It had been about two weeks since the day Luke told me all about Kylee, and things were actually beginning to look up. I’d talked to Wyatt and Kendra multiple times during those two weeks, as they both were enjoying their summer break and planning a trip to London sometime in October. Both were going to be taking a year off of school before going to university. I’d probably do the same (when school finally ended here. We still had quite a bit to go.). Luke interrupted one of my skype sessions with them once, and Wyatt spent about five minutes cussing him out before I got him to calm down enough to inform him that Luke and I had put our past behind us and started over. He’s still iffy about the entire thing. Kendra, however, thinks Luke and I need to get married.
I had also been to my house a few times in the last two weeks. The first time, Ashton came with me, though my dad wasn’t home. I packed the rest of my clothes and grabbed my math book (that I desperately needed. Luke was getting annoyed that I kept on stealing his from his backpack). The second time, Ashton wasn’t available, and Luke offered to take me. The two of us had walked to my house. Assuming my dad would be gone just like last time, we walked through the front door. Except this time he had been home. He wasn’t drunk, thankfully, but he did try to talk to me. Luke didn’t hesitate to tell my father exactly what he thought of him (no good words were said), and my dad backed down. I felt a bit guilty about just shutting him out like I did, but he deserved it. Luke helped me take down the pictures and decorations on my bedroom walls, and we took them back to his house. He even helped me put them up on the walls in ‘my’ room.
I learned a lot about Luke and his friends in the past two weeks. For instance, I learned that Luke, Calum, Taryn, and Megan all shared the same favorite color of blue, while Ashton, Michael and I were alone in our preferences of red, green, and yellow (respectively). I found out that Luke is very protective of the penguin stuffed animal in the back corner of his room and, and that he is willing to tackle you to the floor if you mess with it (still have a bruise on my foot). I now know that Calum only likes cheddar cheese, because he flipped out when I almost put Swiss on his sandwich the other day. The best thing I learned, however, was that I rarely had a frown on my face anymore, and that it was because of my new friends.
I hummed along to the song playing on my phone as I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around myself. The bathroom mirror was fogged over, so I took a washcloth from the top drawer and wiped off a small section so I could see myself. My normally chocolate brown hair looked black in its wetness, and it hung in lazy curls past my shoulders. I sighed as I looked at it, thinking about how I would like to get at least a few inches cut off before the break between Term 2 and Term 3 started (two days, yay!). After another moment of scrutinizing my hair and face in the semi-foggy mirror, I turned towards the bathroom door.
A cloud of steam spilled out of the bathroom when I opened the door, and I swiped my hand around in front of me, making a face. I had only gone about two feet down the hall when the first door opened and I suddenly found myself wrapped in somebody’s arms. I let out a loud shriek, shoving the person away from me.
“Oh my God!”
“You’re not Luke!”
“Who are you?”
“Why were you in his bathroom?”
“Who are you?”
“Why are you not wearing clothes?”
The stranger and I began yelling questions back and forth as soon as I was out of his grip. I gripped the top of my towel tightly as if that made it any better that I was standing in front of someone I didn’t know with only the large piece of beige cloth covering my body (and even then it barely covered my ass). I took a good look at the stranger before me as the two of us slung questions at each other. He was probably a few inches shorter than Luke, and his hair was a dark-ish sandy blonde color. The two of us were cut off by a loud shout from behind me.
“Hey!” Luke’s voice made me jump slightly, and I whirled around to face him. He wasn’t looking at me, though. His gaze was trained on a spot just behind me—probably the stranger. “Ben?” He seemed surprised, but not as surprised as I was.
“You know him?” I questioned. Luke nodded, still not looking at me.
“He’s my brother.” He explained simply. “Why are you here, Ben? You and Jack aren’t supposed to be here until Saturday.”
“We came early.” Came the reply from behind me. “You should introduce me to your friend.” I could hear the smirk in the boy’s voice. Luke finally looked at me for what seemed like the first time since he’d come upstairs. His eyes widened at my attire (or lack thereof), then narrowed as he looked back up at his brother.
“Stop looking at her like that, mate.” He snapped, reaching out and grabbing my shoulders before turning me around and pushing me towards my bedroom door. “I’ll introduce you when she’s ready, because she clearly isn’t right now.” He continued as I slipped into my bedroom.
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It took about forty-five minutes to get dressed, dry my hair (and straighten it), and put a little makeup on. It took another fifteen minutes to muster up the courage to open my bedroom door and make my way down to the basement, where I could hear multiple voices. All conversation stopped when I rounded the corner. There were six people—all boys, of course—and two were unfamiliar faces. Scratch that. One was unfamiliar. The other one, I had seen only an hour ago, when I was only in a towel. His name was Ben, and, judging by what Luke said earlier, that meant the other boy was Jack. I assumed they were both Luke’s brothers, because they all had the same hair color. Ben turned to Luke, a slight smirk on his lips.
