ok I know that I ended the last chapter with them having sex and this chapter is going to seem like the morning after but it's nOT it's the morning of Luke's graduation they just happened to have sex the night before as well oops bye
-
I rolled over onto my side to see Luke's shirtless back facing me, slowly moving up and down with his breathing. I pull the covers further up my bare chest before poking Luke once in the back, hoping that he'll wake up easily. It was the morning of his graduation, and he needed to get up so he could begin to get ready. I hadn't planned on spending the night here, but after being with Luke the whole day before we ended up coming home and doing a lot more than we had expected.
"Lucas." I whispered, poking him again. I run my finger over his back, tracing a big heart into his skin.
"Stella Anne, that is not my name." Luke mumbled sleepily, his face buried half into the pillow.
"You need to get up." I laughed, still tracing patterns into Luke's back while I spoke.
"Not yet." Luke groaned. He rolled over so he was facing me, a big smile on his face. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him, pressing me against his chest. We were both still naked from the night before, both of us way too tired to take a shower or do anything else once we were finished.
"Today is a big day." I said into Luke's shoulder, because he was holding me so tight that it was hard for me to move around and actually look at him while speaking.
"Graduation day!" Luke fake cheered, letting out a small laugh in my ear. "I'm more excited for going out to eat afterwards than actually graduating."
"Of course you are." I laughed, rolling my eyes at him, though I doubted that Luke was actually going to eat a lot of food when we went out for dinner with Michael and Calum later tonight. Luke had gotten a lot better about eating after that one night in the pool room but he still hadn't returned to normal. Whatever normal for Luke actually was.
"Last night was so much fun." Luke said, changing the subject. He rolled over so he was on top of me and pressed his lips to my neck.
"It's late." I bit down on my bottom lip as Luke began to kiss up my neck, clearly wanting more of what he got last night.
"I don't have to be at the school until three, we have plenty of time." Luke giggled against my skin, his hands running up and down my back.
"We have a lot of things to do." I said, tilting my head back. I knew that today was kind of a busy day, but I couldn't resist Luke.
"Oh?" He asked, "Like what?"
"We still need to shower and eat something, you have to get dressed, we have to go back to my place so I can get dressed..." I trailed off, losing my train of thought as Luke's lips continued to suck at my neck.
"We have time." Luke said again. He held me closer to him and bit down in my collarbone, making me jump just a little.
"Don't leave any more marks on me! I don't want everyone to see!" I laughed, sliding myself away from Luke. I put a hand on his chest to keep him away from me, not wanting to be covered in his love bites when we were surrounded by a ton of people.
"You're right, you already have enough." Luke teased quietly, his tongue lighting grazing over some of the other marks he left on me the night before.
"So do you." I joked back, reaching up and touching the deep purple bruise that was forming on Luke's neck. It was in such an obvious place, we were going to have to cover it up again before leaving the house, otherwise everyone was going to know what happened last night.
"You're going to need to put all that makeup on me again." Luke whined, making a face at the thought of being covered in makeup again.
"Just don't push me into a shower this time, then it might actually work." I laughed, making a face back at him.
"I can't make any promises, I really love doing that." Luke smirked, rolling out of the bed. He let himself fall to the floor and picked up his clothes, slowly putting them back on. "But I actually need a shower right now, so we should go take one."
"Both of us?" I asked, sitting up. Luke stood up from where he had been sitting on the floor and tossed me one of his oversized sweaters to put on. I pulled the sweater over my head and it came down to my mid thigh, so I got up without caring to put anything else on. I was just going go get into the shower anyway.
"Uh huh." Luke nodded, reaching out to take my hand in his. He led me out of the room and down the hall, into his bathroom. He slowly shut the door behind us so we didn't make much noise and had me stand in the middle of the room while he turned on the water.
While the water was heating up Luke came over to me and wrapped his arms around my body, pulling me into him. I snuggled my face deeper into his chest and let my arms wrap themselves around his waist. I suddenly felt like I wanted to cry, though I don't really know why. It must have been the thought of Luke graduating today lingering in the back of my mind. I knew that it would still be a few months before Luke officially left for California, but this was where it all started. And I was scared for more than one reason.
"Stel." Luke said, putting his fingers under my chin and tilting my head up.
"Yeah?" I asked, swallowing back the lump that was beginning to form in my throat.
