his ear as Sam bent closer to the pup, feeding him some snack out of her palm. Without waiting for Luke's answer she fastened a pink leash to the dog's collar, looking at him expectantly.

With no choice left in the matter, Luke said "Sure, whatever." Personally, he wouldn't have wanted the dog to come, but what can you do?

"Great. Farrah loves shopping!"

Luke wasn't exactly positive that his parents would be okay with him spending taxpayer's money on Sam's dog, that wouldn't look too good when the financial records were released at the end of the quarter. Pursing his lips, Luke said "Yeah. We'll see."

"I think we're going to get this boy a nice new pair of shoes." Sam cooed. For a moment Luke thought that she was talking about him, but she was clearly talking to the chihuahua. Raising his eyebrows, Luke took in the dog. It was already dressed in a blue polo shirt and a pair of dog-sneakers. Sam had even put a golden necklace over the dog's pink collar. He really did pity that poor puppy, Luke wasn't an expert on dogs by any means, but he was fairly confident that they didn't particularly like being dressed up to go everywhere.

Luke, Sam, the two guards plus the dog made their way down to the town car waiting in front of the palace. Any more people and it couldn't be called a date. Already Luke felt that the crowd surrounding him was stifling, adding a puppy that he only sorta liked to the mix didn't really help matters.

"Where are we going again?" Sam asked, pushing a pair of designer sunglasses (definitely not provided by the palace) onto her dark, shiny hair.

"The Leaf." Luke told her. "It's a-"

"I know what the Leaf is silly!" Sam exclaimed. "It's a shopping paradise. My sister, Beatrice, always says that she loves going here. Of course she travels a lot more than I do, but still, I've gone there plenty of times on my family's private jet."

Luke smiles politely at her rambling, only half-paying attention. Who the heck had a private jet? Well, obviously Luke did. And probably most companies. That's besides the point though, the bigger question was who threw it into a conversation so naturally. As if everyone had a private jet.

"What do you think?" Sam asked him.

What? Luke stuttered, starting a few different sentences before saying "It's cool." He had no idea what she was talking about, but his answer would probably be a satisfactory answer to most of her discussion topics. Especially since they all seemed to center around her bag or shoes.

Unfortunately, in this rare instance Sam hadn't been talking about her bag or shoes. "Huh?" She asked. "I asked you what your favorite bag is?" She corrected him.

Luke had two options here. Admit he wasn't listening or dig himself further into his hole.

He went with the second one.

"Yeah. I know." Luke chuckled nervously. "They're a new brand. I got it as a...special favor...from the designer." He managed to get out.

"I've never heard of it." Sam said. Instead of sounding suspicious, she sounded sad that she had missed out on some hot new company. That is, she would have if the company had actually existed. "Can you put me in touch with the designer?" She asked hopefully.

Seeing as the company didn't exist, probably not. "I'll see what I can do." Luke promised. "He's a very...private person."

Great.

Now, not only did he have to finish his selection, he had to get someone to make a new fashion label, name it It's Cool, AND have them make nice bags. God this was going to be a lot of work. He should probably start calling the Angeles Institute of Fashion when he gets back to the palace. See if he could bribe any of their students into helping him.

"Maybe my sister can get me a bag from them!" Sam chimed hopefully. Her dark eyes were shining with the promise of an exclusive, limited-access new bag that her sister would provide.

Somehow, Luke doubted that even Beatrice Young would be able to pull that off.

"Here we are." Sam announced nearly fifteen minutes later. Luke pursed his lips, biting the inside of his cheek to keep quiet. Usually Luke would be the one to say that, but she beat him to it. Plus, she probably knew the outdoor mall better than he did anyway.

"Yeah, this is it." Luke confirmed, looking out the window. Mall was the wrong word to describe the plaza. Set in one of the wealthiest parts of suburban Angeles, Stores lined the sides of a street meant for walking on. Red brick decorated the pathways, lush, perfectly manicured flower beds and topiaries dotted around the place. The glass-fronted stores were the nicest that money could buy. Almost every luxury brand (Except for It's Cool, since it, ya know, didn't exist yet) could be purchased on this block. An ice cream bar, cafe, and two fancy restaurants rounded out the shopping center's offerings. Well-dressed shoppers carrying bags with varying logos on them weaved between the stores.

It seemed that Farrah wasn't going to be the only dog present, many other pooches were trotting behind their owners, or, more commonly, hitching a ride in their expensive tote bags.

What was it with rich people and dogs?

They probably liked having something to spoil, Luke reasoned in his head. After all, what was Sam going to do with her billions of dollars in inheritance. At least she could put it to a semi-good purpose.

Luke said semi-good because he sincerely doubted that a dog actually needed an entire wardrobe complete with miniature bags and hair-well, fur- scarves.

"Do you come here often?" Sam asked as Luke helped her out of the car.

"I guess. Mostly it's just for lunch at one of the restaurants though. The country isn't exactly on board with me spending hundreds of dollars on some new shoes." Luke told her. Almost on cue, Sam glanced towards Luke's shoes. They were a pair of plain white canvas sneakers, nice and functional, but probably nothing that Sam would ever touch. It wasn't that Luke didn't like the expensive, bright, showy shoes, of course he did, these were just more sensible for his day to day wear and as an added bonus, wouldn't result in riots over how much he spent.