“Wanna introduce me to your friend now? Or is she still not ready?” He quipped. I felt my cheeks heat up in a blush, and I lowered my gaze to the ground, pretending to suddenly be interested in the carpet. I heard Luke groan in annoyance.
“God, Ben.” He snapped. “Her name is Daeyna, she lives here, and if you embarrass her one more time, you’re sleeping in the fucking garden.” I looked up at Luke, feeling a small smile of appreciation form on my lips. With the exception of Ben, everyone else in the room looked confused. Ashton spoke first.
“Wait, how does Daeyna know Ben?” He asked. I felt myself blush again. Luke cleared his throat awkwardly, and when I looked at him, I noticed he was blushing a bit as well.
“I thought she was Luke when she came out of the bathroom upstairs.” The room was silent for a moment before Michael burst into laughter.
“Oh that’s fantastic!” He chortled. “What I wouldn’t pay to have seen that!” It seemed Michael was the only one to have caught on to the reason why Luke and I were blushing profusely. Everyone else still looked a bit confused. Calum was the next to connect the dots. His eyes widened.
“Oh!” He said. “That’s why he asked if she was ready.” He didn’t laugh like Michael, but I definitely saw a twinkle of amusement in his eyes as he looked at Luke. He looked over at Ashton and Jack. “She went upstairs about two hours ago to take a shower.” He explained simply. Both boys suddenly understood what was going on. Jack turned to his brother and whacked him upside the head.
“This is why I’m engaged and you’re not, you dick.” He scolded before standing up and approaching me. He held out a hand, and I shook it. “I’m Jack, the oldest of the Hemmings brothers.” He introduced. I smiled at him.
“Nice to meet you, Jack. I’m Daeyna.” I said.
“American?” He asked, seeming a bit surprised. I nodded.
“Yeah. Born and raised.” I replied, my voice sounding rather proud. He chuckled. I looked around the room briefly. “Anybody want something to drink? I think Liz brought back some soda last night. And we have apple juice and water as well.” I offered. Michael and Calum jumped at the offer, both saying they wanted a cup of ‘whatever soft drink Liz bought’. Jack politely asked for a water, and Ben, Luke, and Ashton said they didn’t want anything. I nodded before turning and heading upstairs.
I was just finishing placing four glasses on the counter when I heard someone enter the kitchen. Without turning around, I spoke.
“Could you get the soda from the fridge, Luke?” I asked. I heard a scoff behind me, and this time I did turn around. Luke was looking at me as he headed for the fridge. “What was that for?” I asked.
“How did you know it was me? It could have been Ashton.” He said. I chuckled quietly. For a moment, I considered lying, but I decided against it, pointing to the window I had been standing in front of.
“I saw your reflection.” Luke’s cheeks flushed.
“Oh, right.” He mumbled, reaching into the fridge and pulling out a bottle of Coke. I slid two of the glasses down the counter a few inches, and Luke came up to stand beside me, twisting the cap off the soda. It let out a hiss, and I hissed back out of habit. “Did you just hiss?” He asked incredulously. I blushed, but nodded, looking up at him.
“Yeah. Kendra and I always have competitions on who can repeat the sound the best.” He looked at me for a moment before cracking a smile and shaking his head.
“Only you would.” He chuckled. I scoffed in mock offense.
“Excuse you, Mr. Hemmings, but you have no right to talk, seeing as you sing in an awfully girly voice when in the shower.” I countered, placing my hands on my hips.
“Do not!” He protested. I let a smirk tilt the edges of my lips up.
“I think the audio file on my laptop would argue otherwise.” I said. Luke’s eyes widened at that.
“You didn’t.” He breathed disbelievingly. I shrugged.
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. You’ll never know unless I need to blackmail you into doing something for me.” Luke’s jaw dropped at my words before he snapped it shut with a faint click of his teeth. Without another word, he started to walk away from me. “Where are you going?” I asked. He stopped and turned around.
“To see if you’re lying.” He said. Before he could turn around again, I had lunged at him, yelling a string of ‘no’s. My arms wrapped around Luke’s middle and I used all of my weight to drag him back into the kitchen. I succeeded for a few moments, forcing him back about a foot and a half. With a shouted protest, Luke pulled himself from my grip. However, his sock-clad feet slipped on the smooth tile floor, and he tumbled to the ground. I hopped back in surprise, then placed my hands on my hips.