"Hey, are you crying?" Luke whispered, leaning in closer to me. The water was still running behind us and was probably all heated up now, but Luke hadn't made any effort to move.
"I'm fine." I nodded, trying to pull away from him. "I'm just tired and my eyes are watering."
"You look like you're about to cry, baby, what's wrong?" Luke grabbed my shoulders in his hands and caught me before I could walk away from him, forcing me to look right into his eyes.
"I'm not, I'm just - I don't know, Luke." I gave up, bringing my hands up to my face. I really didn't want to start crying and I didn't know why I was, but I couldn't stop myself. I had a habit of this, getting too emotional over things that didn't need to be cried over.
"Just tell me what's wrong." Luke said softly, running his hands over my arms to try and sooth me.
"I was just thinking too much." I said, wiping under my eyes, "I was just overthinking things."
"About me leaving?" Luke assumed, probably because that was all anyone ever thought about anymore. It seemed stupid to put this much thought into it when it was still months away, but I knew that the summer was going to feel so much short than it actually was, and the day that Luke left would come sooner than expected.
"Of course it was about you leaving." I sniffed, rolling my tear filled eyes at him.
"We have all summer." Luke said, reaching up and tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear.
"I know we do." I nodded. I knew, but that wasn't stopping me from being upset about this.
"We'll make it work, remember? You said that we'll make it work." Luke repeated, slowly licking his lips. Lately it had seemed like he'd turned off all of his emotions about this, because he hadn't even spoken about leaving, much less cried over the fact that he was moving away in three months. I felt pathetic, I didn't like crying in front of Luke.
"We will." I agreed, nodding again. I felt a few more tears slip out of my eyes and Luke reached up and cupped the sides of my face, wiping the tears away with his thumbs.
"We're going to spend the whole summer together, and I'm going to come back and visit as much as I can next year, okay baby?" Luke gave me a soft smile as he spoke, and he seemed like he was trying to convince himself that this was true as well as me.
"I know, like I said, I was just overthinking things again. I'm sorry." I whispered, looking down at the ground. I knew that now Luke had seen me like this he was going to do whatever he could to make me feel better, because that's just what Luke does, even though I really wasn't that upset in the first place.
"I don't like seeing you cry, you know that." Luke chuckled under his breath. His fingers trailed down my arm until they reached my hand, which he then grabbed onto and pulled me over to the shower.
"I'm sorry." I said again, feeling bad that I had done this. My goal had been to not cry at all or act sad about Luke graduating and ultimately leaving, because that way he would leave more easily. If I didn't show that I was upset, he wouldn't have as hard of a time leaving me behind. I knew that this was what he really wanted to do, go to college, and I was determined to not be the one thing that held him back.
"Don't be." Luke whispered. He leaned in and kissed me once on the forehead before his hands went down to the hem of my sweater, pulling it up over my head for me. I smiled up at him as he threw the sweater down on the floor next to me, and he returned the smile, leaning in again to leave a short kiss on my lips. He then got undressed himself and stepped into the shower with me following behind him, neither of us saying a word.
-
Once we were showered and dressed again, Luke took me down to the kitchen so we could have something to eat before heading back to my house. He made me sit down at the table while he rummaged through cabinets, insisting that he made me breakfast instead of us making it together.
"Are you sure you don't need any help?" I asked, my chin resting against them palm of my hand. I was bored just sitting there, I would rather be helping Luke.
"I want to do this all myself. Just stay there." Luke said, sliding on his socks from one end of the kitchen to the other. He opened up another drawer and pulled something out, setting it down on the counter before sliding to the other side of the kitchen again.
"Do you even know what you're doing?" I laughed.
"Making pancakes, obviously." Luke scoffed, his back to me as he started to mix all of his ingredients together.
"But do you know how to make pancakes?" I rolled my eyes as his answer, figuring that Luke still had no idea what he was doing. After baking a cake with Luke I had learned that he really wasn't one for following recipes, and he was most likely going to mess this up.
"Of course I do! Jesus, Stel, it's like you don't know me at all." Luke laughed, throwing his hands up in the air and also splattering pancake batter everywhere, since he was holding a spoon.
"Just don't burn these this time." I sighed, ignoring the mess Luke had just made. We would just clean it up later.
"I would never." Luke turned around and put a hand to his chest, like he was offended.
