Chapter Twenty-Three
It's finally the holidays, yay! Well, the school bell had just rung, and every single student bolted out of the classrooms in large groups, running around shouting 'good-byes' to each other. I honestly don't get why some people act as if it's the last day of the year, when we're only going to be away for two weeks, that's half a month. I'm sure someone will throw some wicked party, and then we'll all be reunited sometime over the Easter Holidays.
Speaking of reuniting, Luke is walking towards me now, we haven't seen each other all day, our class timetables have been changed, ready for next term and this week as been the first week of working in that timetable.
I now have double English period 5 and 6 on Tuesdays, Period 1 on Wednesday, Period 4 on Thursday and Period 2 on Mondays, so all days of the week besides Fridays.
Luke smiled at me, holding onto the straps of his backpack, while pulling his piercing between his teeth. He looks up at me, then stares back down at the ground before wrapping his arms around me, suffocating me in his recently sprayed cologne. I know because when I spray a perfume on me, it's really strong at first then after a few minutes the smell get's the slightest bit weaker, and sorta stays like that, well Luke's cologne smells really strong, it could have been that recently sprayed it on, or he just has a really strong cologne on.
"Hey." Luke says, his voice sound raspy, and dry. He usually has this loud, clear voice but today it seems to be...croaky. Maybe he's coming down with something?
"Hey?" I slowly say, furrowing my eyebrows. He usually greets me, and just about the rest of the human population with a simple 'Hi', not 'Hello' or 'Hey'. Him not saying 'Hi' is just so out of the ordinary, I find it so weird. Since I'm so use to him saying 'Hi'.
"Hi." He says, smiling. He rolls his eyes afterwards, obviously saying 'Hi' to please me.
He sniffles, before running his hand through his hair, something I haven't seen him do for a while especially that lip biting, lip piercing between teeth thing, it'd been a while since I've seen him do that, after today.
"That's better, Lukey." I say, ruffling his hair. I put my hand over my mouth and giggle at the groan that escapes his lips.
"How many times do I need to tell you, woman? Not the hair, I put a lot of effort into my quiff thing what ever it's called. Don't make me cry." Luke says, his voice cracking in between most of the words he said. I've seen him do his hair before, all he does his run gel through his hair, practically spiking it up but in a sleek, quiff style instead and it doesn't even take him two minutes, it takes me a whole night for my hair to be wavy. I have full on ringlet curly, I just braid my hair every night, throw in some Argon Oil here and there and a satin cap, I put a ton of effort, but less than two minutes of doing hair for Luke, is a lot of effort. For the getting ready area, as for school Luke doesn't need to put much effort in it, because he's good and just about every subject besides English, he's pretty smart. I guess we all have different areas we put a lot of 'effort' into. I hope I'm making some sense.
"Sorry." I say, biting my lip trying to suppress my laugh. He's so serious about it, like the expression- He just so serious about his hair, that- I have to hold my laugh in.
He smiles, before pulling me into another hug, pulling me a little bit closer to him this time. I pull my bag strap over my shoulder, since my bag fell to the crook of my arm.
Luke coughs. I've never heard him cough before, but all I know is he isn't a quiet cough-er, he coughs, pretty loud. Louder than normal, to clear things up. He throws his bag onto the ground, unzipping it. He grabs a scarf, and wraps it around his neck, and pulls out cough lozenges, popping on into his mouth, so clearly he is sick, yeah? Na, Yenessa, he is so not sick that's why he put on a scarf, cause Luke totally wears scarfs all the time.
I look into his eyes, seeing the aren't sparkly as usual, and are quite...dull, I then realize how red his nose his as well, and his cheeks are all rosy. Luke coughs again, his cough sounded really dry, and as if it hurt a lot.
"Luke, are you okay?" I ask, placing my hand on his back, rubbing circles on it.
"Not really, I've developed a 'virus' according to my doctor, a cold. I'm surprised your not sick, but then again, I wasn't hogging the blankets." Luke says, coughing afterwards. So, he's sick from our 'date' we had? Well, I'm honestly not surprised, because I will admit it, yes I do very much hog blankets, I hog up beds too, so I'm sure Luke was sleeping without nothing more than a corner of one of those blankets he had thrown over the top of us. It was a chilly night, as he said, he purposely chose a cold night for our date, but I'm sure he didn't expect us to fall asleep.
"I'm sorry, runs through my blood." I say. I think for a bit before smiling up at Luke. "It's my turn to take care of you!" I jump up and down like some weirdo.
"And your excited about that? Ness, I'm a bitch to take care of, all I do is wh-" I cut Luke off.
"I don't care! You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Plus, I'm sure your not that bad." I say, dragging out the word 'that'. I grab Luke's hand, lacing our fingers together. I look up at him, and send him a toothy smile and he grins in return.
