Fall.

Chapter 4.

The next few days were extremely difficult in terms of Luke and I. He wasn't speaking to me, and I wasn't trying very hard to talk to him either. I ddn't understand why he got so upset at me the other day. I didn't really say anything wrong, I simply told the truth. Luke was just overreacting, that's all.

Although I wasn't very upset about Luke not talking to me anymore, I was upset that he wasn't tutoring me. We usually met at the library on Tuesday afternoons and this week he didn't even bother to show up. The only reason why I was so mad about this was becuase I had a test next week and I really needed Luke's help. If Luke didn't help me get my grade up by the end of the year I'd have to take geometry for a third time and as much as I told Luke that didn't bother me, it did.

It was now Friday afternoon, and I was at my locker packing up my things for the weekend. It didn't have a lot of plans for the next couple days, probably just hanging out with Michael and maybe Ashton. Unless Luke decided to show up Saturday afternoon I had nothing set.

"Stel." A voice interrupted me from my thoughts. There was only one possibility of who was trying to talk to me. I turned around and faced Luke.

"What do you want?" I sighed, slamming my locker shut behind me.

"Do you want to come to the movie theater with me?" Luke asked, not even bothering to apologize for the way he acted last weekend.

"Like, to see a movie?" I questioned. I wasn't sure if I liked the idea of Luke and I going to a movie together.

"No, I have to work." Luke rolled his eyes at me, like he couldn't believe that I had forgotten that he worked there again.

"Oh, right." I said, remembering. "Then why do you want me to come?"

"Well.. I just.. It's usually not that busy right after school and I was thinking that maybe I could just help you study while we're there. I mean, you don't have to come.. I just feel kind of bad for blowing you off on Tuesday." Luke shifted his weight back and forth on his feet.

I guess this was as close to an apology as I could get out of Luke, but I accepted it anyway. "Sure."

"Oh, uh, cool. Let's go." Luke nodded and turned around. He began to make his way down the crowded hallway, I followed. Since he towered over most of the students, it wasn't hard to keep track of him.

"Hey, Stella!" I stopped walking when I heard my name being called. I looked to the side to find Ashton at his locker with a few of his other senior friends.

"Hey!" I walked over to where Ashton was standing. I already had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I hadn't talked to Ashton all week, mostly because of what Luke and Michael said about him liking me. I was just too nervous around him to say anything.

"What's up?" Ashton asked, leaning against his locker. He gave me a big smile and bit down on his bottom lip, a look of his that always made me speechless. One by one, his other friends said something to excuse themselves, leaving Ashton and I alone.

"Nothing really, I was just-"

"Stel, what the hell? I thought you were following me!" Luke appeared at my side before I could finish what I was saying. I hated when he did that, I could hardly ever talk to anyone without Luke interrupting me.

"I stopped to talk to Ashton." I glared at Luke, silently trying to tell him to just leave me alone.

"Well," Luke said in a very annoyed tone, dragging out the end of the word. "I have to be at work in 30 minutes. We don't have time for you to stop and talk to random people."

"Ashton isn't a random person." I said, continuing to glare at Luke.

"If you guys have to go somewhere, that's fine, I'll just-" Ashton hurried to pick up his backpack off the floor. I don't blame him for wanting to get away from us, if I was in his shoes I would too.

"No!" I yelled, then lowered my voice again. "Ashton, hang on a second."

I grabbed Luke by the shoulder and pulled him closer to me, dropping him down to my height. Luke put a stupid smile on his face and raised his eyebrows, as if he was waiting for me to yell at him.

"Can you please just give me a minute with him?" I begged.

"I have to get to work." Luke shook his head. He grabbed onto my hand that was holding onto his shoulder and dropped it, freeing himself from my grasp.

"Luke." I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Stel." Luke copied my actions, and crossed his own arms.

"Give me, like, two minutes." I said, and walked away from Luke. I didn't care if he left me at this point.

"Sorry," I apologized, returning to Ashton. "Luke needs to go to work and I'm going with him so he's getting kind of annoyed."

Ashton looked up from his phone, where he was tapping away furiously. He shook his head, flicking stray hairs out of his eyes. "Really? What are you going to do there?"

"I'm just going to do my homework and he's going to help me out. Luke sort of ditched me on Tuesday when we were supposed to study so I guess this is how he's making up for that." I shrugged. I tried not to let Ashton - or Luke - see just how nervous I was.

"Oh, right. Michael mentioned something about you and Luke not talking. Are you guys cool now?" Ashton asked, nodding over to Luke who was impatiently tapping his foot on the ground.