Shortly after, Luke successfully made some pancakes for us and set them down on the table in front of me, complete with butter and syrup. I was impressed that he hadn't messed these up or asked for my help at all. At least I could count on the fact that Luke was able to make pancakes, then he wouldn't starve when he moved away. He gently pushed me off of the chair and sat down before grabbing me by the waist and pulling me onto his lap.
"There are three other chairs at this table and you choose to sit in mine?" I asked, laughing as Luke handed me a fork.
"Yep." Luke said, resting his head on my shoulder. I wiggled out of Luke's grasp and tried to get up, but he only grabbed my wrist and pulled me down again. "Where do you think you're going?"
"To get juice!" I protested, groaning at the fact that Luke wasn't letting me do anything myself.
"Let me." Luke said, slipping out from under me. He rushed over to the fridge and pulled out the orange juice and poured two glasses for us before putting it away again.
"Why are you doing all of this?" I asked when Luke came back, standing up again so he could sit down before pulling me into his lap.
"Because you're my girlfriend." Luke shrugged, bouncing his legs up and down so I was forced to bounce a little too.
"And you're my boyfriend." I said blankly, not seeing his point.
"You were upset earlier, though, and I want to make you feel better." Luke said quietly, reaching around me to take a bite of the pancakes.
"You don't have to." I said, looking over my shoulder at Luke. He was smiling as he chewed his food, which only made me laugh at him even more.
"I guess I just love you too much." Luke shrugged again. He set down his fork on the side of the plate while I continued to eat, and reached for his laptop, which was sitting on the table next to us. He pulled it closer, opening up a tab that he had closer at the bottom. "Look at this."
I looked at the screen, nodding to myself as I waited for Luke to explain why he was looking at apartments online. "I thought you were staying in a dorm next year?"
"This is for the year after. For you and me." Luke said slowly, almost like he was afraid to tell me. He shouldn't be, because I'm not going to be upset a him for this, but I'm a little shocked. I didn't expect Luke to go as far as looking at apartments for us almost a year in advance.
"You're going to buy an apartment for us?" I asked. I wasn't even going to think about the fact that Luke and I may not even be together in a year, because that almost didn't matter to me. At the moment I was planning on being with him forever, because that's what girls like me always think when they're in love. But I guess it really didn't matter, because Luke felt the same way.
We still hadn't really talked about what was going to happen after this coming year, most likely because we weren't even finished with this school year. It had always been mutually decided that we were going to try and move in with each other after I graduated, but where we moved was still in question.
"Well, I want to." Luke said quietly, staring at the computer screen. The pictures of the apartment he was showing me were nice, and it looked like a really great apartment for a really cheap price. I almost wanted Luke to just buy it right there before anyone else did.
"Right now?" I asked.
"No, no, I'll wait for a little while, of course." Luke scoffed, like it was an obvious answer. "But I think I'll buy it pretty soon, so it doesn't go off the market, and then rent it out for a few months. I'm smart, Stella Anne, I know what I'm doing."
"Do you really have enough money saved up to buy an apartment?" I laughed a little, wondering where Luke got all of his money from. He had quit working at the movie theater a few months ago, but from what he told me, he still had a ton of money saved up from his job and other various things over the year.
"Oh, yeah. I'm totally good on money." Luke nodded, then stopped. "Wait."
"What?"
"Do you think this is weird?" Luke asked suddenly, taking his hands away from the laptop. He brought them back to my waist, squeezing at my sides and making me let out a small giggle.
"That you're looking at apartments for us so far in advance?" I asked.
"Yes." Luke chuckled, probably realizing how weird it did sound. Honestly I didn't care that it was weird, because our whole relationship was just weird. This wasn't that big of a deal for us.
"Luke," I groaned, squirming around on top of him again as he pulled my shirt to the side and started kissing at my shoulder. "No, I don't think it's weird. I think it's really cute." I finally answered him, trying again to get him away from me.
"Good." He smiled, his attention going back to the computer screen in front of him.
"What do you think about it, though? It's nice, right? Two bedrooms, a big bathroom..." Luke trailed off, scrolling through the webpage. "It's right in the middle of L.A., and has a really cool view of the city."
"It sounds great. Two bedrooms so Michael and Calum can visit, right?" I laughed, knowing that it was going to irritate Luke.
