Alex and Luke; A 'Julie and the Phantoms' AU

Part 5: The "Fake" Date

"What?" Luke questions. Alex starts talking again, subtly beginning to panic at his own outburst. "I mean, do you want to go on another... uh... date, sometime? Because, y'know, uh, I don't know we had a lot of fun last night and, well, let's face it I could still use more dating experience, and, maybe you'll learn more about who you want to be with, and just, more about yourself in general? Maybe? So, uh, yea... second..." he stalls a second before picking back up, "...date?"

Alex's knee is convulsing now he's bouncing it so fast. Luke moves his gaze from Alex's face to his knee. Alex copies, his eyes going from Luke's face to his own leg. He wants to stop it, but he can't. Luke looks back at Alex's face, and can tell he is now hyperfocusing on getting his leg to stop, but ultimately failing. Luke slowly moves his arm to put his hand on Alex's knee and applies a lot of pressure to get it to stop moving. Alex keeps staring at his knee, now with Luke's hand on it, for a brief moment before moving his eyes to quickly scan Luke's arm and then back at his face. Luke raises his eyebrows at the boy, silently asking him if he's okay.

"Thank you." Alex says with a strained voice as a blush starts to make itself present in his cheeks. Luke slowly takes his hand off of his friend's knee, making sure it doesn't start bouncing again.

Luke squints his eyes a bit at Alex. He has the feeling that there might be something more behind this second date offer but pushes that inclination away before it can alter his response. He puts his hand back on Alex's knee, this time out of comfort, then gives his answer, "I'd love to. I kinda wanted to go on another one, too, I just... I didn't think you'd want to because of how scared you were when I asked you on the first one."

"I wasn't scared." Alex defends, his own tone of voice not entirely believing him.

Luke's face drops, giving Alex a look. "Dude, are you kidding me? You spent the first 20 minutes of our time together watching our backs like we were America's Most Wanted." The two share a light laugh at the memory.

Alex sits up and turns so that he is facing Luke on the couch. "You really wanna go out a second time, though? You can say no, okay? I'll get it." Alex says offering Luke a chance to change his mind, even though deep down he really hopes he doesn't. Luke smiles and shakes his head.

"Oh my- Yes! Okay, I want to. I'm not just saying that, I mean it." Luke is nearly shouting, trying to get it through Alex's head that he's serious and not just humoring him. Alex finally relaxes, his heart rate finally starting to come down to a normal pace again.

"Okay, good, because, um, I was thinking about this place that-" Alex starts to go into the location he was thinking of when Luke cuts him off.

"Oh, you already have plans thought of? Aww, how cute!" Luke says, both mocking and slightly flirting.

"I'm going to ignore that comment and keep going." Alex says. "I was thinking about this place that we haven't been to in a while. The huge arcade downtown? We haven't been there in months, we should go back." Alex sees the skepticism on Luke's face. "What?" he asks.

"You do know the reason we haven't been back in months is because last time we were there we got kicked out for being too loud and competitive, right?" Luke reminds Alex.

"Um, correction," Alex says, holding up a finger in front of him, "Reggie was being too loud and competitive. The only reason all of us got kicked out was because he told the security to grab us and Bobby, too, because he, quote, 'refused to go to prison alone.'" The story makes Luke crack up.

"You're right! You're right!" Luke says through a fit of giggles. "Who knew skeeball could get so aggressive?" He takes a breath then looks at Alex again. "Okay, fine: arcade it is. You wanna go like, tonight?" Luke offers.