"That explains them." Understanding blossomed on Sam's face. "I was wondering why you would choose those things." She threw a disgusted look at the shoes.

"They're not bad." Luke protested.

"They're not good either." Sam insisted. She stuck out her leg, showing off her heels "Now these? These are what you call shoes."

"They're also what you call a waste of money." Luke comments lightly, looking at the ridiculously high heels. How did girls even walk in them?

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, genuine confusion filling her features. "They were only like $1,300. I thought it was a good deal."

Now here was some irony. Luke had never thought that he would have to explain to someone that spending over a thousand dollars on shoes was ridiculous, especially since he was so often on the receiving end of those lectures.

"Nothing." Luke said. He wasn't sure he actually could deliver one of those stupid lectures.

Sam shrugged, moving past the incident so fast that she would make a guidance counselor weep. "Can we go in there?" She asked pointing towards a store a few feet away from them. The letters above it spelled out Evolve in white marble.

"Sure." Luke agreed.

"They have one of these stores in Miami. I love it so much." Sam said excitedly.

"Is Miami nice?" Luke asked curiously. "I hear it has great beaches."

"I love, love, love Miami. I wish I could stay there year-round but I have school. You will not believe how cold it gets in Waverly. The door to my car got frozen shut one time! I had to take the bus to class. It was horrible." Sam complained loudly.

"The bus? Was it really that bad?" Luke asked. He personally had never been on public transportation, but from movies it didn't look that gross.

"I had to figure out how to use a MetroCard. You should really make them less complicated. It took me four tries to get it to work."

"I'll make sure to pass that onto the governor next time I see him." Luke promised.

"Thanks! I have some more suggestions about it, so make sure to add me to the email chain." Sam told him. Did she really not know he was joking? Just because Samantha Young, who couldn't make the MetroCard work her first time ever on the bus didn't like them, it didn't mean that the government was going to spend millions of dollars revamping the system.

"I'll keep that in mind." Luke said, pressing his lips together to keep from laughing at Sam's clueless expression.

"I'm sorry Miss, but dogs aren't allowed in the store." A young saleswoman told them as they entered.

"Oh." Sam's face started to screw up in sadness, for a moment Luke was worried that she might start to cry.

Intervening quickly, Luke turned to the woman. "Perhaps we could make an exception just this once." Though it was framed as a question, Luke's words were really an order. He didn't flaunt his title often, but it came in handy sometimes.

"We don't-" The woman's eyes landed on Luke's face, a flicker of recognition flashing through them. "Oh, Your Highness. I'm so sorry..I didn't...Let me speak to my manager." She stuttered, obviously overwhelmed by his presence.

An older woman came out to meet them. She curtsied before assuring the pair of them that dog-Farrah was allowed in the store. Luke had expected nothing less, the strings you could pull when you're royalty were incredible. Sam started to thank them, while Luke just smiled his appreciation towards the kind gesture.

"Perfect. That's going to be-oh my God! I love that skirt!" Sam squealed, running over to a mannequin wearing a black top and a sheer white skirt with lace detailing. "Luke, what do you think?" She asked, looking for his approval.

"It's nice." He offered.

"Well, I adore it. Isn't it cute?" She exclaimed, happily taking the skirt off the rack.

Luke didn't know what constituted a skirt as cute or not, so he just shrugged. 'Sure." He said agreeably. If Sam thought it was cute, then it probably was.

"I'm going to wear it with- oooooooh. Look, look! That shirt is amazing." Sam rushed over to a baby pink top with rhinestones around the neck. Her attention in the skirt was all but lost, even as she held it in her arms. Picking through the rack, she turned to Luke. "Do you think I should get it in pastel pink or in magenta?" She held up the two options.

Luke squinted at them, hoping that action would make the difference between the two colors more apartments. They were just a few shades off from each other. Sighing, he pointed to the one that he thought was pastel pink. "That one." He said.

"It's perfect!" Sam clapped her hands together in delight. "Those shorts! I need new paperbag shorts." She went over to another display, this one holding various pairs of jean shorts. Luke wasn't exactly sure what the term paperbag shorts meant, but judging by the pairs Sam was lovingly pursuing, they seemed to have a ruffle at the top.

"Light wash or acid wash?" She asked Luke for his opinion again, causing him to sigh. She didn't wait for a response. "You know what, I think I'll try on both." She added the shorts to her already teetering pile of clothes.

"This shirt is the best thing ever!" Sam grabbed another shirt, it looked almost identical to the one she was already carrying.

"Aren't you already getting that?" Luke asked, glancing at it.

"No, silly! This one is a boat-neck, the other is a v-neck. They're very different." Sam assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Oh. If you say so." Luke said lightly. He was barely suppressing the urge to roll his eyes, he didn't think he could tell Sam how much he loved it.

