when we collide ✰ l.h.

Chapter 27

"Luke." I groaned, running my tongue over my bottom lip from where he had just been. I reached out for the picture and he turned his back to me to keep me from grabbing it. I kicked the back of his knee, getting his attention as he nearly toppled to the ground.

"I hate when you do that." He muttered, running a free hand through his hair.

"And I hate when you take sneaky pictures of me." I pulled the polaroid out of his hand and shook it carefully a few more times, watching as it was halfway developed. Luke walked closer to me, peering over my shoulder and down at the shot of us kissing.

"Aww." He cooed into my ear, placing a kiss against the side of my cheek. "How cute." He took it back out of my hands and walked to my bed, picking up the other pictures that laid there. He went to my bulletin board and pressed a thumbtack through all of them, adjusting the so they were straight.

"Are you ready yet?" His head fell to the side, his eyes trailing my body. I inhaled deeply, sighing as my breath left my lips. I nodded once, giving him an assuring smile.

-

I paced around my house in search for Luke, weaving through the sea of people. I stopped once I caught a glimpse of his blonde hair peaking through a few familiar heads and I had found him at one side of a ping pong table that was brought up from my basement and was about to toss the plastic ball into a cup full of God knows what. I pushed through the crowd, Luke instantly spotting me.

"Hey, Aut-" I grabbed the front of his shirt and dragged him to the back of my kitchen, people whistling and cheering at us even though my intentions were the opposite of what they were thinking.

"This is not the 'thirty or so' people you said were coming." I let go of his shirt, but kept my distance close, quietly scolding him.

"Relax, Autumn." He laughed, raising a hand to push my hair from my face which I easily dodged. I glanced over to my back door, seeing the same smoke flow through the air as it as for the past hour.

"There are people smoking joints on my back deck."

"Maybe you need one." He mumbled as he took a sip from his cup.

"No!" I shouted, glaring at him. "'Relax, Autumn.'" I scoffed, putting his words in air quotes. "Have you been smoking?" I put emphasis on the word you, making sure to get my point across that I wasn't happy with the turnout. Half as many people here would've been a lot better.

"No, not at all. I don't even do drugs and you know that." He shook his head quickly as he furrowed his eyebrows at me, then his expression falling soft. I sighed, looking around my house, losing count of how many cups were on the floor and tables.

"It's 11 now, there are probably a hundred people in and outside of my house. After midnight people will start to scatter, right?" My tone turned easy, not wanting to get worked up over something I was supposed to be enjoying. Catching up with old friends was great and having a drink or two was even better, but when strangers started piling in with more booze, I wasn't too sure how to feel.

"That's usually how it goes." He assured. I nodded once and felt him slip his hand into mine. "Come on." He said and started pulling us away from the kitchen.

"Where are we going?" I asked him, or more the back of his head.

"Your room." He answered smoothly.

"What if there's people in there?" I nudged closer to him as we continued walking.

"That stuff only happens in movies, come on." He repeated his words and started to pull me up the stairs, both of us saying hi to the people on the steps with lingering eyes on us.