"Yeah," I took quick glance at Luke and turned around again. "I guess."

"Well, that's-"

"Stel." Luke cleared his throat behind me. I decided not to argue with him anymore, he was clearly too anxious right now.

"Go, Stella. It's fine." Ashton pointed to Luke.

"I'm sorry-" Ashton cut me off.

"It's okay, really. I'll text you later tonight." Ashton laughed, and I felt my cheeks get red at the thought of texting Ashton. Even though we had talked outside of school before, something felt a little different this time.

"Alright, I'm sorry, again." I bit my lip.

"Don't worry about it, Stella." Ashton laughed again and pulled me in for a hug. "I'll see you later!"

"Bye!" I called over my shoulder as I hurried back over to Luke.

"Jesus, Stel. That felt like way longer than two minutes." Luke scolded me, making a clicking sound with his mouth. He pulled a beanie and some sunglasses out of his backpack and put them both on.

"Shut up." I said harshly, smacking Luke's chest.

"Ow." Luke whined as he rubbed the spot I had hit.

"Why do you have to be such a dick all the time?" I questioned. Luke didn't answer, he just shrugged. I shook my head at him. "I can't stand you."

"Seriously? You can't stand me?" Luke looked at me like I was crazy. He removed his sunglasses so he could get a better look at me. After staring at me for a few seconds, he put them back on.

"When you do stuff like that, I can't!" I waved my hands in the air, referring to what Luke just pulled with Ashton.

"Oh, please. That's not even a big deal, Stel. Ashton was fine with it anyway." Luke grabbed my arm and dragged me after him. Apparently I wasn't walking fast enough.

"You don't know that! What if he had something important to say?" I yelled. We were outside of the school now. The movie theater was close enough that we could walk and it would only take about 10 minutes.

Even though I was walking faster now, Luke continued to hold on to my arm. I couldn't tell if he had just forgotten he was holding me or if he wanted to make sure I didn't get lost in the crowds of people walking around us. Michael did that a lot when we were out together, I guess it's just a natural instinct for some guys.

"I doubt that he did." Luke scoffed. "He never has anything important to say."

"Why do you hate Ashton so much? He's never done anything to you!" I understood that Luke wasn't a people person, but it seemed like he really disliked Ashton, and I couldn't figure out why.

"What are you talking about? I hate everyone, that's why I hate him." Luke replied. I didn't believe him. I was sure that there was something else that Luke didn't like about Ashton.

"That didn't even make any sense." I stared at Luke as we walked, no longer paying attention to what was around me.

Less than a second later Luke pulled me closer to him and loosely wrapped his arms around my back. I was startled at first, as I thought that Luke was hugging me. But once Luke let go of me, I realized what had actually happened. Since I was so busy staring at Luke, I hadn't noticed that two huge guys were coming out of a nearby store carrying a big box. If Luke hadn't moved me, I would have run straight into them.

"Thanks." I mumbled quietly. Even though Luke was just looking out for me like anyone else would have done, it still felt strange.

"Uh, no problem." Luke said, acting just as awkward as I was. "What were you saying?"

"I was saying that what you said didn't make much sense." I pulled my jacket tighter around my body as the wind blew into us.

Luke sighed, "Stel, I don't-"

"Why do you have to call me that? I've told you not to a million times!" I interrupted. I knew that I had told myself I wasn't going to bother with correcting Luke anymore, but I was really getting sick of it now. If he was going to call me that I at least wanted to know what reason he had behind it.

"Tell me why it bothers you so much first." Luke looked at me and smirked.

"Well, it bothers me because I like to be called Stella and I told you to call me that, not Stel." I looked down at Luke's hand, that was still clutching onto my arm.

"I like Stel." Luke said, then bit his lip. "The name, I mean."

"I don't." I tried to look down at our feet as we walked rather than up at Luke. This way I could concentrate on not running into anything - or anyone - else.

"You let your brother call you Stel." Luke shrugged.

"I told you, that's different." I groaned. "I don't like nicknames, okay?"

"Well I think I deserve to have a nickname for you." Luke stopped me from walking any further. With all the talking that I had been doing, I hadn't realized that we were now at the movie theater.

"Why?" I asked. Luke held the door open for me as we walked inside the building, away from the harsh wind outside.

"I.. I just do." Luke lead me over to the cash registers, where Michael and I saw Luke working the last time we were here. Calum was already there, talking to an old woman about joining the movie theaters rewards club.

"Are you sure that it's alright that I hang out here?" I decided to change the subject now that we were inside. I didn't really want to have an argument with Luke when he was supposed to be working.

