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Luke blinked at her and then leaned into the picnic table. He narrowed his eyes. “I’m sorry— did you just say rules?”

Julie mirrored him, leaning across the table, smiling nervously and with less confidence than she had possessed moments ago. “Yes, Luke. Rules. For fake dating?”

Luke glanced around, but there was no one around here who knew them. They were the only two out of their admittedly-not-overlapping friend group who had third block lunch. Julie normally spent it by herself and Luke normally spent it by himself. Julie in the lunch room and Luke on the outside picnic benches by the senior parking lot.

“Wait, we were serious about that—!?” Luke hissed.

“Yes!” Julie exclaimed. “And lower your voice! You need help to stay in school and I can tutor you, and I need everyone off my back about—.” She huffed, running her hands over her hair nervously. “—I need Nick off my back too and also we both need Carrie off ours and a million other things and my dad is so way less likely to bother me about doing stuff if he thinks I’m dating.”

Luke blinked at her. “I don’t even know if I’m allowed to date.”

“You’re seventeen.”

Luke shrugged, fiddling with the audio jack on the Walkman. The thing was old and beat up, scratched where Luke had probably dropped it on the ground. “My cousin wasn’t allowed to date until she graduated high school.”

“Well,” Julie huffed, “it’s fake anyway and you don’t even have to tell your parents if you don’t want to. Okay? But if we are doing this, if you were serious, we need rules.”

But Luke didn’t look convinced. He leaned away from the table, folding his arms protectively over his chest. A breeze swept past them and Julie regretted not snapping her jacket from her locker before she’d come out here. She shivered.

“Rules? For dating? Seriously?”

“Yes, number one, no kissing.” Julie snapped opened her composition book and clicked her pen in his face. He watched her warily, looking just as surprised as he had when she’d ran into him a few nights ago and this whole thing had become, well, a thing.

“No kissing? How is that going to be convincing?” He leaned forward to peer at the list she was numbering.

“We’ll be taking it slow,” she explained thoughtfully, shrugging. She looked into his eyes where he was gazing at her intently. She hadn’t realized they were blue— she’d actually thought they were green. No. Maybe grey?

“Okay,” he grumbled, grey-blue-green-whatever eyes flickering down to her lips momentarily. “Number two… no telling anyone.”

She looked up sharply. “Anyone?”

“No Reggie, or Alex, or Bobby. No Flynn. Or Kayla.”

Julie slowly placed her pen down. “I’m not… against it… but why?”

Luke shrugged and glanced down at his half eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “Makes it easier. Plus, if we can convince them, we can definitely convince Carrie and Nick.”

She had to give him that. She wrote the rule down. “Okay. Number three. Dates. How regularly? I think once a week, and we alternate who picks what.”

He looked thoughtful, glancing at her and then up at the sky. He shrugged after a moment. “Sure. I have a few ideas.”

Julie was wary of where Luke Patterson of all people would take a girl for a date. She knew he often spent time down by the strip, busking or trying to get his band name out there. She knew he’d dated a girl from their junior high for a few months before she moved across the country.

What he would do for a date… well, Julie didn’t exactly see Luke hanging out at the mall.

He wasn’t exactly top of the totem pole. At least, he hadn’t been before Carrie.

Julie shook herself from her thoughts. “Okay. Next. Can you drive?”

Luke blinked in surprise. “Um. I can. I mostly take my bike to school though.”

Julie shook her head. “I’m not riding on your bike with you to school. Do you have a car you can drive?”

He shrugged, and then nodded. “We’ve got an old wagon, yeah. I can grab that probably.”

“Good enough. Okay—.”

Luke reached over and grabbed a piece of her lunch that Tia had brought over to keep them from eating more leftover spaghetti.

“Hey!”

“We share lunches.”

She glanced down at his peanut butter and jelly and scrunched her nose in distaste. “I do not want your lunch.”

“I’ll pack some apples.”

“No, Luke—.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll buy you lunch.”

Julie hesitated, pen hovering over her notebook. “Pizza Fridays.”

“Fine. Pizza Fridays I buy you lunch.”

She hummed thoughtfully and titled her head down at her list. “What about parties or school events?”

Luke scowled. “Julie, I don’t go to school events. I barely even want to be here.”

She titled her head at him. “We’re trying to keep you here so you can get your parents off your back, right? That’s what you said the other day?”

He shrugged, glancing away and toward the doors of the school. She pursed her lips in thought.

“One school event a month, and as compromise I’ll… um…”

“You have to come to Sunset Curve gigs.”

Julie blanched and then shook her head. “Luke Patterson, no way am I doing that. You know I don’t do that sort of stuff anymore. Major problem.”

But Luke’s eyes grew big and round. He stared at her, a pout on his face. “Julie Molina please! And come on! No one will believe that you’re my girlfriend if you’re not showing up to gigs!” This was true.

“You guess don’t even have gigs. No one even knows who you are.” And this was also true— sure, people knew some kids in their grade had a band, but it wasn’t like that band was doing amazing. Julie had seen Luke’s friend Reggie putting up handmade posters for their gigs up around the school. She wasn’t even sure if the name until Luke had said it just now.

It also wasn’t completely true. People did know Luke. But it wasn’t like Sunset Curve had groupies or anything. At least, Julie didn’t think they did. Now she wasn’t so sure.

