Bite the apple, baby

They are so darn cute

Real Fans Save Bands stage!

Part Six - Final Part (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five)

Word Count: 4.761K

Blurb: When Luke Hemmings returns to your hometown the same time you do, you are forced to address the greatest heartbreak of your life: being left behind by your best-friend.

Warnings: language; alcohol; yearning; smut: fingering, sex, alluding to oral sex

Notes: Oh my God. I can't believe this is over. When I started this, I did not expect for it to turn into what it has. Thank you for reading. Thank you for crying. Thank you for leaving your love. I'm crying as I write this right now because I'm very emotional. Also, it is officially July 16th right now in Australia, so happy birthday to Luke.

Taglist: @julie-must-die @startovercal @uhmmjayla @angrylilangel @mjskeetz @shouldakissedyouanyway

*********************************************************************

You and Luke are great at pretending.

You spend the following days pantomiming belonging to each other. Acting like the time that has passed and the lives you created separately isn't another divide you may not be able to cross.

But the pretending feels so real. When you and Luke cook dinners together in the kitchen with Liz and the three of you end up dancing to music from the 80s. When you grab take-away late at night and eat it in your car in front of the old school just to see if the place still looks as miserable. The way Luke laughs, eyes shining and grinning wide, when you say it does still look like a penitentiary.

How he leans across the console after and kisses you hard, greasy mouths and all without grimacing. Calls you, "my crazy girl." How the use of "my" doesn't make your skin crawl, doesn't feel like a claim being staked. It feels like hoping. Feels like speaking aloud what you both know.

You spend every night together. You talk about being kids, reliving the origin story of you approaching him at school when the other eight-year-olds were making fun of Luke for being a bit chubby. He tells you how you saved him that school year. You don't need to tell him how he had saved you from your Mum's after. How so much of your life you had credited to Luke saving you until he pushed you away and forced you to rescue yourself.

You kiss and hold each other. You have sex, sex that leaves you breathless and aching and satisfied in ways you never knew to be possible. It's so good, so intimate, that just calling it sex feels like a bastardization.

You both know what you're doing, what you're feeling, but just like the pretending, you don't talk about it. As far as Luke seems concerned, there is no elephant in the room. There is no hailstorm and no, you're not sheltering yourselves in a glass house. There's just you two in the liminal space of Liz' home. In the hometown you both left. In Luke's bedroom.

The sixteenth night of your stay, you lay in Luke's bed, head on his bare chest, hand resting on the patch of hair that's grown there. You're both covered in a thin sheen of sweat and the stickiness between your thighs from Luke's mouth is fresh. You smell like each other. He smells like you. You don't care anymore if his scent clings to you. You welcome it.

The room is quiet except for your breathing, the sighs escaping Luke's mouth.

"What if you came back with me?"

Luke's question breaks the stillness. The tension in your chest, the familiar one, flares as you shift your body to look at him. The dark tendrils of his curls are stuck to his forehead, cheeks slightly flushed still, his eyes clear. Nervous. Hopeful.

"What?" you ask, although there's no real question of what he's asking. You're just caught off guard.

"What if you came back to LA with me?" Luke repeats, gaining his voice. "I could move you out there. We'd figure out the citizenship. I could take care of us both."

He means it. You've known him long enough to know he's thought about what he asks you. It hurts. It hurts because a part of you wants it. It hurts because Luke knows you, should know you enough to understand why you can't.

"Luke, I have my job here," you say, sitting up. "I've worked for so long to get where I'm at."

There's a shift in Luke's gaze as he adjusts himself to sit up with you. It's a look you recognize but haven't seen in a while. You catch him trying to reel it in, the reaction you know he wants to give to his feeling of being rejected.

"You're talented. You could get another job out there. I'm sure I know people I can connect you to," he says.

"I don't want to have my job because you got me in," you say. You do your best to not feel insulted by him thinking that's something you'd want. You tell yourself he's trying to be helpful, to keep you both together, to have a reason for you to stay with him, but the most debase part of you believes he still sees you as the fourteen year old who needs saving. "I want my job because I worked for it, because I created that stability for myself. You should know I wouldn't want that."

You realize too late that you sound sharp, more accusing than you mean. You sound the way you did when you had convinced yourself that you hated him. Luke picks up on it immediately, and his tone alters with yours.

"I'm not trying to insult you," he says, jaw tightening.

"I know," you say. "I'm sorry, let me just--" You stop yourself, run your hand through your sweaty hair, take a shaky breath. Your fingers itch for a cigarette, but you force yourself to continue. "I know you mean well. I know you're asking with good intentions--"

"Fuck, intentions, Angel. I'm asking because I love you."

Your breathing stops, which you tell yourself is stupid. You've known that you love Luke. You've ascertained that he loves you, at least in some way. But Luke saying it so outright, that rips the air from your lungs. All you can do is look at him, into the eyes that haven't changed in many ways except the sadness in them. Into the face that is the same yet so different.

He's still your Luke. But he's also transformed, so much more heavy than you ever remember him to be. His emotional gravity draws you in. You don't see how you could have ever avoided it, even if you had never forgiven him.

"I love you, too," you say.

Luke's jaw unclenches and he sighs. His hand works anxiously in his lap and he breaks his stare from your face. Focuses on the connection of his forefinger and thumb.

"Then why aren't I-- isn't that enough?" he asks, catching himself.

You reach across and grab his hand to still it, to comfort despite your heart also wrenching. Your hand can't even cover his, but he stops moving.

"Luke, we both know why I can't. It has nothing to do with you not being enough. It has nothing to do with me not loving you."

You swallow hard, realizing what you're about to say. Realizing that the teenage version of you who had no dreams for herself outside of Luke would be raging at you right now, screaming that you're messing it up.

But the version of you now, the one who carried you through your mother's death, losing your best friend, and moving to another city by yourself despite the all-encapsulating grief, she knows you're doing the right thing.

"It has to deal with me not throwing away my goals to follow after yours, even if you're someone I want," you continue. "Even if you're the only person I've ever wanted."

