"Have you decided yet?" I asked, bouncing up and down slightly on the diving board. We were in the pool room at Luke's house for what seemed like the first time in forever, just for some fun. Luke had been really stressed out lately and it was my idea to come in here even though Luke hadn't jumped in yet.
"I'm working on it." Luke said quietly from where he was sitting at the edge of the pool. He tugged on the sleeves of his sweatshirt and pulling them over his hands. When I came over with my bathing suit Luke agreed and put his on as well, but he didn't take off the sweatshirt. Of course I knew why, I just didn't want to make a big deal about it right now.
"How long do you have?" I finally jumped in the water and swam over to Luke, who smiled softly as I swam up to him.
"A few more weeks." Luke shrugged. He reached down and moved a piece of hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ear.
"I would try to give you advice, but you already know what I'm going to say." I laughed. Luke had been back and forth about going to college for the past two weeks now, and I was trying to encourage him as much as I could. I knew that deep down Luke really wanted to go, no matter how much he denied it.
"I know babe, I know." Luke nodded. He gestured for me to come sit next to him, helping me up as I climbed up the side of the pool. He wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me into him and leaving a lingering kiss on my temple.
"Why are you holding me so close? I'm going to get you all wet." I giggled, trying to pull away from Luke. He kept his arms tightly lock around me, pressing my against his body.
"Because you're my girlfriend." Luke laughed, leaning in and kissing me on the cheek. "And I love you."
"Stop it." I whined, still attempting to squirm out of Luke's grasp.
"You stop it." Luke retorted. He stopped me from squirming around in his arms by quickly placing his lips on mine, shutting me up.
Luke loosened up his grip on me, giving me room to move around a little more as I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck. His lips sloppily worked against mine, leaving slow, lazy, kisses while I tangled my fingers in his hair. Luke's hands trailed down my sides until he got to my hips, and he then tugged my body closer to his. I ran my hand down from the back of Luke's neck to his chest to his thigh, where I finally let it rest while we continued to kiss.
"Stel," Luke muttered, but I ignored him. "Stel, babe."
"What is it?" I pouted, finally pulling away. He looked down at the pocket of his sweatshirt, a faint buzzing noise coming from it.
"My phone's ringing." Luke laughed, sending me an apologetic look before pulling the phone out and answering it. "Hello?"
I let myself lay back on the floor, my feet still dangling in the water. I covered my face with my hands as Luke kept talking on the phone to whoever it was that had called. I figured that it was his mom, she had left the house a few hours ago and told Luke that she would call later.
"Yeah, whatever's easier. I don't think I'll eat any, but if you want to pick one up then that's fine." Luke said, chewing at his lip ring. "They left a message on the house phone... We moved it to Sunday at four because I need to go in and meet with that lady from the school."
It was definitely his mom that he was talking to, there wasn't anyone else that Luke would want to sit and discuss all his meetings and appointments with. I had learned in the short time that I had known Luke's mom - or Liz, as she insisted I called her - is that she practically lived for meetings. She had a career that involved a lot of meetings herself, so I'm sure that she loved planning these things for Luke.
I had determined that Luke's mom wasn't all that bad anymore. I really believe that she had gotten better, just like Luke had. She didn't hit Luke anymore, at least that's what Luke had told me. I trusted him, though, and I know that he would tell me if something was wrong again. I think the two of them were going through a bit of a rough patch before, but things were getting to be okay for them again. Luke and his mom were really the only family the two of them had left at this point, they were going to get through this.
"Uh huh." Luke continued, "Can you pick up my prescription on your way home tonight? I called over there earlier and told them I ran out again, yet said they'd have it ready around dinner time."
I sat up and smiled to myself, happy that Luke was taking his medication again. No matter what Luke said, it was really helping him out. I knew that he didn't like to take it, but it was what was best for him and everyone else around him. It kept things normal.
"Okay, bye mom. I'll see you later tonight." Luke said, finally hanging up the phone. He turned to me, giving me a cheesy smile. "I'm sorry, that was my mom. You know how she likes to act like my personal assistant sometimes." Luke chuckled.
"It's fine. It's kind of cute, actually, how she likes to keep you all organized like that." I laughed.
"I guess." Luke shrugged.
"Did you ever find out where she went that one night?" I asked, referring to when Luke called me over here a few weeks ago. He had mentioned that his mom was gone, but I never found out what he meant by that. Within the next couple days she was back, acting like nothing had ever happened.
"No, and it doesn't really matter now. I had been freaking out like that all day, she probably just needed a little break from me." Luke chuckled softly, splashing at the water with his feet.
"Things with her are better now, right?" I asked, just to make sure.
"I think so, yeah." Luke nodded. "I mean, she had been that way for two and a half years, but I think her finding me passed out on the bathroom floor scared her out of it."
I nodded, not able to find the right words to say.
"I don't think she ever expected to have to call 911 because her son tried commuting suicide." Luke went on, his voice cracking a little. This was a touchy subject for Luke, both his mom and his past suicide attempts. We had never spoken about this before, how Luke thought his mom felt about all of this. I knew why, though, because Luke's mom and him wanting to kill himself were two things that he rarely ever wanted to talk about in the first place, and putting them together almost made it worse.
"Luke," I sighed. I reached out and grabbed his hand, lacing our fingers together.
"Don't worry about me, babe, I'm okay now, remember? Everything's going to be okay." Luke gave me a wide smile, his light blue eyes sparkling.
"I know," I smiled, leaning my head on Luke's shoulder. "I just want you to be happy, that's all."