"They're not gay, though, so they might not even want to share a room." Luke said as he pushed the laptop away from himself, done looking at the apartment for now.
"Are you blind? It's too obvious for them to not be gay now." I said, taking another bite of the pancakes.
"Do you have this secret gay fetish that I should know about? You're literally obsessed with the thought of them being together." Luke groaned. He finished off the very last of our pancakes and stood up, taking me with him.
"It's not a fetish!" I defended myself, following after Luke as he took the plate over to the sink. I added quietly, "I just think they'll be cute."
"But it's...weird." Luke laughed.
"No it's not." I shrugged, turning away from Luke and heading back upstairs. We were wasting too much time standing there and discussing our possibly gay friends, we still had things to do before Luke's graduation. "You should ask Calum how he feels about Michael. Because I've talked to Michael and I could tell that he's totally whipped."
"Hey, that's my line." Luke muttered as he slowly came up the stairs behind me. "Anyway, I don't think Calum's going to want to admit it if he has feelings for Michael."
"Why not?" I asked, closing Luke's bedroom door behind us.
"Because it's Calum. He does that." Luke shrugged, walking over to his closet where the shirt he was going to wear today was hanging up. He pulled it out and made a face at it, because we both knew that he didn't like getting dressed in anything other than baggy sweaters and sweatshirts anymore.
"But Michael looooves him." I sighed. I plopped down on Luke's bed, watching him as he struggled to get all of his things together that he needed to change into.
"Michael looooves boobs." Luke laughed, pulling his sweatshirt off of himself and sliding on a white T-shirt. "Remember this?" Luke asked, pointing to the shirt. He stood up straight, making a face, "Uh, white."
"Shut up." I laughed, remembering how I used to get so nervous around Luke. It was so weird to think that only a few months ago we just had these little crushes on each other, and a few months before that we didn't get along at all.
"Help me with this." Luke said as he finished buttoning up his shirt over the T-shirt, nodding his head towards the tie laying out on his dresser.
I stood up and walked over to where Luke was standing, waiting for him to finish buttoning the shirt before putting the tie on him. When he was finished I wrapped the tie around his neck, using it to pull him down to my level.
"I'm starting to get nervous." Luke whispered into my ear, leaning into me more.
"Don't. You'll be fine." I said, furrowing my eyebrows together as I finished tying Luke's tie.
"Promise?" Luke asked, dipping his head down and kissing me once on the lips. He pulled away quickly, a small smirk on his lips because he knew that the kiss was so short.
I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck, once again pulling him down so his face was at the same level as mine. I pressed my lips to him, immediately feeling like smile into the kiss. "I promise."
-
"That was bullshit," Calum muttered, kicking at the ground. "I wanted them to throw their hats up and they never did."
"They did it last year and it really wasn't that exciting, you're not missing out on much." Michael shrugged, nudging Calum with his shoulder. The graduation ceremony was over now and the three of us were outside and waiting for Luke, who was taking his own sweet time, to come out so we could all go out to eat.
"Then what's the point of graduating?" Calum groaned, nudging Michael back. If Luke was here right now I know that we would be discussing Calum and Michael again, which is how a lot of our conversations seemed to end up.
"People don't graduate just so they can throw their hats up in the air!" Michael laughed, his cheeks turning pink. He was totally into Calum, I'm not sure why either of them have yet to admit anything yet.
"That's the fun part." Calum shook his head, pushing Michael away from him.
"No, the parties after are the fun part." Michael said, shoving Calum again. They seemed to display affection by trying to hurt each other, which made sense because they were boys, and boys were weird like that.
"Stella, please tell Michael that he's wrong." Calum stepped away from Michael and turned to face me, although I was still a little distracted. I was trying to find Luke, but it was hard to see him through all of the people that had gathered outside of the school.
"Please tell Calum that he's just being ridiculous." Michael jumped in, shoving Calum off to the side.
"I - " I was cut off by the sound of my name being called and I turned around to see Luke pushing through people, trying to get to us.
"Stel!" Luke yelled once more before breaking through a group of people, tripping once as he walked over to me.
"Luke!" I squealed, running towards him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he lifted me up, spinning me around in a circle. He set me down after a second, kissing me once on the forehead.
"I did it!" Luke laughed, shoving his diploma towards me.
"Yes, you did it! Congratulations!" I smiled at him, hugging him again.