Luke looks up from your hands. You see the fresh tears there, the pink rim of his waterline. It makes your chest ache, seeing your boy like that. And yes, even now, Luke is your boy.

"Will I still be if you leave?" he asks, his voice steady but broken.

"You still were even after you did."

The look he gives you, you can tell he understands your decision. That him begging you to go with him would only disrespect you, would crumble what you've built. Would eviscerate any amends he had made with you.

"Would you let me fly you out when you have holiday?" he asks. "If that's something you want. I don't want to go years without seeing you, again."

"Of course," you say, your thumb brushing the knuckles of his fingers, swallowing the lump resting in your throat, looking down at your hands. The words you plan to say next threaten to break your voice. "Just please tell me if you have someone, okay? If someone else comes along, I want you to be happy, but I want to know."

Luke sighs, heavy.

"There's not going to be."

"You don't know that," you say looking up to him, the briefest bit of your own insecurity coming out, and you hate it. But you know the reality of what Luke does. Of how many people want him.

"I do," he says, grief bleeding from his irises. "It's one of the only things I know."

"Do you hate me?" you ask.

"Never," Luke says, taking his hand from yours and wrapping his arms around you, pulling you back into his body. You meld into his shape, and let his warmth settle around you both, the way he smells like cigarettes and sandalwood and you. You sit in the silence of him. In the heaviness of your decision, in the quiet of his.

Finally, you ask a question you shouldn't.

"Do you really plan on waiting for me? Even if neither of us ever stay?"

For a moment, you think Luke won't answer, the stillness of the room intensifying, the dark seeming to enshroud you both as time ticks on, as the days you have left together grow fewer.

"Always."

*****

Three days pass.

You try to take what you can get from your time with Luke without it being tainted by the fact that you're leaving him. That's the reality of it. In a twisted act of the universe, all you ever wanted for years was to be able to leave Luke Hemmings in the same way he left you. Now that you are, that you're making the active choice to leave when he's asked you to stay, you want anything but.

You focus on what you can do with him, with his family. You focus on coffee in the mornings, and working in the garden, and one last library trip. You do whatever you can.

When it gets to be only three days before you leave, Liz calls you into the kitchen while she's answering her daily crossword. Usually, Luke helps her, but this morning he insisted on running to the servo to grab more cigarettes. You had asked if he wanted you to go, but he had only sent you a soft smile, kissed you on the mouth and squeezed your hip saying he'd be right back.

"I just can't get this one," Liz says once you get to the table.

You read over the question frame, immediately knowing the answer. You also know there is no way that Liz doesn't know it, either.

"Liz," you say.

"What?" she asks, looking up at you from her seat, feigning innocence.

You sigh, slide the chair out from beneath the table and sit.

"If you want to talk about it, just ask me."

She looks to you, eyes glazing over your face, as if deciding to continue playing like she doesn't know what you're alluding to. When she sets her pencil down and shifts in her seat, you know you've opened the conversation.

"Luke told me he asked you to go back to Los Angeles with him," she says.

"He did," you say, seeing where she is going to take it.

"He said that you can't go with him because of your work."

The way Liz says it, lips forming around the words with precision, you understand that she doesn't agree with your choice. You're not shocked. Liz is the reason you reconnected in the first place. You both would have never stepped foot in the same building, otherwise.

"I've built a life for myself, here," you say. "I know you don't know the full story of what happened between us, but you know how I struggled to function after. My work, going after what I wanted is the only thing that kept me going."

You wait for Liz to say something, but when she doesn't, you continue.

"It's no surprise I love Luke--"

"And he loves you," she says, only interrupting then.

"Yes," you say, nodding. "But I can't leave just to be someone's partner. I want my own things, my own work. I don't want to lose myself in just being his. I love him terribly, but I've learned what making your entire life a single person does."

Liz watches you, staying silent. Then she swallows, takes a sip of coffee, puts the mug down gently.

"I understand, Doll. I do." She twists the mug in her hands, traces the mouth piece with her finger. "I also understand that Luke has never been comfortable with anyone but you. I see the way you look at him, the way you always have. As someone who's been in love with the same man for over thirty years, I know what you have is rare."

"Liz--"

"But," she continues. "I know that you're doing what you need and that you owe it to yourself. I support that. I'm just asking, as a mother, as someone who raised you and loves you both, to try if the opportunity arises."

She looks back up to you, those familiar eyes both full of love and tinged with sadness.

"Don't shut out the idea forever. Give him the chance," she says. "Give yourself the chance to actually be happy."

You want to answer, to tell her that you following your job is giving you the chance to be happy, to create something for yourself. You do love your job. The work, the people, the little flat in Brisbane that it gives you. It's the only happiness you've known the last nine years.

But you can't answer, because the smallest part of you knows the truth and also, Luke comes through the front door. The bag from the servo in his hands, his basketball shorts hanging low on his hips, stained band t-shirt clinging to his broad frame.

He looks casual when he smiles toward you, but Liz' words are echoing in your mind so it takes you a moment to return it. He comes next to you both, squeezes your shoulders, presses a kiss to your temple when he sits.

"What are my gals doing?" he asks.

Liz sends a look to you, gives him a smile.

"Just talking over this cross-word, but we solved it," she says.

She take's her pencil and goes to the 59. across frame: ____ ____'s kiss.

She scratches the answer into the space.

True Love.

*****

Your last evening there, you're on the back porch getting ready to smoke when Luke steps onto the hardwood, a football in his hands. You cock an eyebrow at him, a smirk playing on your lips.

"What do you have there?"

Luke sends you a grin.

"Fancy some footy?"

A surprised laugh escapes you.

"I haven't played in years," you say.

Luke shrugs.

"Neither have I, so it's fair."

You sigh in falsified frustration, but smile at him, take the ball from his hands.

"Fine, loser owes winner a cigarette."

