First//Luke Hemmings

Chapter 9

For the first time in my life, I walked into physics class excited. I hadn’t talked to Luke since Saturday, and I was looking forward to seeing him. I was glad to have him as a friend, because to be honest I was running out of people to force to watch movies with me. Jack, Heather, and Holden had all seen my favorite movies multiple times, and it was time to have a new victim. I sat down in my desk and smiled at Luke.

Luke looked up from his book and smiled at me.

“What’re you reading?” I asked, trying to get a peak at his book.

“The Great Gatsby,” Luke replied, lifting his book to show me the cover.

“That’s one of my favorites,” I laughed, pulling out my own beaten up copy from my backpack.

“Your lip looks better,” Luke whispered, leaning in closer to me.

The weekend had allowed for a scab to form on my lip, which I easily covered up with some lip-gloss this morning. My bruises though were another story. The deep purple had faded to this disgusting yellow shade that I hid with the sleeves of my sweater.

“I’m glad that you’re okay,” Luke said, patting my hand.

Just when I was going to reply Mr. Davies walked into the room, and started the class.

☆☆☆

“So Holden said you ran off with Hemmings?” Heather asked, leaning in closer to me.

I took a bite of my sandwich.

“Yeah he took me home,” I replied casually.

“Well why did you leave? The party was just getting started,” Heather said, raising her eyebrows.

I stopped eating and thought about how I should answer the question. I didn’t want to tell Heather the real reason, since she was possibly the biggest gossip in the entire school.

“Some ass wipe spilled beer down the front of my dress, so I needed to get home and change,” I replied shrugging my shoulders.

“Oh looks here comes your new boyfriend now,” Heather said, pointing to the entrance of the cafeteria. Luke was standing awkwardly with a tray, with Ashton standing next to him.

Luke made eye contact with me and waved. I smiled back and waved as well.

“His friend’s hot,” Heather whispered to me.

I turned and glared at Heather as Luke and Ashton walked over to my table.

“Hey Zoey, we should work on our project this weekend, since we’ve kind of been blowing it off,” Luke said, nervously glancing at me.

“Uh yeah sure. How about Friday after school? We can’t do it at my house since my mom is back,” I said.

“Its fine, we can do it at mine,” Luke replied, scratching his neck.

“Alright,” I said smiling at him.

Luke nodded and walked away brining Ashton with him.

“You think his friend is single?” Heather asked giggling.

“Ugh shut up,” I said with her with a smile.

☆☆☆

I walked out of English class on Friday and headed to my locker. As I turned the corner, I saw Luke leaning against my locker. I smiled at him as I approached. He smiled back, moving out of the way so that I could unlock my locker.

“I figured I would just drive us to my house now if that’s alright with you?” Luke asked, looking at me nervously.

“Sounds good,” I said, shutting my locker.

Luke and I walked out of the school together and over to the parking lot. Luke unlocked the car and held the door open for me. I slid in and he shut the door, walking around to his side of the car and getting in. As we drove out of the school Luke turned on the radio, blasting Miss Atomic Bomb by The Killers.

“Oh I love this song, turn it up,” I said to Luke.

“The Killers are amazing,” Luke replied as he turned up the music.

As Luke drove to his house we hummed the song together and laughed at each other’s attempts to sing the chorus. All to quickly, the car ride ended, and Luke pulled into his driveway. Luke quickly hopped out of the car and ran around to open my door. I smiled at him as I stepped out, and we made our way to his house.

Luke swung open his front door, holding it open for me so that I could walk in.

“Dad I’m home,” Luke called out. “And Zoey is here for our project,” he added, looking over at me.

“Oh the famous Zoey,” a deep voice said.

Luke and I walked to the living room where Luke’s dad was sitting. His dad didn’t look much like him except he was exceptionally tall.

I stuck out my hand, “Pleasure to meet you Mr. Hemmings,” I said with a smile.

Luke’s dad shook my hand and said “I feel like I’ve known you forever. Luke seems to always be talking about you-“

“Dad.” Luke said sternly, glaring at his dad.

“We’ll be working in my room,” Luke said, grabbing my arm and pulling me away from his dad.

“He seemed nice,” I said to Luke, ignoring his dads comment about him.

“Embarrassing is what he is,” Luke chuckled, holding the door to his room open.

I tentatively stepped in, looking around the space. His room was painted a dark blue, and had no decorations on the wall. His room was very plain, except on one side there was a huge floor to ceiling bookshelf.

“Wow,” I gasped, my fingers lingering over the titles.

Luke cleared his throat. “We should get to work,” he said from the doorway, gesturing over to his bed.

☆☆☆

 After an hour of working, we had started to make some progress. We had actually chosen a topic for the project, and we were just now starting to research it. I was sitting cross-legged on Luke’s bed, a textbook in my lap. I was reading feverishly, trying to understand the difficult topics. My hair was covering my face but I was too focused in the book to try and fix it.

“Zoey, how can you even see?” Luke asked looking up at me.

I looked up at him, attempting to see him through the veil of my hair.

“Here,” Luke said, reaching forward and tucking a strand of my red hair behind my ear.

His hand lingered at the side of my face as he looked into my eyes. I sat perfectly still as Luke ever so slowly started to lean in. I couldn’t breath or break eye contact with him, because I didn’t want to ruin this moment. Luke’s pink lips were almost an inch away from mine, his hot breath washing over me. My heart started to beat quickly, I felt like it was going to leap out of my chest.

Suddenly the door to Luke’s bedroom opened, and Luke shot away from me.

“Zoey will you be staying for dinner?” Luke’s dad asked, looking from his son to me.

I let out the breath I was holding. “No, I should actually head home,” I said, hastily grabbing my backpack off of the floor and stuffing my things inside.

“I can drive you home,” Luke said, getting off the bed.

“No, I can just catch the bus,” I replied, walking out of the room.

Luke followed me to the front door and held it open for me.

I stepped out and turned to look at him.

“See you on Monday Hemmings,” I said.

And with that I turned and walked away, not waiting to hear his reply.

a.n//

sorry i took forever to update,  but i'm on vacation. luke's dad though what a cock-block