"Yeah, it's fine. My boss won't even come out of her office, and even if she does she won't care. Cal comes here and sits with me when he's not scheduled for work all the time." Luke dragged a stool out from behind the counter and pointed to it, telling me to sit down.

"I just don't want you to get in trouble." I said hesitantly and sat down. Calum slowly walked over to us, looking like he was just waiting for one of us to start screaming at the other.

"You don't need to worry about me getting in trouble." Luke took his beanie off and shoved it back in his backpack. "Hey, Calum? You remember Stel, right?" Luke turned to Calum.

"Yeah, I do. Hi, Stella." Calum gave me a small wave. He put an emphasis my name and looked at Luke, like he knew that I didn't like being called Stel.

"I'm gonna go put my uniform on, can you sit with her for a sec?" Luke asked Calum. I hated the way that Luke sometimes treated me like such a baby, like I couldn't handle anything on my own. I didn't need Calum to sit and babysit for me while Luke got changed. I'm 17 years old, perfectly capable of looking after myself.

"Sure?" Calum responded in a questioning ton. It sounded like he didn't quite understand why he needed to watch me either.

Luke nodded and pat Calum on the back. He picked up his backpack off the floor and opened a door behind the counter, disappearing into what I assumed was a back room of some sort.

"He treats me like I'm some kind of.. pet." I sighed, putting my head in my hands.

Luke was beginning to get so hard to figure out, I could hardly stand it any longer. I absolutely hated the way that he acted like he was too cool to have any friends, yet whenever I tried to leave him alone he seemed to chase after me like he needs me. And then he gets so protective over me, and acted like I needed him. He either cared too much, or not at all. There wasn't an in between for Luke.

"I think he just cares about you." Calum shrugged.

"He doesn't do a very good job at showing it." I rolled my eyes.

"Well, he has trouble with that kind of stuff, you know?" Calum said, leaning up against the counter. Luke was right, the theater was slow at this time of day. It wasn't a huge surprise, no one really went to go see a movie at 4:00 on a Friday.

"Yeah, I know." I said, remembering the discussion Luke and I had in the library about a week ago.

"He's a weird guy at first, but the more you hang around with him the more he'll want to open up to you." Calum shook his head and fixed the hair on top of his head.

"I'm back." Luke popped up behind me, startling me so I fell off the stool and onto the ground.

He had changed from his black pullover sweatshirt into a red button up, that still had half of the buttons undone and was untucked. From my spot on the ground, I watched Luke as he buttoned up his shirt while staring down at me. I hated to admit this to myself, but lately it had become harder and harder for me to deny how attractive Luke was, especially when he wore the color red.

"You alright?" Luke smirked. Calum held out his hand to me and helped me up as Luke finished tucking in his shirt.

"You scared me." I laughed nervously.

"Well I didn't try to." Luke said, giving me a small laugh in return.

"Sure." I said sarcastically.

"Just sit down and do your homework." Luke waved me away and took his spot at the cash register.

After about an hour of me doing my homework and Luke and Calum talking about various different things, I was starting to get hungry. When I told Luke, though, he just laughed at me.

"There's popcorn, lots of popcorn." He nodded in the direction of the concessions counter.

"Jesus, Luke. Not everyone can live off popcorn the way you do." Calum slapped the back of Luke's head. "Here, I'll order a pizza. I'm hungry too."

"Thanks." I scowled at Luke.

Calum pulled his phone out of his pocket and began dialing the number to the pizza place. He obviously had ordered from there enough to know the number by heart. "Is pepperoni okay? That's my favorite."

"Yeah, it's fine. I'll eat any kind of pizza." I laughed.

"Can you make it half cheese?" Luke asked. I always forgot that Luke didn't eat meat. I still didn't understand how he did it, there were so many good foods with meat in them that he had to avoid.

"No, I think I'm going to order you your own Meat Lovers special. With extra sausage." Calum laughed. He put the phone up to his ear.

"Shit, sausage is my least favorite, please don't!" Luke begged. He jumped up from his own stool and grabbed the phone from Calum. He held up the phone to his own ear and ordered the pizza that he had requested in the first place, half cheese half pepperoni.

"Won't your boss get mad if you order a pizza here?" I asked. "I had a job at Subway last year, and I got fired because my manager found out I always ordered takeout instead of eating from Subway."

Luke laughed in a mean and sarcastic way. "No, we won't get in trouble. We do it all the time."

Shortly after, our pizza arrived. The three of us sat and ate and talked together. Even though Luke was still quite moody and sarcastic, he acted differently when he was around Calum. They must have known each other for a while, I could tell by the way Luke seemed so comfortable around Calum.