"Deal," Luke says, following you to step off the porch and into the yard. You toss the ball to your feet, shoot Luke a smile. You spot the same two bushes you had set as make-shift goal posts as kids. The ones that Luke had crashed into one time when he was running too fast to stop himself. He had scratched his legs up so badly, and after you stopped laughing, you had helped doctor the wounds. You were twelve and it was the first time you had wondered what kissing Luke would be like.

"Same posts," you say. "First to three?"

Luke nods across from you.

"First to three."

"You're gonna lose, Hemmings," you say.

Luke just smiles at you, lowering his body to be eye level in a spread-leg stance.

"Whatever you say, Angel."

And then you take off, moving the ball between your feet with surprising agility. You can tell it catches Luke by surprise at the speed you still have, and he tries to chase after you when you out-maneuver him.

"How the fuck are you still so fast?" he yells, already laughing through his panting.

He attempts to intercept you, but you cross the ball through his legs, retrieving it on the other side of him as you race down the yard. You easily kick the ball through the bushes, throw your arms up in the air in victory, admittedly breathless.

You turn to him, smiling.

"Maybe you should work on your speed," you tease.

He shakes his head, curls falling over his forehead.

"I won't be so easy on you next."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," you say, jogging back to the middle of the yard, the blood rushing through your veins, heart thumping from the cardio and the way Luke's eyes land on the sweat dripping down your neck.

When he moves this time, he out paces you, arms pumping at his sides as he does his best to beat you across the yard. You fight from holding back a laugh at his long strides, the way he looks like the gangly teenager you knew sprinting across the school football field. And for a moment, you feel like you're fourteen again, too, just running with your best-friend, trying to find something fun to do in this boring place that wasn't just drinking beer and smoking weed.

This time, unlike the first day here, the image flashing in your mind of skinny legs and red faces doesn't hurt.

"Goal!" Luke shouts. "C'mon baby, you just gave up on that one!" he says, turning and laughing.

"Fine," you say. "I've got you this time."

For the next twenty minutes, you chase each other across the yard. The next goals take more effort, both of you sweaty and tired, the years and numerous cartons of cigs taking its toll on you both.

When you kick your third goal through the bushes, you squeal with laughter.

"I fucking told you!" you yell, turning, only to collide with Luke who is running your direction, wrapping his arms around you, bringing you to the ground.

"There's no way you beat me!"

You're both laughing, faces red and strained, breathing ragged. Luke braces himself on top of you, not putting his entire weight on your body, kisses your face in dramatic flare to make you laugh harder.

"Get off me!" you giggle.

"Say that I won!" he says.

"Never! I won!" you retort, and you're laughing so hard that tears threaten your waterline.

Luke looks over you, his curls plastered to his forehead, cheeks tinged with pink, a smile so wide on his face. His eyes search yours, roves your face. His smile softens, his eyes moving into a different emotion.

"I've missed you," he says. "I'm going to miss you."

Your laughter slows. You don't wipe the tears from your eyes.

"I'm going to visit," you promise.

"I know," Luke says, rolling over beside you in the grass, laying face to face with you. "Still."

You notice the way the sun sets behind you both, the sky bleeding into oranges and reds and pinks. The light frames Luke's hair, casting a glow over him. You're going to remember this: Luke sweaty and red faced and laying in the yard with you.

You want to remember this.

"I'm going to miss you, too," you say.

Luke doesn't say anything, just looks at you, drinks you in as though you're the one cast in the glow of the dying day. Maybe you are, maybe in this moment you're both wrapped in light, in the gaze of each other.

"Promise me you'll tell me if you change your mind," Luke says.

"About staying?" you ask, your voice quiet.

"About loving me."

His request makes the ache in your sternum come to life. The way his insecurity drips into his words. It reminds you that Luke is still him. Despite the stardom, the addictions, the way he carries himself with a sense of restraint, your Luke that questions himself is still there. Will probably always be there.

"I promise," you say, because you don't know how to answer any other way. You don't know how else to say that all you know when it comes to love is Luke. That you believe to the depths of your soul that even if you ever cared for someone else again, it would never be the way you love your best friend.

"I know I have a red-eye in the morning," Luke begins, "but stay with me tonight?"

"Wouldn't dream of anything else," you say.

*****

That night, Luke pulls you into his room after Liz and Andrew have gone to bed. He kisses you hungrily, like he's a man on death-row and this is his last night alive. Your tongue meets his feverishly, letting Luke's taste burn into your mind. His large hands grip at your hips, your thighs, back to your waist, memorizing every curve of your body.

"Luke," you moan when he sucks at your neck, pushes his fingers into you, grazes his teeth down your jawline. You clench around him, already needing him, wanting Luke inside you like you've never been able to have him before. "Please," you beg, and he moves into you quickly, swallowing the way your whine spills into his mouth when you finish over his hands.

"Luke," you say again.

He watches your face, his eyes greedy, somber, aware of this being your last night together in however long time decides just.

"I need you," you say, hoping he hears you.

I will always need you. Even if I'm deciding this. Even if I'm the one staying away.

Luke hears you. He takes you in his arms, carries you to his childhood bed, lays you down gently. He pulls the clothes off both of you, leaving you bare, exposed, honest. He kisses your collar bone, your sternum, your stomach.

"Okay, Angel," he whispers when he's back against your mouth. "I've got you."

Luke kisses you deeply before he presses into you, as if committing it to memory. Your groans, the way your body molds into his, the way you kiss him like you mean it when you say you'll never love anyone else.

You're memorizing him, too, because on your last night together in his childhood home, Luke makes love to you.

For the first time in twelve years, you don't want to forget a single thing about Luke Hemmings.

*****

You don't want to remember Luke leaving without you. He's done it twice before, and you had promised yourself you wouldn't let it happen again.

You also never would have thought you would be the one to decide to not get on a plane with him, but you are.

The morning when he leaves is melancholy, his flight leaving at four. He wakes you at one, tries to get you to go back to sleep, but you refuse. You watch him get dressed. Watch as he packs his things into Liz' car. Watch the way your hands look holding each other's in the backseat.