“That’s what you get for trying to mess with my possible blackmail materials.” I scolded. Luke sat up and gave me an indignant look. Then his expression changed. I didn’t have time to react before he launched himself from the floor towards me. I let out a shriek as his arms wrapped around my waist and lifted me from the floor. He didn’t get much farther than two steps before I peeled one of his hands from my body. I let out a loud ‘ha’ and yanked on his other hand.
Suddenly, Luke let go of me. Finding myself off-balance, I flung my hands out to the sides. That didn’t stop me from tumbling forward into Luke’s chest, sending both him and me to the floor. One of us must have hit the bottle of soda on the way down, because I suddenly felt a stream of liquid hit the back of my head.
“Look what you did!” I protested. I tried to roll off Luke and get out of the way of the stream of sticky liquid cascading onto my head, but Luke’s hands gripped my waist tightly, holding me in place.
“Not so fast!” He replied, looking up at me. I tried to get out of his grip, but he didn’t budge.
“Luke!” I whined, drawing out his name. “I’m getting all sticky!” Luke merely shook his head.
“Swear you won’t show anyone the audio!” He demanded. I shook my head, sending droplets of soda everywhere. It had soaked my hair completely, and I could feel it dripping from my chin, leaving a wet spot on the collar of Luke’s shirt.
“No!” I countered, letting out a peal of laughter. “Let me go!” I added. Luke repeated his demand, and I let out a loud groan before flopping down on top of him. “Fine!” I contested after a moment. By this point in time, the bottle of soda had completely emptied, leaving me soaked from the shoulders up. Luke hadn’t gotten away unscathed either. His shirt was wet in spots, and, judging by the puddle of liquid on the floor, I guessed his back was fairly wet as well.
“What the hell?” The sound of a third voice startled me, and I rolled off of Luke immediately, pushing myself to my feet. Jack, along with everyone else who had been downstairs, was standing in the entrance to the kitchen. The group had a mixture of expressions on their faces—anger (Jack), amusement (Ben, Calum), confusion (Ashton), and Michael was smirking knowingly. “What are you doing?” Jack added another question to his first statement. I opened my mouth to explain and apologize, but Luke beat me to it, speaking as he stood up next to me.
“We were just messing about, Jack. Calm down. We’ll clean up the mess, it’s no big deal.” He said, his voice sounding a little more than annoyed. Jack fixed Luke with a withering look.
“It better be clean before mum comes home.” He stated simply before turning around and stalking away. Ben said something about making sure Jack didn’t blow something up before making his exit as well.
“I’ve gotta do homework.” Calum announced. Ashton offered to drive him home, and the two of them left after saying quick goodbyes. Michael gave Luke an open smirk before he spoke.
“I’m gonna head home as well. Don’t have too much fun messing about without me.” He chuckled before exiting the room, leaving Luke and I alone. I sighed and looked up at the blonde boy standing next to me.
“Haven’t even known your brothers more than an hour and already one hates me.” I said. Luke frowned in the direction Jack had gone before turning to me.
“Nah, he doesn’t hate you.” He said gently. “He’s never been one to mess about much. It’s all work and no play with him. Always has been.” He assured me. I smiled gratefully at him before glancing around the kitchen. Our mess hadn’t spanned a whole bunch of space, but it would be harder to clean if we let it sit. I crossed to the counter, righting the now almost-empty bottle of Coke, and turned back to face Luke.
“I guess we should clean up our mess.” Luke nodded, a small smile playing at his lips.
“Yeah. Though I have to warn you, cleaning up messes is never as fun as creating them.” He quipped. I scoffed, rolling my eyes.
“And what makes you think I had any fun being forced to take on a waterfall of soda by a six-foot oaf?” I retorted. Luke’s smile turned into a grin as he looked at me.
“I think the fact that you’re blushing says it all, Larksen.” He stated simply. If I hadn’t been blushing before, I surely was now. I let out a short huff and broke eye contact with him, turning and grabbing a washcloth from the sink. I threw it at him, speaking as it hit him in the chest.
“Just clean, Hemmings. No talking.” I ordered. Luke’s grin didn’t fade. “And I’m not blushing.” I muttered to myself. However, judging by the way Luke burst into laughter, he’d heard me.
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Close enough to Sunday, right? I sincerely apologize for not having posted last Sunday, but I'm here now, so I guess that's all that matters! On another note, OMG we're at 114 comments and 400+ votes and 7,100+ reads! You have no idea how freaking happy that makes me. I love you all so much, and I apologize that this is somewhat of a filler chapter, but just bear with me. It'll get better. Promise! Love you bunches! =))