"That was a total High School Musical moment." Calum said from behind us, and Luke and I turned around to face him and Michael.
"Totally." Michael agrees, giving Calum a high five.
"Luke and Stella are like Troy and Gabriella 2.0." Calum laughed, which made Michael crack up even though it really wasn't that funny.
"Instead of singing they do math." Michael said in between laughs, and this time Calum started to laugh as well. They turned to face each other, both of them happy with one another despite how they had been arguing only a few minutes before this.
I turned into Luke and pulled him down so I could whisper into his ear without anyone else hearing, "They're totally dating."
"They are not." Luke shook his head, glancing at Michael and Calum again.
"Just look at them." I said, grabbing the sleeve of Luke's shirt and turning him so he had a better view of Michael and Calum talking with each other.
"Stop shipping our friends, babe, it's weird." Luke shook his head at me, trying to hide his smile as he looked on at the two boys. They were pushing each other around again, but this time they were laughing about it more than they had been the first time.
"It's not weird, it's real." I laughed.
"It's not real, it's - " Luke was interrupted this time by someone that I hadn't expected to see again, not after all of the drama that happened because of him earlier this year.
"Hemmings!" Ashton yelled, walking up behind Luke and slapping him hard on the back. Luke winced as Ashton turned to face us, his arm wrapped around some girl.
"Hi." Luke said softly, giving Ashton and the girl a small nod. I assumed that the girl was Heather, Luke's ex-girlfriend, judging from the way she was eyeing Luke.
"Congratulations, man. I honestly didn't think you were going to be able to pull this off." Ashton laughed again. Luke's arm went around my shoulders and he pulled me closer to him, just like Ashton was doing with Heather.
"Well, I did." Luke snapped at Ashton, who looked taken back by Luke's attitude.
"That's why I said congratulations." Ashton smirked. Luke let out a shaky laugh, and I could tell that he was trying hard not to lunge forward and punch Ashton.
"Whoa, what's going on here?" Calum appeared at my side and Michael went to Luke's, both of them examining the situation in front of them.
"Just a friendly conversation." Ashton answered, smiling at Calum. He turned to Michael, "Hey, Mike."
"Ashton." Michael nodded, seeming unamused with Ashton today, just like every other day.
"This is my...friend, Heather, I don't think you've met her yet." Ashton said to Michael and I, pointing to the girl beside him. She smiled at Michael, and for a second she looked pretty nice, but then I remembered all of the things she's done.
"Hi Heather." Michael rolled his eyes at her. He knew about her already, Luke had mentioned her a few times and I'm guessing that Calum filled him in on the rest, since he knew her too.
"Hi." Heather said quietly. I don't think she really enjoyed watching her current "boyfriend" and her ex-boyfriend having a discussion like this right in front of her anymore than I did. She looked bored, and was probably just waiting for her and Ashton to go home and do whatever they even did with each other.
"I hear you're going out to UCLA for college next year." Ashton said to Luke, who awkwardly shifted his weight next to me again.
"Yeah." He nodded, swallowing hard.
"So I guess I'll still be seeing you around, right Stella?" Ashton turned to me, flashing me a big smile. I shook my head, I didn't want anything to do with Ashton next year and even if I did I wouldn't say anything about it in front of Luke.
The next few seconds were spent in an awkward silence between all of us, because we all knew that if anyone said the wrong thing it could start a whole big fight.
"Ashton," Luke finally spoke up and Ashton smiled again, like he was expecting this. "Can I talk to you in private for a second?"
-
"I am so tired right now I think I could sleep for the next five years." Luke said as he collapsed onto the mattress, pulling me down with him.
"I don't think you're going to be very successful in college if you sleep until you're 22." I laughed, rolling into him.
We had just gotten back from going out to eat with Michael and Calum, and both of us were extremely exhausted. We're up in the treehouse, because it was such a nice night and Luke wanted to sleep in there. I didn't even care, because felt almost the same as Luke, I just wanted to go to sleep.
"I'll make it work." Luke chuckled to himself. He pulled at his tie, loosening it up as he unbuttoned his shirt.
"Of course you will." I rolled my eyes as I reached up, helping Luke unbutton the rest of his shirt.
"Wow, you're so eager to get me out of my clothes." Luke laughed. He grabbed my hands in his, stopping me from unbuttoning his shirt any further. He moved my hands back down to my sides, shifting again my head was resting on his chest.