You watch it all. How the car pulls to the curb outside the airport. How Luke hugs Liz close to him, kisses her goodbye, promises to see him as soon as he can. You watch Andrew clap his son on the back, hugging him tight, telling him to be good. How Liz and Andrew climb back into the car, leaving you and Luke alone on the pavement.

Luke watches you, taking in your face: your eyes, your mouth, the nose-piercing.

"I'll see you," he says, giving you the space to decide how your goodbye goes.

You reach toward him and he lets the bag fall to the ground, wraps you in his arms, dwarfing you. You breathe him in, tell yourself that you will always recognize the scent of him.

"You will," you say.

He pulls from you when you hear a worker shout about Liz' idling car. He shoots them a look that they don't see and turns back to you. He presses a kiss against your mouth, quick, gentle, enough to make your stomach churn.

"I'll text you when I land," he says. "Text me back?"

You send a soft smile.

"Always."

With another quick kiss, he picks up his bag and turns to walk into the airport. You're about to get back into the car when you hear a, "Wait!" You turn and Luke is jogging over to you, a cigarette between his fingers.

"I never gave you this," he says.

You laugh, looking to the cig in his hand.

"Keep it. I'll come collect at some point," you say.

Luke smiles wide at you.

"Okay, Angel. Whenever you want."

Then Luke is heading into the airport and you're climbing into Liz' car, pulling away from the drop-off. Letting the one man you've ever loved leave without you.

It seems that all either one of you ever knows to do is leave.

*****

You and Luke keep your promises.

Neither one of you goes radio silent, even with different time-zones and work schedules and book releases. You stay in touch. He FaceTimes you when he can, texts you lyrics to songs he hears that reminds him of you. You listen to 5 Seconds of Summer with a different kind of pain, one that doesn't feel like betrayal anymore.

You don't see each other again for another year. Luke flies you out to see him before the next album release. You stay in his house in LA for three weeks, Liz forgiving you for using the holiday time reserved for her to see her son. Those three weeks, you're yourselves again, the one's that grew up together. The one's who come back after being apart.

But when you leave, when Luke kisses you goodbye at the airport, asks if there's anyone back home when you both know the answer, it feels like a mistake.

A mistake you don't know how to fix.

*****

When you get promoted to Copy Editor of your company's new international office two years and two LA trips later, Luke isn't your first call.

It's Liz.

*****

You knock on the double doors to the house, hoping you made the right decision by not giving a heads up.

When the door opens, Luke stands there in his sweats and t-shirt, his now blonde hair tucked behind his ears. He freezes, mouth going agape before his brain catches up with his eyes.

"Angel?" he asks, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you in through the door, into his chest. His warmth seeps through you, unchanging. He smells like he always does, even with the hint of new cologne on him.

Luke looks at you with disbelief, his hands roving over your shoulders and your face as if you're just a part of his imagination, like you're something that could disappear.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asks.

"I got promoted," you say.

His eyebrows scrunch up, the wrinkles more visible in his forehead at nearly thirty-four. You love being able to see him age.

"That's amazing, baby," he says. "But you flew out here to tell me you got promoted?"

"It's an international office," you say, hoping the pieces click.

When you see the way his eyes light up, the way he kisses you hard, pulls you into his body, hands finding your waist with ease, you know he understands. You don't even have to explain.

Luke pulls away from you, in his eyes, there's the love that you've held onto for the last three years, the last fifteen before that. Even when you've both denied it, it's remained.

"Stay with me," he says.

"Always."

Luke smiles so wide, and you realize that you're not the same people you were at fourteen. You're something more aged, broken and cemented back together. Something that's been made stronger, somehow.

Luke takes you by the hand and drags you up the stairs. You giggle as he pulls you along.

"What are you doing?" you laugh.

"Taking you to our room," he answers. When you get to the top of the stairs, he hooks his hands beneath you, pulling you and your legs around him. Luke kisses you and the ache in your sternum goes away for the first time in your life.

"Then after," he says. "I owe you a cigarette."

You laugh and kiss Luke. Your best friend. Your lover.

"pantomiming belonging to each other" how dare you Shelby, honestly

Luke just straight up putting that question out there lmao

(listen I have no ambitions apart from maybe writing one day so if anyone wants to offer to love me and take care of me I'm in, I have zero career prospects to lose ok just putting that out there)

HE LOVES HER OFFICIALLY AND OPENLY AND IN WORDS

I'm falling apaaaart this is baaaaaaaaad

not the writing obviously, that's fantastic

hello excuse me I didn't sign up for crying???

Liz is like how DARE you make my son so happy for ten days and then not go with him because of a JOB!!! UNACCEPTABLE

Liz is being the voice of reason tbh

very few comments on this part because i'm in my feels

I MEAN IT SORTA IS HIS LAST NIGHT ALIVE IN A WAY

also I'm so fucking impatient and nervous about the ending of this that every time I see the **** at the end of a paragraph I quickly scroll a little further to make sure it's not done yet

(Yes i'm the type of person who sometimes has to put their hand over the page of a book so I don't spoil myself, why)

THEY DON'T SEE EACH OTHER FOR A YEAR??? I would pass away, simply perish

I HATE THAT IT TAKES TWO YEARS BUT FUCK YES I KNEW HER JOB WOULD COME AROUND

lmao yeah Luke she got on a plane because being promoted is too special to just tell you via phone call you big doofus

Part Five (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four)

Word Count: 4.905K

Blurb: When Luke Hemmings returns to your hometown the same time you do, you are forced to address the greatest heartbreak of your life: being left behind by your best-friend.

Warnings: language; alcohol; yearning; smut: fingering, unprotected sex (I can't even validate this one except I wanted it yall soz), squirting if you squint; switch!Luke; emotional devastation

Notes: I keep being floored by all the love I'm getting and what you guys share with me. I cannot believe that so much has come from writing, from telling this story I wanted to tell. Thank you for reading. Part Six will be the final part. Thank you for your comments and love and commitment. I don't know how to be anything but thankful.