“Okay, that hurt, because we do have gigs so actually you have to come to them. You can choose all the dates for all I care, you just gotta come to the gigs when we have them.” Luke said excitedly, leaning toward her.

“I think you just want bodies there,” Julie grumbled, but added it to the list.

Luke peered over the table to look at it. “What number are we at?”

She counted seven, listing them off with a whisper in her voice.

“That is feeling very Heavy in your favor,” Luke said, turning the notebook to look at it. He reached for her pen, turning it fully so that it sat in front of him.

“What are you—? ‘Julie comes over three times a week to help Luke study’.” She leveled him with a dry look. “Three times a week?”

But he was looking between her and her notebook. “You can read that?”

She glanced down at his handwriting. “Yes? Listen, Luke, I know I agreed to help you study—.”

“I’ll drive you,” he said quickly, hurriedly speaking over her. He looked nervous. “I’ll pick you up and you don’t even have to worry about it. My mom will probably insist you stay for dinner too.”

Julie pursed her lips thoughtfully. “How about… twice a week in person and once by phone. My dad will believe me if I say I have a boyfriend and I’m hogging the line to talk to him all the time.”

Luke nodded firmly. “Deal.”

She tore a piece of paper from the back of the notebook, scribbling down the numbers she’d had memorized since she was little. “Here’s our phone number. My abuela calls every Sunday night so that’s off limits.”

He saluted, taking the Molina number and pocketing it in his jeans. “Got it, boss.”

Julie tried to hide the blush at that words, startled to find she didn’t actually mind it that much. She cleared her throat. “Okay. That’s eight. How do we feel about—.”

“I walk you to your locker in the morning,” Luke said, nodding toward the school. “That’s number nine. And ten is…”

“No falling in love,” Julie said, her voice quiet. Luke’s eyes found hers. “I just mean. It can’t get messy. What with Nick and Carrie. No feelings. Nothings real.”

Luke just stared. After a moment, he nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “okay. No falling in love.”

Julie finished the list and then snapped the notebook shut right as the bell rang shrilly in their ears. She winced. Luke was already moving, shoving his lunch into his backpack. Before she knew it, as a gust of wind blew against her curls, Luke was shrugging off his jacket and rounding the picnic table.

He laid it over her shoulders and leaned against her, his chest pressed against her back. Students stared as they passed, heading back into the school. Julie felt the blush from earlier return full force. His hands rested on her shoulders and he squeezed once.

He leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Is kissing on the cheek okay?”

“Um… yes… that’s okay.” She closed her eyes as his breath washed over her skin.

“Got it, boss.” He pecked a soft kiss against her cheek. And then he was gone.

Julie stared at the closed notebook, blinking in surprise. What had she gotten herself in to?

When Flynn called after school that day to say that everyone had seen Julie and Luke Patterson making out during the third block lunch and screamed so loud into the receiver, Julie’s dad heard it from the room over, Julie thought maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

Except it doesn’t feel like it. Her fingers are running through his hair, mussing it up, but not really; she’s touching his scalp, trying to fight the strands into place even though Luke’s hair does whatever it wants. He got the cut two (twenty-seven) years ago and his idea of styling was showering, towel drying, and moving onto the next best thing.

Julie is trying to style his hair, delicately lifting strands and putting them into place.

“Flynn said it needs to look nice for the behind the scenes she wants to film,” Julie explained from behind him. She was so close he could almost forget her hands on his head, just to focus on her chest against his back. She was warm. She was touching him.

He squirms in place, anxious, overwhelmed.

He can feel a rising heat in his cheeks and he’s thankful that no one else is in the studio with them and that Julie is behind him.

Granted, that’s part of the problem.

“Not very punk rock,” he replied, voice a touch higher than he would like. He swallowed and tried again. “It’s supposed to look messy.”

“There’s a difference between looking like a mistake and looking intentional!” she exclaimed. “And yours is definitely the first.”

Her hands brush the back of his neck and Luke feels it travel from his neck straight down his spine. The rush of heat on his cheeks is back and he squirmed in his spot again, his shoulders rising up to his ears.

Suddenly the side of his head is cupped by her hands and she leaned forward, on his back, over his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, “I’m trying to fix your hair, so hold still.”

“Got it boss. Sorry,” he murmured, eyeing her out of the corner of his eye. Her lips part, briefly, and then she’s disappeared.

They don’t speak for a moment. A moment that’s passed now. But Luke still feels warm, tense. This is casual. This is so casual. Interesting little relationship, who? This is totally fine and cool. If he had a heart, though, he’s certain it would be loud, thumping, thrumming, in his chest to match hers. He’d be worried she would be able to hear it.

Or feel it, with how close she was to his back.

Her hands fall away and before Luke can turn she’s rounding the coffee table to stand in front of him. Her eyes are on his bangs and she frowns, dissatisfied. She leaned forward and, hesitating only briefly, began to mess with the hair hanging over his forehead. Her face is close. Where does he look?

Over her shoulder? Or– her eyes are right there. He could look into her eyes.

Almost instinctively, his eyes fall on hers. She’s already looking at him. Her hands drop, but she doesn’t move. Neither does he. Luke doesn’t think he can.

“How’re we lookin’?” he whispered.