GOLDEN, luke hemmings

XXXVIII: AWKWARD SITUATIONS AND BAD ADDICTIONS

chapter thirty-eight; awkward situations and bad addictions

Luke woke up to the sound of running water.

Darkness engulfed him, not even the moonlight being enough to aid him in seeing two feet in front of him, Ava having turned off the lamp while he slept in her bed. He found that she had taken it upon herself to lay the blanket over him and make sure that it covered his entire body in her cold bedroom, even though her bed was not made for someone more than six feet tall.

After pushing the blanket off of him, still not knowing when Ava had gotten up and left considering that they fell asleep together, wrapped in each other's arms, he attempted to reach over and turn on the lamp without breaking anything. His hands grasped at nothing in the dark, and he realised how stupid he was being and just grabbed his phone from his back pocket. Using the flashlight, he flickered on the lamp and put away his phone, letting his eyes adjust as they winced.

The yellow illumination flooded the room and he took the time to just sit there is post-nap ecstasy, the feeling of being refreshed enough that you're finally awake, but still slightly tired enough that you don't know what day it is and want to continue napping. It was now a quarter to eight o'clock and he was still at Ava's. Honestly, he had expected it to be much later, but it seems that the most unreasonable thing woke him up. Running water.

How was it that he slept soundly enough for Ava to get up and leave, but once he heard the soft pitter pattering noise, wherever it was coming from, he jolted awake? Unbelievable.

He heard the water stop and then he heard a door open and close a few minutes later, a squeaking noise catching his attention. Soon, Ava walked into the room, a towel clutched tightly to her body as she used another towel to dry her short hair.

She hadn't noticed that Luke was awake immediately, she was too concerned with drying her thick hair in the inexplicable freezing temperatures of her room before the dripping water froze into icicles. But when she did, she jumped, a gasp escaping her mouth. She widened her eyes and choked on her spit, coughing violently after, her panic almost making her drop to the floor. She clutched the towel keeping her covered up even tighter.

"I am so sorry! Oh my God," Luke blurted out, only watching as the scene unfolded before him, and he averted his eyes so he didn't see anything (even though a part of him secretly wanted to).

This was not how he wanted to see Ava naked for the first time.

When her coughing fit had ended, Luke not sure whether he should laugh or throw his hands over his eyes, she quickly scrambled to her underwear drawer, facing away from him as she tried to get a panty and bra so she wouldn't be there standing completely exposed, if you didn't count the towel. Though her back was turned to him, she would periodically glance back at him, a ruffled and shaken look clearly plastered onto her face, and she finally pulled out some undergarments.

"Uh, um," Ava squeaked out, lifting one hand carefully as she made a spinning motion with her finger. "Please, turn around."

"Yes! Yeah, of course. I'll go do that now." Luke obeyed without hesitating, his heart beating so loud he was fearful that the neighbors from room 304 would make a noise complaint. His heart was palpitating like he had just gotten shot at.

He heard her towel drop to the floor and had he not been sitting down, his knees would've buckled. He fought hard to keep all the dirty thoughts out of his mind right now, dirty thoughts he knew weren't requited, but his imagination was going wild, sprinting from picture to picture. He didn't think he'd ever get that image of Ava in towel out of his head.

Ava, from behind him, was trying to put on clothes faster than she ever had in her life, and that was counting the one time where she was fifteen minutes late to school and didn't have a clean uniform. She slipped on the underwear she grabbed, and she had done it so blindly that she hadn't seen what it was until it was on.