Taglist: @julie-must-die @startovercal @uhmmjayla @painkxllers @mjskeetz @shouldakissedyouanyway

*********************************************************************

Waking up in Luke Hemmings' bed is something you haven't done in twelve years. It's something you had not only thought would never happen, but the one thing you also swore to yourself you'd never do, again.

When the faintest bit of light seeps in from behind the curtains over the windows of Luke's childhood room, his light breathing the only sound in the space, you realize that multiple promises you've made to yourself over the years have dissolved as of late. You don't quite know how you feel about that, yet.

You blink open your eyes to clear the sleep from them and take-in the room as the sun spills through the window. The curtains are the same as when you had last been in here, an early 2000s style grey and black striped psuedo-cotton material. Luke's posters of his favorite bands as a teenager still cling to the walls. You're not surprised Liz never removed those, something to remind her of her son when all of his other things were eventually removed and put into storage when he was so far away for so long.

You hadn't been the only one waiting for Luke to come back, Liz was too.

You look over to Luke himself, arms curled into his body as he side sleeps. Even in rest, his face isn't relaxed. Despite the curls hanging over his forehead, you can see that the bridge between his eyebrows is scrunched. His jaw twitches briefly and the clench in his jaw becomes even more obvious.

The fact that Luke cannot sleep without some sort of tension weighs uneasily in your chest. You're aware that things have happened that he hasn't discussed, but witnessing the inability he has to rest makes the part of you ache that got you into Luke's room in the first place.

Luke's right eyelid peaks open from beneath the fringe and his jaw loosens.

"Are you watching me?" he asks, voice heavy with sleep.

"Not intentionally," you say, keeping your eyes on him.

"Hmm," Luke sighs, closing his eye and bringing his arms over you. His body exudes the heat you remember, but his limbs are heavier as they rest across your bare torso. "C'mere," he whispers, and you move yourself into his arms, guided by the way he tugs your back against him, your naked bodies adhering to each other's skin.

When Luke breathes, his chest rises against your spine. It's intimate, somehow even more so than last night, breathing in tandem, his exhales seeping into your ear.

"Did you sleep good?" Luke asks, groggy.

"Yes," you say, letting your hand trace over his forearms wrapped around you. There's tight muscle and hair there now, so different from when you were teenagers.

"Me too," Luke says. "Better than I have in a long time."

The image of his face tense with stress while sleeping comes back to you, illuminating why Luke has had perpetual under-eye bags since you've been here the last ten days. You want to ask him about what has happened the last twelve years and not receive a blanket answer, you want to understand.

But you don't get a chance to open the conversation, because there's an unexpected knock at the door. Your breathing stills immediately.

"Luke?" Liz asks through the closed door. "Don't mean to disturb you, but it's ten. I wanted to make sure you're okay."

"Shit," Luke breathes.

"Just answer her," you whisper, turning to your back, thinking about Liz finding you in bed with her son, obviously naked.

"Uh, yeah, Mum. Just being a bit of a loaf," Luke says.

"It's contagious this morning, I reckon," Liz says. "(Y/N is still asleep, too."

Luke sends you a sideways look, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

"Guess we're both just really tired," Luke says. "I'll be out in a minute if you want to put more coffee on."

"Sure," Liz says. You don't dare say a thing until you hear the sound of Liz' feet retreating down the hallway.

Luke watches you and a quiet laugh slips from his mouth as he takes in the mortified expression on your face.

"How the fuck am I going to get out of here without her seeing me?"

"We're thirty, babe," Luke says.

The way he calls you babe would have rang louder in your head if you weren't concerned about the imagined interrogation from Liz at the breakfast table about you and her son having sex under her roof.

Technically, outside of her roof, too, but that's not helping your spiraling mind right now.

"I need to find my clothes," you say, pulling away from Luke and stepping out from the warmth of his bed. You bend over when you find your shirt on the floor.

"Goddamn," Luke says, and you turn, finding his eyes fixed on your ass.

"You literally saw it last night," you say, dismissive, tugging the shirt over your shoulders. "Where the fuck are my shorts?"

"Correction," Luke says, shifting his hand under his head to support himself as he watches you. "I did not see your ass directly. Now a little more north of that, I got well acquainted with," Luke says as mirth drips from his voice and a shit-eating grin adorns his face.

You grab his shirt and boxers from the end of the bed and toss them at him, hard. The balled clothing hits him square in the face and he laughs.

"I hate you," you say, but even you can't keep the levity from your voice.

"Talk dirty to me, baby doll," Luke says, sitting up to tug his shirt on.

You sigh, still pantsless, unable to find your shorts anywhere. Luke stands from the bed and goes into his drawer and pulls out a pair of his sweats. He passes them to you.

"Just take mine," he says, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

You look up at him, cocking an eyebrow quizzically.

"Why aren't you worried about Liz knowing we spent the night together?"

Luke shrugs, more careless than you've seen him in a while. A type of careless that isn't falsified just to annoy you.

"Dunno, just don't think the worst thing I could do under my mum's roof is have sex with a woman she loves." His eyes rove over you as you tug on his sweats, the legs of them incredibly long and pooling at the ground past your feet. His eyes rest on the bunched fabric and a smile appears on his face. His arms go around your waist, pulling you into him. He places a soft kiss to your mouth, and it's so gentle and slow, so domestic, the smallest glimpse of what life with Luke would be like that it makes that familiar ache seep into you. "Besides, it's not like we're just fucking."

At his allusion to the unsaid, at Luke proverbially showing you his hand, the heaviness bubbling beneath your skin comes to the surface and chokes you.

Luke wants you. Not just from last night, not just from years of pent-up emotions and aggression, but the you that wakes up in bed with him in the morning. The you that wears his sweatpants. The you he kisses softly.

And you want that so desperately. It's all the you from before wanted. It's what you want now. But that sole fantasy was from a time when you didn't have a job, when you hadn't committed nearly nine years trying to climb a ladder toward a dream you clung to for survival.

But you don't want to talk about it right now. You just want to be here with Luke. You want Liz to not see you coming out of her son's room in his sweats, smelling like him and sex. It feels like disrespect to a woman who gave you so much.