Since it was raining early this morning, I had decided on taking Mum's car to school today, instead of walking. So, I drove Luke home, and told him I'd be back in a few. I'm planning on doing something he did with me when Aunty Flow came to visit, but except he's a guy, so it's probably going to be four times different. I have no idea what guys do when they are sick, so I'm just bought a few boxes of pepperoni pizza, hot chocolate, and I hired Anchorman 1 & 2, seeing as Luke likes it so much. I would call the guys over as well, but I'm not sure if Luke's one of those people that like a lot of noise, shouting and that when he's sick, so I kinda decided not too.
I also when I went to Blockbusters, there was this huge Penguin teddy bear that they were selling there, it's so tall, it comes up to a bit higher than my waist, but all I knew is that it screamed out Luke. I had also changed into some sweats and a sweater, seeing as no one wants to be stuff wearing there school uniform.
I had just gotten back to Luke's place, and instead of an empty car space next to my car, theres a silver commodore filling up that once empty space, and I'm sure I've figured out who's car it is. I have a strange feeling that I'm going to be pumping into Mrs Hemmings. It's going to be weird, meeting Luke's mother for the first time.
My guesses were correct, I knocked on the door to be met with a tall, slim blonde haired woman, all I know is...I know were Luke got his looks from. She has long wavy blonde hair, and the same blue eyes as Luke's, with sparkle and everywhere, from the age Luke told me she was, she does not look it, she's very beautiful though.
"Hi, sweetheart. You must be Yenessa?" She says, her voice very sweet and high pitched.
"Hello, Mrs. Hemmings, and yes, I'm Yenessa." I say, smiling at her. She smiles big, two dimples appearing on either side of her flawless cheeks.
"Oh, I've heard so much about you! It's so nice to finally meet you, and please call me, Liz. None of this Mrs. Hemmings stuff, sweety." She says, pulling me into a hug. I think I know where Luke got most of his features from, from his Mum, the good hugs, and the looks.
"I would love to stay a chat with you for a bit, but I'm off to work. It's a pleasure meeting the girl he doesn't stop talking about whenever I'm home!" She says, rushing herself outside, the clacking of her heels blocking out most of her voice. It's one of those soft voices that aren't very loud at all.
"It's a pleasure meeting you too, Mrs.- Liz."I say, biting my lip afterwards from nearly calling her Mrs. Hemmings. She waves me off, before hopping into her car, and driving off. I make my way to Luke's room, holding the plastic bag, with the movies in it. I need to make few runs to my car, to go grab that penguin, that hot chocolate and those pizzas.
"Thanks, Yenessa. Just because I did something like this for you though doesn't mean you need to do it for me. And I love this penguin, I'm naming him Bob." I smile, I knew he'd like that penguin. I smile again at the fact he gives teddys names, but I think it's cute, and it's cuter how he named it Bob, he's practically naming it, his name.
Luke coughs after talking.
"Your welcome, and I wanted too. And try not to speak a lot, or you'll make it worse. Drink your hot chocolate, it will sooth your throat. I'm going to go set up this movie." I say, standing up off of the bed. I grab Anchorman one, and carry it over to the TV in Luke's room. He has one of those cute mini plasma's hanging up on a TV rack on the wall. I sit the movie in the player, and wait for opening menu to appear on the current black screen. It's a good thing I wore my contacts today, because I forgot my glasses.
I grab the remote, and sit it down on the bed before closing all the curtains, and the door in Luke's large room. I jumped next to Luke, making the whole bed bounce. Luke groans, while shoving pizza in his mouth.
I slip off my UGG boots, and climb underneath the covers, I sit myself close to Luke. I feel his hand moving around under the blanket, feeling around for mine. He grabs my hands, and laces his fingers with my own. I think he likes holding hands a lot; I like holding his hand. I get these weird stomach flips in my stomach, even when we were just cold out 'best friends' and not 'dating', I still got those stomach flips every time he held my hand.
The trailers for other films begin playing. I take this as a chance to tell Luke about me bumping into his Mum.
"I bumped into your Mum, she seems like a nice woman." I say, playing with Lukes fingers on the hand that's holding mine.
"You did?" He asks. I nod my head. "What did she say?"
"She didn't anything you needed to worry about, except for the fact that you keep talking about me whenever she's home." I say, smiling over at him, but he just sends me an angry glare, but then cracks a smile.
"That's fine then." Luke says, cracking a smile, replacing the very worried looking one. So, I'm guessing Mr. Lukey over here was worried that his Mum was going to spill out a few beans or something? Because the worried expression on his face, is one I've never seen before. I smiled.
The opening menu to Anchorman showed up, I was about to grab the remote, but Luke had already grabbed it, and played the movie. It's funny how all we really do, to spend time together, or make one another feel better, is by watching a movie, by accompanying each other. Either we are crazily obsessed with being lazy, and watching a bunch of movies, or we just like to be in each others presence. Seeing as Luke has those feelings for me, and seeing as I being in his presence; I'm going with the third answer.
Six minutes and thirty seconds exact into the movie, and now I understand that this movie is going to be a dirty one. I cough when the guy began to start talking about how he names his 'manhood'. Luke looked back at me and smiled.