At around 9:00, Luke's shift was over. We packed up our stuff, said bye to Calum and left. I was surprisingly happy with how tonight turned out. Luke was a lot more friendly that usual, which was a nice change. When I went to get on the subway, I expected Luke to turn the opposite way and go to his own house, but he didn't.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I have to go this way." Luke shrugged. I knew it was a lie, but I didn't bother saying anything.

"Are you still going to come over tomorrow at the normal time?" I kicked at the ground with my feet as I walked. Ashton had texted me earlier and asked if him and Michael could come over tomorrow, but we both knew that Luke would be there until around 3:00.

"If you want me to." Luke shrugged.

"Well, obviously I want you to." I laughed. Luke shoved his hands in his front pockets and smiled at the ground.

"Cool." He nodded. "Stel?"

"Yes?" I looked up at Luke. We were on the subway now, and luckily we had found seats next to each other.

"I didn't actually have to go this way." He bit down on the inside of his cheek. I didn't know if it was a nervous habit of his or if he just did that when he was bored, but he chewed on the inside of his cheek a lot. I kind of like the fact that I noticed it, I like knowing things about people that not many others see.

"I know." I tried my best not to laugh. I couldn't believe that Luke actually thought that I thought he was going somewhere else before going home.

"Cool." Luke repeated, "Stel?"

"Yes, Luke?" I groaned. He seemed so talkative suddenly.

"I'm sorry for the way I acted last Sunday, after I slept over." Luke sighed. He hung his head low, looking down at his thumbs as he twirled them around each other. I tried to tell him that it was fine, that I forgave him, but he continued to talk. "I was just really stressed out and I had a headache and I didn't mean to blow up like that, sorry."

"Why were you so stressed out?" I asked, but I already knew the answer.

"My mom." Luke lowered his voice for the sake of the other people on the train. "She's really strict about me studying, maintaining my grades and all that. I told her that I was going out and she freaked out on me, so I went out anyway. I just wish that she could see that I don't really need to be inside studying all day."

"So you went out and got drunk to prove a point to your mom?" I tried to clarify, mostly for myself rather than Luke.

"Honestly, I was going to just go straight to your apartment, but I made a stop or two along the way." Luke shrugged. I chose to ignore his comment about wanting to come straight to my house and asked another question instead.

"So is this why you don't really have fun? Because your mom doesn't let you?"

"Well, no. I still don't really like to make friends or go out a lot. It's just the way she treats me, like she'll only love me if I get good grades and get into a great college." Luke sighed.

"I'm-" Luke cut me off.

"Don't." Luke paused. "Don't say that you feel sorry for me. I wasn't really looking for your sympathy."

"Okay, fine." I threw my hands up to surrender.

Luke spoke after a few minutes. "Sorry."

"It's fine." This is exactly what I didn't like about Luke. Whenever he and I started to have an actual conversation with each other he had to go and make a comment like that, which totally shut down anything that was being built between us.

When we got to my apartment building, Luke insisted on riding up the elevator with me, yet he still didn't say a word to me until we got out. We approached the front door, where I could already hear Eric inside with whatever idiot friends he had brought home tonight. I began to mentally plan what the rest of my night would consist of.

"I'll see you tomorrow." I quickly waved at Luke while I dug my keys out of my backpack.

"Yeah. Bye, Stella." Luke returned the wave and dug his hands into his pockets again. He spun around on his heals and began walking down the hallway. It took me a few seconds to realize what he had just called me.

"Luke, wait!" I called after him. I dropped my backpack onto the carpeted and ran down the hallway to catch up with Luke.

"What?" Luke asked, almost harshly.

"You called me Stella." I laughed softly at myself, stating the obvious.

"That's your name, isn't it?" Luke snapped.

"I think I like it when you call me Stel." I said, playing with the sleeves of my jacket as I talked. I hadn't noticed just how used to Luke calling me Stel I was until he decided not to call me by that.

"That's just going to make me want to call you Stella even more now." Luke bit back a smile.

"Then I'll call you Lucas." I smirked.

"That's not even my name," Luke paused. "Stel." Luke's lips broke into a full smile, and I felt a warmness fill my body at the familiar sound of him calling his nickname for me.

"Whatever you say, Lucas." I laughed and began to slowly back away from him.

"Stop it." Luke groaned.

"Bye, Lucas!" I giggled.

"Goodnight, Stel!" Luke yelled and turned back around and practically skipped down the rest of the hallway.





This took me like four years to write oh my god

Oh and one more thing! Do you guys ship Stashton or Stuke more? I've seen a few comments about both ships but I'm just wondering what you all think!