"You're sweet," you start, "however, I'd rather Liz not find out this way."

You squeeze his sides and send a look that says you're being cute and not spiraling about a very hypothetical future, before slowly cracking open his bedroom door and peaking into the hall. When it's clear, you turn to him.

"See you in a minute?"

There's an unreadable expression behind his eyes and you're wondering if you're doing the wrong thing before Luke responds.

"Of course."

Then you disappear into the hallway. Into your room. You take off Luke's sweats and fold them up, take great care to smooth them, pat them as you set them on the edge of your bed. You tug on a pair of your own shorts, brush out your hair, swipe on deodorant under your armpits.

You spray on perfume, just the smallest bit, to cover the way the smell of Luke is wrapped around you.

You tell yourself you're doing the right thing, that it's best to preserve Liz' emotions, that it's what is needed when there's so much hanging on a thread of uncertainty ahead of you.

Despite every validation you give yourself, when you smell completely like you, a you that sleeps alone in bed and smokes an occasional cigarette and swears she is angry when she's actually in love, it feels like betrayal.

A betrayal of who, that you don't know.

When you leave your room and go into the kitchen, Luke is already there, heading back to the table with coffee in his hands, two mugs, actually. You catch the way his eyes take you in, the shorts you're now wearing, but you tear your gaze to Liz as you hug her in her seat.

"Late night for you both?" she asks, eyes going between you and Luke when he sets your coffee down in front of you. You send him a smile, showing that you're grateful, that you're still here with him. His hand quickly squeezes your shoulder before he sits, a validation, a silent acceptance of apology. Liz' eyes rest on your shoulder, burning even more than Luke's touch did.

"Yeah," you say, taking a sip of the coffee before crafting a half-truth for Liz. "Couldn't sleep," you finish.

"Hmm," Liz says, an amused smile tainting her lips. "And what about you Luke?"

"Couldn't sleep either," he says, eyes fixating on his coffee as he drinks it.

"Hmm," Liz repeats. The amusement makes your skin crawl. You know that you and Luke are obviously acting differently. The touches, the way you don't hate each other. Liz is not stupid.

However, you don't like the allusion she's making as if she already knows what you've been wasting mental capacity to hide.

"How about you?" you ask, trying to redirect the subject back to her.

"Well, Doll," she says. "Got up pretty early to see Andrew off to work and worked a bit in my back garden, read a bit, made coffee."

You nod, listening, suddenly craving a cigarette sitting in the top drawer of your dresser. Wanting to ground yourself before talking with Liz about what she seems to be piecing together. Before having to broach the subject of you and her son.

Her son who you love, who you don't even know if you even can logistically be with.

And luckily, Luke picks up the conversation, segues into asking about plans for the day, suggests that you all go somewhere for brunch. Luke, who then turns to you, sends a smile that sits between the ligaments of your ribs, asks you if you want to have a cigarette with him before you head out.

And you smile back, graciously, heading with him to the back porch.

When you slide open the glass door, there, almost the first thing you both see, are your shorts lying on the hardwood with your underwear haphazardly hooped through the legs.

Your heart stops, drops to your ass. You wonder if you could kill yourself by jumping off the railing of the porch. Luke just fucking laughs, hard and high and free.

"Do you think there's any chance she didn't see that this morning?" you ask, doubtful even as the question leaves your mouth and you bend to pick up the shorts.

"No fucking chance, Angel," Luke says, teeth fully exposed, smile wide as he plants a kiss between your temple and jaw. His arm snakes around your shoulder, comforting, grounding, sending electric warmth through you.

"Well," you say, taking the cigarette that Luke passes you from his own pack, "so much for decency."

Luke laughs again, something you haven't heard this consistently in over a decade, and draws in the smoke of the cigarette between his teeth. He speaks as he exhales, the smoke unfurling around him. It's unfair how beautiful you find the way the smoke hangs around his face with those damn black curls.

"At least we don't have to hide it," he says, letting the cigarette rest at his side, his other hand resting casually at your waist, like last night wasn't the first time you had confessed your attraction to each other. Like you were together.

"You want to be open about it?" you ask after a drag of your own cigarette, thinking about how you almost said us, but it didn't feel right. It didn't feel wrong persay, but the us has a certainty, one you know you both don't have.

"Do you?" Luke asks, reading the expression on your face.

You think about stealing kisses from Luke around his family. About movie nights where you lay against Luke the same way Liz melts into Andrew. Nights where you don't go into your room at all, just go into Luke's where you had first kissed all those years ago, where you had made out, never going further than heated, over-clothing touches. Where the two of you now could have amazing sex, and talk, and make-up for twelve lost years.

It sounds beautiful, like the one thing you ever had wanted for nearly ten years.

But you and Luke will only be sharing the same space, the same temporary freeze-frame of life, for eleven more days. Then he goes back to California, to a life of stardom, touring, song-writing. Then you go back to your job, one you love, one you've worked so hard to obtain, to your new friends who don't know that you used to be in love with a rockstar, back to what you've built for yourself.

And you tell yourself you're thinking too far ahead. That this could be over as quickly as it had started. That you don't need to worry about all the logistics right now. That you love Luke and you think Luke loves you and that will be enough.

So you don't voice all of your thoughts, not yet.

"I do," you say, exhaling. "I want to be whatever we can be right now." You hope it's enough for Luke to hear the uncertainty there, that you're scared: to hurt, to be hurt by Luke, to hurt his family. You hope he can hear that you forgive him. You hope he hears your apology before you can even cause him harm.

Then there's a somberness in his eyes, just for a moment, and you know he's aware of the situation. Aware of the outcome of a single choice he can make. Like his mother, Luke Hemmings is not stupid.

"Then it's settled," he says, like you're sealing a contract. You both probably are. One, when he kisses you and cups your face with his hand, you tell yourself is worth signing, even if there's regret after.

*****

Mercifully, Liz doesn't mention finding your discarded shorts on the porch.

She doesn't even say anything when Luke opens the car door for you, asks, "You good, Angel?" before he closes the passenger door behind you.

