Luke eyes fluttered open to be greeted by the California sun peaking through his window, illuminating an orange tint through his room.
He grabbed his phone off the side table to check the time.
1:32 p.m.
His thoughts had kept him up all last night, and he didn't end up falling asleep until around 4. For some reason, he couldn't stop thinking about Brielle. She confused him. He couldn't figure out why she had been so protective of Tyler last night. The more he thought about it the more he regretted not ignoring Brielle and just beating his ass. He seemed to be a real fucking douchebag.
He would've deserved every punch he got.
Luke could also tell that Brielle wasn't planning on telling anyone about this, and that confused him too.
All of this was bothering the fuck out of him, and he wished that he had just asked Brielle the questions he had last night. He invited her to his next match in hopes of seeing her again, although she didn't seem too keen on going. Luke felt bad that her night was so traumatizing, and for some reason he felt like he owed it to her to make it up.
He also kind of wanted to show off how strong he was.
Luke checked his phone again. 1:40.
This was one of the few days that he had off, as he was constantly training. But he didn't mind, boxing was everything to him. Although, it didn't start off like that.
Luke had been interested in music his whole life. He didn't know exactly what he wanted to do, but he knew he wanted it to be something to do with music.
His mother and father divorced when Luke was fifteen. His mom couldn't stand to live with Luke's father, so she made the decision to leave the both of them. His mom promised to keep in touch, though Luke hasn't heard from her since the day she walked out.
"I love you so much, Luke. But this is what's best for your father and I. I promise to keep in touch and you can come see me whenever you want. I'm so sorry that this has to happen but please remember that I do love you."
What a naive fifteen year old he was for believing her words.
His mom was his biggest fan. When she left, he fell into a depression and lost the inspiration he once had when it came to music. And not only did her absence cause a lot of sadness, it also caused anger.
After she left, his grades dropped dramatically and everything ticked him off - especially the fucktards he had to spend 6 hours with every day at school.
He had an extremely short temper, and the tiniest things would piss him off.
And whenever Luke was pissed off, the only way he knew how to deal with it was violence. He ended up getting into a number of fights of school, most of them resulting from someone shoving him or rubbing him the wrong way.
One of Luke's best friends, Calum, was the one to introduce boxing to Luke. His first time experiencing a match was pretty similar to Brielle's. Except Calum didn't try to force himself onto Luke, thankfully.
Although Calum did get drunk and was loud and annoying and so was the rest of the crowd and if it wasn't for his deep interest in the match he probably would've ended up getting in a fight himself with the way people were shoving him around.
And though he didn't have the best time, he knew that he wanted to be the one in that ring.
So he ended up signing up for the club on his 18th birthday. People didn't take him seriously at first, based on his lanky appearance. But after seeing him perform in the ring, people knew this kid was the real deal. He didn't necessarily focus on his strength, but more on his performance. As long as he had the right execution, he could take on his opponents easily.
And that was his secret for success.
Luke was snapped out of thought as the phone lying on his chest vibrated.
After seeing it was a text from Michael, he already knew what it was about. Michael had invited Luke out for drinks after his match last night, although he didn't make it considering what happened.
m-dog: what the hell happened to you last night fucker
lucifer: something came up
m-dog: like what?
lucifer: come over with food and then i'll tell you
\\
Michael didn't respond and about 20 minutes later Luke heard a knock on his door.
Michael was another friend of Luke's back in high school. They met in band class and bonded over their interest in music. It was kind of a love-hate relationship between them. Luke was an asshole to him most of the time, but deep down he cared for Michael a lot. Especially since he was one of the few people there for him after his mom left.
Luke opened his front door to see Michael standing there with a bag of Chinese food grasped in one hand.
"Hi." Michael raised his arm so the bag was level with his face.
Luke snatched the bag out of his hand before turning around and heading into his living room, leaving Michael in the doorway.
"Can I at least get a thank you?" Michael half-yelled as he started to follow Luke.
"We're friends. Friends buy each other food. I shouldn't have to say thank you," Luke asserted, as he plopped himself down onto the couch.
Michael chuckled as he sat down next to Luke, leaning back and sprawling his arms across the top of the couch.
"So what came up last night that was so important that you had to ditch your plans to get drunk with your best friend?"
Luke swallowed the mouthful of rice he currently had in his mouth before setting it back down on the coffee table.
He was wary about telling Michael about what happened. Even though Michael didn't know Brielle and probably never would, he felt that he was betraying her in some way by telling him.
But at the same time Michael was one of his best friends and it seemed weird to keep this from him.
He let out a long sigh. "I kinda saved a girl from possibly almost like...getting ráped..I guess."
Michael didn't respond for a while.
Luke turned to him to see why he hadn't said anything, only to find Michael sitting there staring at Luke with an indignant expression on his face.
"That's not something to joke about."
"You think I'm fucking joking?" Luke exclaimed as he furrowed his eyebrows, kind of hurt that Michael thought he was that big of a dickbag to joke about something this serious.
"What the hell do you mean you saved a girl?" Michael's voice got louder, matching Luke's volume. "Like how-"
"I saw them in the back alley behind the club as I was leaving. The asshole was trying to force himself onto her while she fucking stood there crying. So I scared him away and made sure she was okay."
Michael continued to stare at Luke, although the expression on his face was much more somber now.
"Well, that definitely is more important than getting drunk with your best friend," Michael declared.
"Yeah."
Luke picked up the box of rice he was previously assaulting, and continued his grubbing.
"Is the girl okay? You kicked the guy's ass right?" Michael was now sitting up straight, his body completely turned towards Luke.
Luke shook his head. "She wouldn't let me. She protected him for some reason. She was already extremely upset and I didn't wanna add on to that."
"That's fucking crazy," Michael remarked, running a hand through his blonde locks.
Luke just nodded in response, most of his attention on the fantastic box of rice he was holding.
"So you were kinda her knight in shining armor, eh?"
Luke snickered. "You could say that. More like knight in sweatpants that haven't been washed in 3 weeks and a shredded tank top, but yeah."
Michael patted Luke on the back and gave him a warm smile.
"Well, I think that's pretty fucking cool that you did that. And I forgive you for ditching me."
Luke stuffed the empty containers of food back into the bag as he pushed himself off the couch to throw it away.
"I don't need your forgiveness," Luke retorted. "Although I do need to beat your ass in FIFA."
Luke's words caused Michael to chuckle.
"Fucking bring it on."
\\
please god forgive me for this terrible update