"Be quiet." I groaned.
"I can do that." Luke smirked at me, dipping his head down so his lips met mine. I smiled back into the kiss, wiggling around for a second until Luke finally let go of my hands so I was able to bring them up to his hair. I crawled on top of him, putting a leg on either side of his body. Luke's hands rested on my thighs for a moment before they started moving up, finding a new spot under the hem of my dress.
"See, you are eager." Luke laughed as I brought my hands down again, pulling Luke's dress shirt off of him. I let it fall to the floor next to us and Luke's hands crept farther up my legs, making my dress ride up even more.
"I thought we were going to be quiet for a while." I taunted, biting down on my bottom lip. Luke grabbed my waist and flipped us over, so he was now on top.
"What if I want to talk?" Luke asked, pushing himself up on his hands so he was hovering above me. He leaned down once and left a quick kiss on my lips before climbing off of me, falling down onto the mattress beside me.
"Do you have something specific that you need to say?" I asked.
"Not really. I don't know, Stel, I'm just in a talking mood." Luke chuckled softly, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Okay, then talk." I laughed at him, pulling my dress down again so it covered more of my legs.
Luke grabbed my hand again, lacing his fingers with mine. He pulled our hands closer to him, letting them both rest on his chest. "Do you think you're going to pass out of geometry?"
"Why is it that whenever you want to talk it ends up being about math?" I laughed, recalling all of the little conversations Luke started that involved math.
"Answer my question." Luke whined. He brought my hand up to his lips and kissed each of my fingers, then looked up at me again. "Baby, answer me."
"Yes, Luke, I think that I'll pass out of geometry." I rolled my eyes at him. Luke nodded and went back to kissing my hand. He was always so fascinated with my hands. Luke may tease me for having an obsession with Calum and Michael possibly being gay, but I think Luke definitely had an obsession with my hands. "You have a hand fetish, Luke Hemmings."
"I'm going to chose to ignore that." Luke laughed, his lips still pressed against one of my knuckles. "You're only passing geometry because of me."
"Well, obviously." I sighed. I pulled my hand away from Luke, growing tired of him behind so in love with it.
"Stel," Luke whined, grabbing my hand again. He might as well just date my hand instead of me. "I'm still going to tutor you next year, you know that, right?"
"Of course you are." I said, giving up completely on getting my hand away from Luke. He was in love with my hand, I was convinced. "Why don't you just date my hand?"
"I am dating your hand. And your boobs." Luke laughed.
"You really need to stop talking about my boobs." I giggled, rolling onto Luke again. I finally got him to let go of my hand and let me bring my fingers back up to his hair. "They're not that great."
"Oh trust me, Stel, there great." Luke said, his lips forming into a smirk again. His eyes flicked down from my chest to my lips and then back to my eyes again. Soon his smirk turned into an innocent smile and he leaned in, his nose brushing up against mine. "I love you."
"I love you, too." I said, closing the small space between us and connecting our lips. I pulled away after a second, remembering that I had wanted to talked to Luke about something. "What did you say to Ashton?"
"What?" Luke asked, looking upset that I had stopped kissing him just to talk about this.
"When you and him walked away to talk. We had to stand all awkwardly with Heather." I laughed nervously, thinking about the awkward two minutes that Michael, Calum and I had to spend with Luke's ex-girlfriend. She seemed like an alright person, and she never said anything to make me think differently, but I still didn't like her just because I knew what she had done to Luke.
"Heather." Luke scoffed, rolling his eyes at the thought of her. "I just told him to stay away from you."
"Really? That's it?" I asked. It took him quite a long time to say just that, they were gone for what seemed like forever.
"Yeah." Luke shrugged. "I said that if he tried to pull something on you while I'm gone I'll hop on the first plane to New York and beat his ass."
"Would you really do that?" I laughed, unable to picture Luke like that.
"Maybe... Maybe I wouldn't beat his ass, but I could say a few harsh words." Luke gave me a cheesy smile, his fingers twisting themselves in the ends of my hair.
"I doubt Ashton will even want anything to do with me anymore, so I don't think that you have anything to worry about." I sighed, quickly leaning in and placing a kiss on Luke's cheek.
"Yeah, yeah, that's what you think." Luke said, giving me an eye roll once again.