She stays quiet about the subject all the way through the car journey, Luke's hand reaching over the console to graze gently against your thigh.

Only when you get to the restaurant, your brunch order put in does she look between the two of you while you sip on a mimosa.

"So, last night was eventful I assume," she starts.

You nearly choke, the burn of the champagne and orange juice threatening to spill from your nose. You stop yourself, choke down the drink with Luke's hand at your back, rubbing small circles.

"Mum--" Luke says.

"I'm so sorry," you get out. "We're so sorry."

Liz holds up a hand, a sign for you to stop talking or to stop apologizing, either way you go silent. Luke's thumb brushes gently against your back.

"I'm not upset. You're adults. I'm not unaware that there's been chemistry." She speaks steadily, even, looking between the two of you like any excessive enthusiasm from her may be the reason you never talk again.

"You swear?" you ask, concerned that despite her words, you've crossed a line.

Liz breaks a little, a smile coming to her mouth.

"I arranged for you both to be here at the same time. It wouldn't be completely truthful of me to say I hadn't hoped that something like this may happen." She takes a sip of her mimosa, washes it down with water. "It would be even more dishonest to say I'm not very excited about it."

You exhale while Luke releases a nervous laugh.

"We kind of figured that much, Mum," he says.

"You don't have to explain anything to me," she clarifies. "I just don't want to see anymore undergarments left on my porch."

She's laughing, but you're mortified, the heat rising to your face and into your chest, mixing with the relief there.

"You've got a deal," Luke says, closing his second contract for the day.

You nod in agreement, let Luke grab your hand resting on the table. Liz seems pleased at the contact, the linking of you two out in the open.

"I think I need another mimosa," she says, raising her hand for the waiter.

And you agree. You think you've never agreed with Liz Hemmings more.

*****

When Andrew returns home that night, he doesn't act surprised at the way your legs rest in Luke's lap, his thumb brushing against your shins while you watch a rerun of Friends with Liz. He doesn't even say anything, just sits on the sofa alongside Liz. Talks about his day.

When Luke pulls you into him while cooking dinner together, teases you for having forgotten to pre-heat the oven, kisses you deeply against the kitchen counter, his parents show no shock. You only catch a knowing smile shared between them.

They don't say anything when you go separate ways late into the night, Liz kissing you both on the cheek, telling you to rest well. It's like you and Luke being together, or whatever emulation of it you're exhibiting together, is normal. Was inevitable. Bound to happen at some point.

The cold awareness of having to leave them in just short of eleven days, of leaving Luke then, settles into your bones. Of course, you haven't talked about it with him. The jump from hating each other to being cordial to fucking to realizing he may actually be in love with you should give more whiplash than it does.

But it's Luke. It's you. Nothing about your relationship has ever been perfectly digestible, nor adhered to normal timelines.

Still, the heft of it weighs on your chest as you sit on the couch with Luke, leaning into his body, letting his shear size consume you. Luke's mouth traces the shell of your ear, places a brief kiss there before he speaks.

"You've been quiet," he says.

"Thinking," you say.

You're aware of the way his fingers trace against your thigh, running briefly under the hem of your shorts. The touch elicits a tightness in your lower belly, a warmth. A part of you hates how easy you are for him. Another aspect of you, the one that wants you to fall into it, whispers how none of your other sexual partners have ever excited you in the same way.

No one has ever been Luke.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asks.

"Not really," you say, not pulling your eyes from the telly. "Part of me wants to just forget about it for now, but it's hard."

Luke presses another kiss, a little lower than the last, a little more heated. His contact on your thigh under the hem of your shorts shifts a little higher.

"Do you want me to help you forget about it?" he asks, a heaviness steeped into his voice. You break your gaze from the show you weren't really paying attention to in the last few minutes and meet Luke's eyes. There's a hunger there, the desire that you learned well last night, the one you've seen since that first night in the kitchen.

There's no preamble when you kiss him. Your lips mold together, his tongue immediately finding its way into your mouth. You're learning very quickly that Luke kisses like a devotee, like he's only ever wanted you. It catches your breath, sends warmth through your face and torso and legs. Luke kisses you like he's made of flame, like he could both burn and be obliterated by you.

"In my lap," Luke says, pressed against your lips before he shifts you onto his legs, capturing the sound of surprise the movement elicits with his mouth. His grip on your thigh tenses as his hand moves higher under the material. You don't deny him, your legs spreading involuntarily at his touch, at the pressure of his palm ghosting over the front your underwear.

His voice is heavy with need when his mouth goes to your neck again, to the hollow below your ear.

"I never got you to come on my fingers, Angel."

An involuntary sigh leaves your mouth at his words, at the gentle graze of teeth he leaves on your neck, peppering goosebumps up your arms.

"I've had you on my face, and my tongue, and my cock, but I've not felt your gorgeous pussy come on my fingers."

The words are too much, a curse leaves your mouth, a groan as he teases beneath your panty-line.

"Fuck, Luke. Just touch me."

That's all he needs before he bypasses your underwear, presses his ring finger into you. Yet again, his eyes don't leave you as you take his finger, jaw going slack as you give a grind of your hips to force him deeper.

"Fucking filthy," he groans, but it's not degradation. With the dilation of his pupils, the way you feel him harden beneath you, how his gaze drinks you in with nothing else but awe, you know it's praise. The feeling it pulls from you, you recognize his words as the highest form of it.

He works his finger into you, devoted to watching your countenance, your reaction with every drag of his digit against your walls. He muffles his own sighs when you roll onto him, the way your cunt takes him, asking for it all, slick and wanting.

You open your mouth, a plea of "more," ready to spill when he adds his middle finger. You bury your face into his shoulder to conceal the moan, the pure delirium Luke and his long fingers push you into.

Luke brushes against the spot that sends your eyes rolling back, that has your cunt throbbing around him and a whine ripping from your throat.

"Fuck," Luke swears. "Hold onto me," he says.