"Yes, it's quite dirty. But what do you expect, it has Will Ferrell in it." He says, reading my mind, as usual. I roll my eyes at him, and smile afterwards. His voice was a lot more croakier than it was at school.
"Luke." I say.
"Yes?" He replies, switching his head from the TV and faces me. I smile at him. He smiles back, and then we both focus on the movie again, it's funny yet a smidge dirty. But I mean, I was 'friends' with Megan, if I could handle some of her dirty talk, I can handle this movie. Plus Will Ferrell is hilarious, so I know I'm going to be laughing until my stomach begins to ache.
I cover my ears at some of the dirty things that are being said, since I can. With Megan, when she spoke dirty things, I'd cover my ears but she'd pull my hands off of them, and yell out those dirty things. This is a movie, so I can cover my ears. Luke's eyes glance over at me, and he smiles.
"It's not that dirty, uncover your ears and come hug me." He says, clearly I can hear him a bit, I mean when you cover your ears, you can still hear things, but the are a lot quieter, and are mumbled. I smile.
"Okay." I say, uncovering my ears. I shuffle over on the bed, and wrap my arms around Luke's stomach. I lean my head on his chest, and he wraps an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me into him. Not like a 'breath-taking' squeezing, a comfortable sq- I'm making no sense at all, goodness me.
***
We're half way through Anchorman 2, which is just as funny as the first one, and I guess you could say it's just as dirty. Luke and I haven't spoken through out the movies, we've just been enjoying each others presence, and occasionally smiling at each other. I'm no longer hugging him, I'm sitting up now.
I look over at Luke, and see his eyes are closed, and his lips are in that pout he seems to make when he's sleeping. I look up at the clock on the pale blue wall, and see the time. It's around six. I climb out of the sheets, I would stay and sleep next to him or something. But I'm wearing my contacts, and I don't want to wake him up, he's sick and the only way to really get better is sleeping.
I slip on my UGGs, and neatened up the sheets. I walk around to the side of the bed that Luke's on, and pull the covers up to his neck. I bend over and give him a hug as well as a kiss his cheek before gathering my things to leave, as well as turning off the TV.
"Yenessa." Luke says, his voice croaky, and dry like the other times he spoke today.
"Luke." I say, spinning around on my heels to face him. I smile at him.
"Can you come cuddle with me?" He asks. He opens up the sheets, not wear I was sitting before, the side of the bed he's on. "Only for a bit, I know your wearing contacts." He coughs afterwards. Yeah, I know. He could possibly make me sick, and stuff. But I honestly just don't care if he makes me sick.
"Of course, Luke." I say, sitting the stuff I was holding on the ground and making my way to the side of the bed he's on. I'm not going to reject a cuddle, we all know why I won't. After Shane disliking cuddles, and stuff, I'm going to take every hug, and cuddle I can from Luke, I like cuddles and hugs.
I lay down next to him, my back pressed against his chest. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me closer to him. He grabs all my long hair, and flips onto my shoulder, I'm guessing my hair was in his face. He sit his chin on the top of my head, and curls his legs. I do the same, and now we're are spooning. I pull the sheets up, high enough to cover both of our shoulders. My stomach does flips again; I'm not gonna lie, I don't hate those stomach flips, I don't know I weirdly like them. It's weird, Luke giving me-what most people call-'butterflies'. I never got butterflies with Shane, but for some reason I do with Luke. From the romance novels, and fan-fiction I've read over the internet as stuff, I taking getting butterflies from Luke is a good thing, and I'm glad I didn't get them from Shane, well I got the nervous butterflies, but not the butterflies I have in my stomach right now. These ones are nice, nervous butterflies are just uncomfortable.
Anyway, sitting here cuddling with Luke in silence, has got me thinking. I'm thinking about whether I'm over Shane or not, and sitting here, thinking about it, I feel that I am. I guess I really didn't love him, I mean if I did love him, well, I would have been so nervous to tell him, wouldn't have I? He seemed to show a little bit of love back, so I sh- well I'm over Shane, who cares if loved me back and stuff. I like Luke.
"Luke." I say, briefly. I take a deep breath and smile.
"Yes." He mumbles. I release the breath I was holding, and bite my lip. We go silent again for a few seconds before I decide to talk.
"I'm ready, to stop trying this out, and actually do it." I say, not making much sense, but I know he'll sorta get what I'm saying.
"Doing what?" Luke mumbles again.
"I'm ready to be in a relationship with you, Luke. I'm not sure if you-"
"I'm ready too." Luke says, I can hear a smile in his voice, and I smile too. "Well, Ness. Would you like to be my girlfriend?"
I nod my head, while biting my lip. I've made the right decision. Yes, I'm worried something will go wrong, and that this friendship we've developed will collapse, but sometimes in life in order to be happy, you need to take a few risks. I can't believe I wasn't willing to take a risk with Luke, this could work. I need to learn to be more positive.
"Yes, Luke."
He squeezes me tighter, pulling me even more closer to him. He buries his head into my neck, and I can feel him smiling. I smile back.