"I'm very happy, when you're around at least. You've always been able to bring out the best in me, Stel. Ever since I met you." Luke said quietly. He wrapped an arm around my waist from behind and closed the space between us, bringing me into his side.
"You're so sappy, Lucas." I rolled my eyes at him, even though he couldn't see me at the moment.
"Stella Anne, how many times am I going to have to tell you that my name isn't actually Lucas?" He chuckled beside me.
"Only a million." I shrugged.
Luke laughed one more time before finally standing up again, holding out his hands to help me to my feet as well. "Okay, then I'll just have to spend the rest of my life reminding you."
-
"You know what we haven't done in, like, forever?" Luke whispered, pulling the covers tighter around his body, trying to steal some away from me.
"Gotten super wasted and made out on Ashton's bed?" I joked, saying one of the first things that popped into my head. I had just happened to be thinking about that night when Luke spoke, and I couldn't resist reminding Luke about it.
"You know, you're right." Luke laughed sarcastically, sitting up. "We haven't made out in Ashton's bed in a while, let's go to his house right now and ask to borrow it for the right."
"Oh, shut up." I rolled my eyes at him, grabbing hold of his shoulder and pulling him back down on the bed again.
"Speaking of getting wasted, I'm technically not allowed to anymore anyways." Luke mumbled, flipping around on the bed until he found a comfortable position to lay in again.
"Wow, I never thought I'd see the day where Luke Hemmings gives up alcohol. This is historic. Where's my phone, I need to write it down in my calendar." I joked. I rolled over and tried to crawl out of bed, but Luke's arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me back.
"Shut up." Luke groaned, turning over to face me. "I told you before, I could get kicked out of college if I go overboard with the drinking, so that therapist said it's better to just stop."
"So you're actually thinking about going?" I asked.
"I don't know, I guess it would be pretty cool. It would be a fresh start, which is something that everyone's saying I need. I mean, I would miss you a lot but I think we could make it work, right?" Luke rambled on, not sure when to stop himself.
"It's not like you'll be gone forever, though. We can call each other and Skype and you can come back for winter break again and we can go on another date to see the ball drop on New Years." I laughed quietly, getting excited for it already.
"And you'll have to update me daily on Calum and Michael's relationship." Luke added. "I swear the two of them are dating behind our backs."
"I know! Did you hear the way Michael was talking about Calum at lunch the other day?" I giggled. Luke and I loved to tease Michael and Calum about their little bromance, even though the two of them insisted that they were strictly platonic. I wasn't so sure, though.
"The kid's totally whipped." Luke said, trying not to talk too loud. "It wouldn't surprise me if they've actually hooked up once - or twice."
"We can double date." I shrugged, holding back another laugh.
"We practically do that already! They always play footsie under the table with each other." Luke let a small giggle escape his lips and quickly covered his mouth, ashamed at the noise he had made.
"Stop it!" I said in between laughs, gently slapping Luke on the chest. "You're making me laugh too much, we're going to wake up your mom."
"She won't hear anything. It's like she's in a whole other world when she's asleep, we could scream as loud as we could and she probably wouldn't do anything." Luke shook his head.
"Let's not take that risk, I'd rather not get yelled at tonight." I said, finally calming myself down.
"Anyway, what I was saying before we got so off topic was that we haven't studied for geometry in a while. You have finals coming up." Luke said, completely killing the mood.
"Really?" I asked, "That whole time you wanted to talk about geometry?"
"I was just trying to think ahead! I want you to pass that final." Luke defended himself, holding his hands up in the air in surrender.
"Are you going to have me make flash cards or something?" I asked, unamused. Michael and I always used to make fun of kids that studied with flash cards, but I had a feeling that Luke was one of them.
"Flash cards work!" He protested, his face twisting into a slight scowl.
"You are such a nerd." I laughed, shaking my head at him.
"But I'm a cool nerd, right?" Luke asked.
"Nope." I sighed, rolling over onto my back again, letting Luke's arms fold around me.
"I'm one of those hot nerds that no one finds attractive until he takes off his glasses and does his hair differently, right?" Luke insisted, not dropping this like I thought he would.
"You don't wear glasses." I sighed.
"I could get some. My brother used to need them, I bet there's a pair in all his old stuff in the attic." Luke said, trying to get up out of bed. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back, suddenly too tired to be playing around with Luke right now. It was late, I didn't know why Luke was suddenly so energetic.
"Why are you so hyper? It's, like, 3 AM." I groaned.
"I'm happy, Stel, I'm happy." Luke smiled. He adjusted the sleeves of his shirt again that had shifted while he was rolling around before finally laying down once more, seeming to have relaxed just a little.
"You're such a goofball. Go to sleep." I let out another big sigh and pulled the blankets up around me again, trying to use up as much of the covers as possible just to annoy Luke.
"I can't make any promises, but I'll try." Luke laughed softly, leaning down and kissing me on the forehead. He repositioned himself so his arms were around me once again and my head was resting on his chest, finally quieting down.
"Goodnight." I whispered, giving in letting my eyes close.
"'Night, Stel. Love you." Luke mumbled, quickly drifting off to sleep as well. Before I knew it he was out, obviously worn out from all that fidgeting a few minutes ago.
"I love you." I whispered. I fell asleep soon after that, the only thought in my head how grateful I was to have someone like Luke in my life.
SUPER SHORT AND CHEESY AND FLUFFY UPDATE IM SORRY.
I really just wanted to show how Stella and Luke act together in a relationship and kind of update on how Luke was doing, so I guess you could call this a filler¿?
this fanfic is actually ending soon so I'm deciding to gradually ease out of it if you feel me. I hope you guys all liked this, sorry for making you wait so long!!