There's little warning once you wrap your arms around his shoulders. You feel suddenly empty when Luke pulls his fingers from you and lifts you both from the couch, carrying you, ungracefully due to his refusal to stop kissing you, into his room. He sits down with you on his lap, both of you collapsing into the bed and onto each other. His hands are back on your thighs, spreading, lifting you enough to pull your shorts and underwear down your legs and disposing of them on the floor.

Heat emanates from him as his fingers slide back into you, no restriction, no fight, your cunt soaked. Your body welcomes him as if his fingers are only meant to be spreading you, learning you like the fretboard of his guitar.

"You fucking ruin me, do you know that?" he asks, working into you, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth as his speed increases, the sound of your pussy taking him crude and filling the room.

You go to speak, to say something, but a harsh stroke of him inside of you has your eyes rolling back, ripping any possible response from your throat.

"You fucking ruin me for anyone else. Your cunt. Your mouth. Your eyes."

The praise is spilling from his mouth now, no longer just pillow talk, but a confession. And you're so open for him, so wanting and wet and wordless due to the thread coiling in your stomach, that he adds a third finger. A wrecked sob escapes your mouth at the way your clit throbs, your pussy clenching around him, the pleasure so intense.

"Fuck, just you, Angel. I just want to make you feel good. To make you look at me like I fuck you better than anyone you've been with."

Your jaw has gone slack now. You have no control over your reaction, no control over the way your body ruts into Luke, the way you're so open and pliable, the way your body and mind scream, "more, more, more," when it comes to Luke. You try to look him in the eyes, but you're blissed out, hurtling toward an orgasm that is going to shatter you, but everything is blurred, everything is just Luke.

"Just like that," Luke breathes, and it sounds pained, animalistic. Your cunt flutters, the coil pulling taut, threatening to snap. You're going to die. You're sure of it. Luke Hemmings is going to kill you. "Fuck, I feel you baby. Like that, just like that," and with his words, his pace quickens, reaches an impossible angle inside of you, and you lose control.

You swear his name as your body convulses. You bite back a scream into Luke's shoulder, sinking your teeth hard, and the brightest, sharpest orgasm you've ever experienced crashes over you, soaking Luke's lap and fingers, catapulting you into a wall. He fucks you through your finish and you tremble in his arms, limbs going slack, a tremor of overstimulation overtaking your body.

Your chest heaves, breathing even a struggle as you come back down, sticky and soaked and legs tingling. Only then do you notice how Luke has pulled from within you, his arms anchoring you into place, the look in his bright eyes only what you can place as adoration. It makes your chest hurt.

Luke looking at you like he loves you physically pains you.

You press a kiss to his mouth, breaking his gaze, pulling him back into you. You drink in what he gives you: his heat, his affection, his touch. Agony be damned, you want it all.

"This is crazy," Luke sighs into your open mouth.

"What is?" you ask while pulling away, considering that so much of your relationship with him can easily classify as crazy.

"Having you," he says.

The earnestness wrenches your heart. It brings forward the conversation you've been putting off all-day, the uncertainty in the back of your mind asking if this pursuit is cruel to you both.

"Luke," you say. "We--"

"I know," Luke says, quietly, matter-of-fact.

"We're going to have to talk about it," you say, referring to the after. After you both leave. After you return to your lives. After being with Luke isn't as easy as walking to the next door over and falling asleep next to him.

"Tomorrow," Luke says, and you hear his plea there. "Just let me act like we're both staying."

And you have no logical reason to give Luke Hemmings any more favors. He had hurt you, caused suffering for so long. He took the easy way out, you know, and you realize he's doing it again, pretending. Pretending that because the emotions you share, the history, it will be enough in the end. That just that love is enough, that it's fair to keep the other waiting.

But the way you feel about him isn't logical, either. Has never been. So you grant his request, for now. You kiss him, hard.

You shrug him out of his shirt, crawl over his body as he lays back on his childhood bed.

You help him out of his sweats, stroke Luke until he's begging, until he's panting and writhing beneath you. Until he's ready for you.

You sink onto Luke, gasping, aching, stretching as he swears at how you tighten around him, his fingers digging into your sides in strained pleasure.

You take Luke, rocking him deeper into you, shifting to kiss him, swallowing the whimpers escaping his mouth.

"I'm yours," he breathes.

You let him pretend.

You let his words vault you into your orgasm, clenching around Luke to pull his own from him, his gasping breaths swallowing you both, entrenching you in your desire, in your delusion. In the high, in the rush of Luke and You and this love you accidentally brought into being, you answer honestly, wishfully.

"Always."

You pretend, too.

"You hadn't been the only one waiting for Luke to come back, Liz was too." 😭😭

god to wake up next to a man like that BIG FUCKING SIGH

hdalskjdhasf not liz yeah they're just both reaaaally tired

lmao Luke just straight up distracted as hell

"Talk dirty to me, baby doll," ghahfaskjdhaskjfha

YES OF COURSE HE WANTS YOU HOW WAS THIS UNCLEAR AT ALL

YAH LATE NIGHT LIZ DON'T MIND US

wow you two could have at least tried to come up with different lies lmao

I can't believe they legit forgot that's where her shorts are lmao

I'm gonna bash her fucking head in for being so hesitant. like. I get it, girl. I do. but also. ghdakfhaskdhasköjdhsöaf

NOT LUKE HITTING HER WITH THE ANGEL IN FRONT OF HIS MUM HELL YEAH

AND THE THIGH fhsakjödhasödka

LIZ NO HAHAHAHAHA

Liz the fucking matchmaker lmao

Andrew just out here accepting whatever the fuck is happening around him

girl, who wouldn't be easy for Luke

fjökakasdjöassd uh huh yes please

migth pass out and it's all your fault just so you know

😭😭😭

WELL GOOD THING I CAN HOP STRAIGHT INTO PART SIX NOW BECAUSE THAT ENDING IS GIVING ME CONFLICINT EMOTIONS

EVERYONE'S A STAR! WORLD TOUR NOBLESVILLE

EVERYONE'S A STAR! WORLD TOUR NOBLESVILLE