count on me (l.h)

"let me try again"

"No," I told him with a shake of my head. "I'm already up, though, so there's no reason to go back to bed. I'll be quick." I pressed my lips against Luke's cheek before throwing the comforter off me and getting out of bed.

"Hey," Luke said as he sat up in bed. "This isn't how I expected our morning to go."

"What do you mean?" I asked as I turned around to look at him.

"You're upset about something. The last thing I wanted was to spoil your first morning here. I thought we'd share some cute conversation—"

"Luke, I'm not upset," I told him through a tired laugh as I walked around the bed and sat down by his side. "Besides... this is our first morning here," I said, kind of sad, before looking away from him. "You seemed a lot more excited to be part of all this yesterday."

"What? Oh, Jos, I don't want to make it seem like I'm not excited. It's just important to me that you feel confident and happy about this being your place. I'm not trying to separate myself," Luke said, now seeming to understand why I was slightly down. "I just don't want you to ever get to a point where you're completely relying on my presence."

"Well, it's a good thing I'm not even close to completely relying on you," I said through a huff, feeling offended as he spoke. I knew I was taking things more personally than I normally would, but I couldn't seem to help it. I had pushed myself back up and off the bed—I had a plan to get myself out of the room so neither of us could make the situation worse, especially when it was so pointless.

"Jos, I'm saying all the wrong things," Luke said, throwing the comforter off his legs and preparing to follow after me. "But I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm sorry." I turned around to look at Luke again and I could tell he was genuinely upset with himself; which I didn't want. "Let me try again, okay? I don't want you to ever stop feeling as though you can rely on me because I'll always be here for you, but I just feel it's important to deflect you from so strictly associating happiness with me being here and unhappiness with me not being here. But if either of us relies too much on the other, I'm the one relying too much on you."

"Lu," I spoke quietly, trying to nicely stop him from continuing as I stepped toward him and placed my hands on his cheeks. He had gotten off the bed at this point and had made his way closer to me. "I understand what you're trying to say, okay? I promise I do. And I'm sorry for sounding hateful. You haven't spoiled anything—we'll try all this again once I'm out of the shower and not in such a poor mood."

"Okay," Luke said, still sounding disappointed. "I'm sorry if I made you mad... I don't know what to do to make mad Josie happy again, and I feel lousy."

I stood on my tiptoes before pressing my lips against Luke's for a short moment. He kissed back for as long as I let him, and we both shared tired smiles as we pulled away. "I'm not mad. But the day we actually have a fight... count me out," I said through a quiet laugh, which prompted Luke to do the same. "I'll be quick, okay? I'll be right back." Luke nodded his head before leaning down and kissing me again, which caused me to smile. We pulled away and Luke turned to go back to bed as I left the room to go to the bathroom that was next door.

As promised, my shower didn't last long. Just long enough to feel refreshed; just as I had hoped. In just a towel, I walked back into the bedroom to see Luke in the process of making the bed. I stopped in my tracks and raised an eyebrow at him, waiting patiently before he finally turned to look at me.

"You're that worried that I'm upset with you?" I joked which caused him to snicker as his eyes playfully rolled. I walked up to him and stepped on my tiptoes as I kissed his cheek. "You know, it's a shame—I was hoping we'd make up for being too tired to get up to anything last night." As soon as the words left my mouth, Luke's eyebrow arched. "But I guess we'll just go make some breakfast and start our day."