"I'm serious. I don't think he cares anymore." I continued, trying to get my point across to Luke. He would have enough to be worrying about while he was away, the last thing he needed to be concerned with was whether or not my ex-boyfriend was bothering me.
"Okay, we're done talking about this." Luke said, bringing his hands up to the sides of my face. He ran a thumb over my cheek, feeling over my skin before he began to pull me closer.
"But Luke - "
"Shh, Stel, I don't want to talk about him anymore. I'd rather discuss Michael and Calum's gayness." Luke laughed, cutting me off.
"Really?" I asked excitedly, thinking that he had actually meant what he said.
"No." Luke shook his head, pulling me closer to him again. "Come here."
Luke's lips found their place on mine again, his hands moving down to the spot on my hips that they always ended up. By now we've done this enough times for us to have a type of routine down, but every time we kiss still feels different. I don't know if it was just the fact that I was pretty blindly in love with him talking or what, but I always felt like I was kissing him for the first time. It was cliché, but I think everything was a little cliché.
"Stel, can I tell you something?" Luke whispered, pulling away just a little. He came back less than a second later, kissing me again. "I want to tell you something."
"So - " I was cut off once again by Luke's lips on mine. He couldn't even stop kissing me for more than a few seconds, I didn't know how we were going to survive being away from each other next year. " - tell me."
"I just wanted to - " Luke paused, kissing me again. "I wanted to say thank you."
"Thank you for what?" I asked staring back at Luke. His lips were pink and swelling from all the kissing, and he was biting nervously at his lip ring.
"Like.... I don't know, babe, I guess... At the beginning of the year I wanted to die, and I didn't think I was ever going to do anything worthwhile with my life, much less graduate. And then you came along and you were weird and had pretty hair and liked staring contests and asked so many questions and were incredibly bad at math and I just liked you so much, you made me happy again. I'm so sappy, I know, but I just have to get this out." Luke paused. "I would have a bad day with my mom or with school and all I had to do was go home and think about the fact that I was going to see you the next day, and that you were probably somewhat excited to see me too. It made me really happy to think about that, and it made me want to stay. There were so many times that I just wanted to end it all, but you were always in the back of my mind telling me not to. That sounds really dumb too, I'm sorry. You just keep me going, Stel."
Luke swallowed again, shutting his eyes for a second before opening them again and continuing. "I just wanted to say thank you, for everything you've ever done. I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for you, Stella, and I love you so much for that. I know that we've had our issues, but I really love you a lot. Just...thank you so much, I love you."
"You just said that you love me so many times." I laughed quietly, finding it hard to say anything else. I was so overwhelmed with what Luke had just said, I didn't know what I was supposed to say back.
"I'll never be able to say it enough, baby, I'll still be saying it the day I die." Luke smiled, and I saw tears start to form in the corners of his eyes.
"Aw, Luke. I'm going to start crying again." I sighed, reaching up and wiping under my own eyes.
"Don't cry, or then I'll definitely start crying." Luke laughed. He grabbed my hands again, pulling them down so they were resting on his chest.
"Okay, I'll try not to." I bit my lip as I waited for Luke to say something else. I was still at a lose for words, I couldn't explain how it made me feel to know that Luke wanted to stay alive just for me. It was crazy, and a lot of pressure to be put under.
"We have all summer to cry." Luke said, his lips breaking into a smile again.
"I don't want to spend my whole summer crying." I shook my head. I really wanted it to be a good summer for us, not one that went spent crying over everything.
"Then we don't have to." Luke decided, licking his lips. His tongue ran over his lip piercing again, and his eyes traveled down to my own lips.
"Okay, good." I said, beginning to lean into him.
"I love you." Luke said, pulling me down the rest of the way and pressing his lips to mine. He let out a small whine as I kissed him back, "Stel, say it back."
"I love you, too." I laughed at his childishness, and I felt like saying it again and again until we both got tired of hearing it. I really loved Luke, and there weren't any other words that I could use to describe how I felt.
"I'm going to miss you so much." Luke whispered against my lips, his hands moving back to my waist where he held me close to him.
"I know, I'll miss you too." I mumbled, trying to keep my lips on Luke's as I spoke.
"But we'll make it work, right?" Luke asked, pulling his head back and staring up at me.
"Yeah," I nodded, "we'll make it work."