tourniquet, luke hughes

three

When I woke up, I immediately felt how chapped my lips were, how the light from my blinds was hurting my eyes, and how my head was throbbing.

When I reached to my left I searched for my phone beside me, until I could hear notifications coming from the floor. I wiped my eyes, and saw it laying face down.

When I turned it over I scrolled through all of my notifications, which were still going off.

Audrey
hey im going to stay with alex,
i saw you made it home!
wanna know all the deets
when i get home
love you!!

im heading home now,
be there in 15!!

I turned off my phone, and remembered what happened last night. I groaned to myself at the thought of even talking to Luke last night.

When I got out of my bed to head to the bathroom, I saw a note on my bedside table.

"Ads, I had to leave. I left some headache medicine and water on your island because I know you get headaches after drinking. Call me please, I wanna talk more XXX-XXX-XXXX - Luke," it read.

"What is my life even," I said under my breathe finally making my way to the bathroom.

While washing my face, I noticed my makeup had been taken off from the night before.

When I finished up, I heard the front door open.

"Addie! Where are you, I have so much to tell you!"

I walked out of the bathroom, and was met with Audrey in an oversized shirt and her holding her clothes from the night before.

"Looks like you had a fun night," I said giggling.

"Oh shut up, it's not like that," she said while signaling to her outfit.

"Can we please go lay in my bed, I'm so tired. I was up all night," She said while already dropping all her stuff on the couch and heading to her room.

"Oh I bet you were, I'll be right there."

She chuckled while opening the door to her room. I walked up to the island, where I found a glass of water and the medicine Luke said he had left.

I took the medicine without hesitation, and headed to Audrey's room.

When I walked in she was already laying in her bed waiting for our debrief.

While I jumped on the bed, she started clapping, "I need to know all the details with Luke girl."

"Nothing happened, we just came back here, watched a movie, talked, and he put me to sleep," I purposely left out the details, since even I was still processing what happened last night.

"Now tell me what happened with you and Alex," I said while hitting her lightly.

"After we left the bar, we talked and we walked to his apartment. We stayed there for a while and we literally stayed up all night, just talking. Addie, I really like him," she said while genuinely smiling.

Audrey had her fair share of boyfriends and hookups, but she never really wanted anything too serious with them. She always thought we were too young to be thinking about settling down.

"Audrey, you deserve this so much, if you think he's a good guy, you should hang out with him more"

"I know, I know, but you also know about my commitment issues."

"You don't have to make a commitment with him, keep it casual. We're young, we have a long time to settle down. If you like him, see him. Who cares," I said trying to reassure her.

"You need to say that to yourself missy, I could hear your overthinking from the bathroom when I walked in."

This made me get up from her bed, "That's my queue to get ready for the day, and let you get your rest."

While I was walking out of her room she started shouted, "Don't deny yourself happiness Addie!"

I scoffed and continued into my room, to grab my phone. I looked at the note at my phone and copied the number from the note Luke left me.

Adelaide
hey, this is
adelaide

I turned off my phone immediately after sending it, deciding to protect my peace.

I hadn't really planned to do anything today, but I need to do something to get everything off my mind. Deciding to just get hit two birds with one stone, I got ready to head to Trader Joe's.

"Audrey, I'm going to Trader Joe's text me if you need anything!" I said while shutting the down and started walking to the elevator.

I purposely brought my noise cancelling headphones because I really did not feel like talking to anyone while out.

The walk to the grocery store wasn't long, but I decided to go the long way.

When I finally arrived, to the sound of emails i can't send by Sabrina Carpenter, I grabbed a cart.

I went through my mental list of everything I needed and found myself inspecting the different types of jams.

Until, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. When I turned around I was met with the face of another Hughes brother.

I took off my headphone, "Huggy? Well aren't I the luckiest to be running in to all the Hughes brothers this week!" I said being completely serious.

"Oh so that's the reason why Luke was so distressed this morning. Addie, I've missed you! How have you been?"

"You've had my number, but I have more important questions. What are you doing here?"

"Nothing much, just hockey stuff going on. I'm playing Jack and Luke's team later this week, decided to head down early to spend some time with them."

"Awe that's fun, I remember you guys used to talk about playing on the same NHL team all the time," no matter how I felt about the trio, a part of me had no choice to feel incredibly proud of each of them for making their dreams come true.

"I know you might not want to, but would you wanna come? I know my mom got a box for the night, you already know all my family, and not to mention we'd all love you there," He said hopefully.

"Well maybe, just got to see if I'm busy that day," knowing I'm almost certain I'm free.

"Speaking of being free, I know you're shopping, but do you wanna get a coffee or lunch? Just to catch up," He said while pointing to her full cart of things.

"Yeah definitely."

Some time later I found myself catching up with Quinn inside one of my favorite local coffee shops, while sipping an Iced Matcha Latte.

"You know he misses you, right?" Quinn after we had caught up about our lives the past few years, and reprimanded him for not reaching out to me.

"Who?"

"You know who I'm talking about Addie. Every time mom mentions you his mood is ruined for the day, he wants to talk to you."

"Well, if he wanted to talk to me he would've texted me back. Honestly, he could've just said that he didn't want to have contact with me anymore, but no. He went out of his way to ignore me."

"You know he was in love with you right?" He looks at me as if I was stupid.

"He wasn't Quinn, this whole thing with him being in love with me stupid. If he was in love with me why would he just never talk to me again?"

"Because he's Luke and he doesn't know how to show how he feels." ౨ৎ