"I don't know. Maybe I should get it in blue…" Sam's voice trailed off as she stared at the blouse

"Yeah. Maybe." Luke commented. "I'm going to go sit over there." he said, jerking his thumb towards a white circular couch in the middle of the store.

"Okay." Sam said distractedly. She seemed utterly nonplussed that she had lost his attention during a date. She was wholly focused on her shopping, whereas Luke was wholly bored.

Luke went over to sit on the couch, one of the guards trailing after him. Sam seemed just as content to show Farrah the clothes as she was to show Luke. He was that easily replaceable? Luke liked to think that he gave better advice than a puppy who couldn't talk, but maybe not. "Why do girls like clothes so much?" Luke asked his guard.

"I'm not sure, Your Highness." The officer said.

Sam went from display to display, her attention never being held by one item for long. Still, by the time she decided to go try on the clothes, she was nearly staggering under the sheer amount of fabric present in her arms. Luke recalled a sign that said you were only allowed to try on three items at once, but the associates must have decided to forgo it in this case.

As Sam tried on her clothes, Luke looked through his phone. He wanted to see the Instapic page of the girl who starred in the film that he and Esme had watched together. Luke had gone through over two hundred of her posts before Sam came back, holding six tissue-stuffed shopping bags.

"Oh, I would have paid." Luke told her, feeling bad.

"It was pretty cheap. I think the total was only like seven hundred." Sam said, shrugging as she replaced her Lamey black card in her pink wallet.

Jeez. Someone really needed to teach this girl the definition of cheap. "Where to next?" Luke asked, taking the bags from her arms.

"Thanks. I wanted to go to Mine Farm. I think they got some new neck scarves in. I want a petunia chiffon triangle one." Sam told him. Luke knew what all those words meant separately, but when she combined them like that he was clueless as to what they meant. Why was the world of fashion so confusing.

"That sounds nice." Luke agreed reluctantly.

Shopping with Sam was a test on Luke's patience. If he hadn't prided himself on staying calm, he probably would have claimed a stomach ache in order to get to lunch quicker. At this rate they were going to practically be having dinner. Luke's rumbling stomach protested as Sam skipped from store to store, spending hours deciding what to buy, dumping the bags in Luke's arms and then moving on to the next boutique. Not to mention he had to talk the dog's way into every store they passed.

Luke didn't know how much she spent today, and he really didn't want to. It was better to have plausible deniability when he returned to the palace.

By the time they had exhausted Bella Crown, Morr-Overr, LN17-30, Daffodils, and countless other stores (Luke hadn't bothered looking at the names after a while) he tentatively suggested that they go get lunch. Well, at this point to would be more linner (since it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner.

"Okay!" Sam agreed. "I'm starving."

For someone who said she was starving, Sam certainly didn't eat a lot at their meal. Luke supposed that she still must be on her diet. He got penne alla vodka, whereas Sam decided to go for a small salad with dressing on the side. She didn't even get any chicken or tofu added on top of it. When Luke ordered them a slice of chocolate cake for dessert, Sam picked at it before busying herself giving small treats to Farrah under the table.

The ride home to the palace was quieter than it had been on the way there. The only sound was Sam speaking in a baby voice to her dog and Luke occasionally interjecting something.

"Uh, Sam." Luke said once they stepped back into the palace.

'Yeah?" She asked expectantly. "Oh, I just realized you didn't get anything."

"I didn't want anything." Luke waved his hand quickly. "I really don't think we're going to work out." He told her, looking at the floor.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked.

Oh God, was she really going to make him spell this out for her? "I...I don't think we'd be a good match." Luke paused for a second, waiting for Sam to comprehend what he was saying. When she didn't he sighed, continuing his speech, "I'm eliminating you from my selection."

"Oh." Sam's bottom lip pouted as she took in the news. "Why?"

What did he say? No girl had ever asked for an explanation for her elimination before, and Luke couldn't very well say that he didn't like her very much. Plus, he dad was kinda important. He had to tread lightly with this one. "I don't think that you and I would be a great couple. We both have people we're meant to be with, and there's no sense in trying to make this last." That was a good answer, right? Nothing to mean, nothing to give her hope.

Of course there was also no substance, but Luke didn't think Sam was entirely smart enough to pick up on that.

"No one's ever rejected me before." Sam said. Her voice sounded hollow. Her lips started to tremble as a tear ran down her cheek. "I don't want to go home."

"I'm sorry," Luke said, ducking his head.

"No, you're not.' She was crying harder now, her arms crossed in front of her chest. "You don't need to lie about that."

Luke didn't have time to consider the truth to her argument. He just muttered a quick apology and made his way back to his room. He couldn't deal with a crying girl today. He just had too much on his plate, besides, he and Sam would be an awful match. Even she had to realize that.

Well, at least he didn't have to construct a fashion company.

A/N: I'm so sorry about how late this chapter was. I had preseason for debate and I didn't have time to finish it. So we say goodbye to our dear Samantha. I loved writing her obliviousness, but she just wasn't going to be marrying Luke, and he would never say it, but Luke thought she was a major idiot :D

Joke: What did the left eye say to the right eye?

Between us something smells.