Once And For All

umm.. message me if you’re interested & we can start a little discord or like tumblr ooc chat for those that don’t have discord!

i love all of you so much, please keep up with me @lizadoesrph or my discord.. which idk how it works but i’ll add you if you so wish!

again.. i love y’all.. this is the first group where i was really friends with everyone instead of just one person. so thank you, this really felt like a family to me & i’m not ready to let zeph & ace go quite yet...

she smiled at him as he offered to model for her. “i’d love that – and in exchange for your services as a model, i could buy you a truly disgustingly greasy new york style pizza from an american restaurant i found a few days ago. sound good ?” lana smirked at him as he vehemently denied being involved with emma. she knew him, and she knew that there was a lot more to the story than what he was telling her. “of course i will.” she agreed, and winked at him. honestly, first chance she got, she was probably going to do exactly that – but not exactly for modeling. “they can be.” lana admitted with a chuckle. she was close with the cromwells, but even she could agree with that statement. as zephyr pulled out his phone and lana read the post, she was honestly in disbelief. in fact, she giggled when she read that. “no, no way. he wouldn’t do that to me.” even though he would, and he had. “mel is definitely lying, that didn’t happen.” she blocked the phone and gave it ( shoved it ) back to him. “no. i told him i loved him right before i went to take care of you, and i just – no. lip is a lot of things but he wouldn’t do me like that.” still, lana knew that mel was trustworthy. and zephyr loved her, he wouldn’t just tell her a lie like that if he didn’t trust there was some truth behind it. “would he ?” the facade of her denial was coming down fast. it made sense. she remembered that there had been a girl walking out of the ball next to him who’d vanished after lip ran into her arms, not to mention that he had been acting weird the morning after. and the way he’d looked at her that morning had been different, it was a look with an emotion that no one had ever given her before, and now she was able to recognize – it had been pity. she felt her eyes water and her bottom lip begin to quiver. “would he ??” she repeated, looking into zeph’s eyes, praying this was just some rumor.

      "i think you’re a great model, and maybe i should start to use you as my model again.” she suggested with a laugh. “oh ! are you and emma, like, a thing ?” lana loved zephyr, that was a fact known by both of them, and she was always going to love him. she loved him so much she would’ve been happy to hear that he was seeing someone again, regardless of the mess that her own love life was about to become. at the end of the day, lana just wanted zephyr to be happy – be it with her, or with somebody else. “i did. i feel terrible about it, he was really nervous about his aunt and uncle being at the party.” and then he said he’d found a way to make himself busy. “what ?” lana asked, confused. “no, i don’t read her blog. i like her, but i don’t really read her blog. why ? was something in there ?” poor little baby bird – she had no idea she was about to get violently pushed out of the safety of her little nest of blissful ignorance.

A blush appeared on her cheeks as she took the sunflowers from his grip and it was hard to hide this time as she wore no makeup on the way down, she knew it would just smudge on the train plus the two were going out later on that night so Emma hardly wanted to do her makeup twice in one day. “I thought you might have been busy last minute..– How did you remember these were my favourites?” She asked, gesturing to her sunflowers with a teasing grin replacing her shy smile from before. It wasn’t that she didn’t have faith in Zephyr not showing up but more like she didn’t want to get her hopes up just in case the plans fell through. Yet now she knew that she was silly to even consider that possibility. 

Seeing Zephyr this time around felt different. This time around Emma knew how she felt about him and now she could admire his looks without having to justify her reasons why. The longer she took in his appearance, the more butterflies she felt in her stomach and how he made her heartbeat increase made her wonder how he did it without even realising. It didn’t help that he made the effort to even buy her favourite flowers either. 

“The trip was great. It took me longer than I thought to convince my parents to let me stay at Ashcroft though…they wanted to remove me straight away when I told them about the knife incident at the last event. That’s why I left so sudden,” Emma answered him, the two falling into step together to walk outside where the ubers pull by and collect customers. It was crazy how hard Emma fought to stay at Ashcroft and how she was more scared of losing Zephyr than a murderer running around. That’s why they must say love makes you blind, right? “How was your week then? Must have been boring without me, of course.” Emma joked, not meaning it so seriously but ( secretly ) hoping that his week without her made him miss her just as she missed him. 

there was a sense of pride that filled him when he noticed the blush on her cheeks -- although he pushed the thought out of his brain.  they were friends -- very good friends.  and zephyr knew if he tried anything that he would only ruin that.  “never too busy for you.” he said, biting his lip for a split second as he gave her a grin.  he quickly turned towards the exit, however, “oh, it was only a lucky guess.  I almost went and picked wildflowers if i’m going to be honest.” he grinned, glancing over at her as he grabbed his phone out of his pocket, checking to see if their uber was even close.  ( to his relief, it was. )

“you told them about the knife? oof, that was your first mistake.” but zephyr never understood that.  the need for parents to protect their children -- or the loyalty that came from a child to their parents.  he never grew up with it, and that was one of the feelings he almost envied when it came to anyone else.  because no matter how hard their lives had seemed, at least they had a home to go home to.  maybe zephyr’s feelings like this won’t last long as the thoughts of the adoption idea ran through his head.  his attention was pulled immediately back to emma as she began to talk again.  

it was hard finding out emma had just gone, not too many words had been spoken between the two since the masquerade party -- just their small disagreement ( more like emma scolding zephyr and him begging her to not be mad at him. ) his bruises were almost all since gone from then, his rib still ached but it was something he could more or less ignore. “oh it was the worst, absolutely nothing happened.  you wouldn’t even believe me if i told you that it was the most boring week.” he started dramatically, checking his phone again to double check that the car pulled in front of them was in fact theirs.  he lunged forward to open the door for her with a friendly grin.  “who knew we needed a ms. emma woods here to make things bearable.”

     lana smiled melancholically at him. “yeah you were. and those were always my favorites.” she turned off the camera and looked at him. the young girl was happy to see him again, even though it made her a little nervous to be around him after their little confessional at the party. “no, it’s okay. i know that it wasn’t an ill intentioned question at all.” she said with a light shrug. “no, i haven’t. i mean, we did talk about some things, but i didn’t tell him about… y'know, our talk. i just… i don’t know, i don’t think it’s his business what i talk about with you. but i do feel guilty about just ditching him out there without an explanation. do you think i should tell him ?”

lip: you don't tell me what i like or what i don't like.

lip: what makes you think i'm going to take orders from you too?

zephyr: ooh scary, what happened in your childhood to make you not like authority?

zephyr: you have daddy issues or something?