Luke and I sit in the living room. She’s laughing over some television show, and I’m there, watching her .It sounds creepy as hell, but Luke is just too beautiful to ignore.

“I don’t understand why the girl always gets the guy and then the guy always has to mess it up.” She speaks out loud, tying her hair back. I love it when she ties her hair back.

“It’s not always the guy,” I remind her. “Sometimes the girl can just be a complete bitch.”

“But it’s more likely that the guy is a douche.”

I snort, signaling the end to the little argument. Luke giggles and pulls her legs up on the couch, then hesitates and turns to me.

“You don’t mind do you?” she asks. When I give her a questioning look, she elaborates. “That my feet are up of the sofa?”

“Oh no,” I smile. “That’s fine.”

Luke nods and turns back to the television. Shortly after, my cell phone rings. I excuse myself from Luke and go into the hallway when I see that it’s Fiona.

“What?” I answer harshly. I don’t even know why I picked up in the first place.

“Hey Niall,” she cooes. “I called to ask if you’re ready to give us another try.”

“Excuse me?” I hiss. “I thought I made it pretty clear. We are done.”

I hear Fiona’s breath hitch. She growls lowly. Shit, it’s odd when a girl growls. “This is about that brunette bitch, isn’t it? She isn’t even pretty.”

“That is none of your business.” I snap. “And don’t you fucking dare talk about my friend like that.”

“Oh,” Fiona snarls. “Your friend.”

“Yes,” I say sternly. “Now leave us the hell alone.” I hang up before she can answer with some snooty comment of hers. I sigh deeply and stare at the ground, slipping my phone back into my pocket. I remember the times when Fiona and I used to be happy. We used to talk like a normal couple without yelling and insulting each other. But then came her love of shopping. I was completely stupid to fall for that one. It was clear that she was using me to get money for her damn clothes. I was just too fazed up to notice.

When I go back to the living room, Luke appears to be on the floor going through some photo albums, looking curious. She studies the pictures while I study her body. She’s still in my clothes. She looks proper fit.

“Eyes up here, pretty face,” Luke snaps, a small grin on her face. I smile and cross my arms over my chest.

“Am I quite pretty, aren’t I?” I say cockily, kissing my flexed biceps. Luke rolls her eyes, but I catch her staring at my muscle. “Like what you see?”

Luke rolls her eyes again. I swear, if she keeps rolling them, they’re going to get stuck where her eyes roll up. As funny as that would look, I imagine it would hurt from the strain.

“Was that your girlfriend?” Luke asks.

“Ex girlfriend.” I correct her with pride. I’m happy to have broken up with Fiona.

“Ah,” Luke nods. “ex.”

There is an awkward silence before I look down at the photo albums she’s going through.
“You look extremely adorable when you were small,” Luke giggles. “What the hell did living life do to your looks?”

This time, it’s me who rolls my eyes. I sit down beside her on the floor and flip the page of the album.

“Hey, go back!” Luke says, flipping the page back. “I wasn’t done with this one yet.”

These two pages are full off my baby pictures. Of course she was entertained by these. Half of them showed me with me face stuffed in something between Nutella and caramel pudding. Luke laughs and points to almost every picture while I sit there, not amused at all.

“Lighten up, Niall,” Luke laughs, hitting my head lightly. “Baby pictures are the most amazing memories you will ever have.”

I smile at that, sitting up straighter. Luke flips the pages four or five times, before she comes upon the second to last page in the book. I frown at the pictures, these are unfamiliar. It shows me, as a little boy, with some other little person.

A girl.

Luke stiffens beside me, so I look at her. “I’ve never seen these pictures before,” I tell her. “I don’t know who that girl is.”

Luke slowly runs her fingers over the pictures, leaning in to get a better look at them. In the pictures, the girl and I look extremely happy. We can’t be more than five in the pictures. In some, she holds my hand and it looks like we’re running. In others, we’re seated beside each other. There’s a particular one that shows us running towards what looks like the woods.

Luke looks shocked. She breathed heavily, pushing the hair that falls in her face back.

“Luke,” I asked hesitantly. “Do you know this girl?”

“Shit,” she hisses. “That’s me.”

I smile wider. So that’s what she’s worried about. Something silly.

“Luke, be realistic. If we had been friends before I don’t think I would’ve forgotten you.” I tell her. “You’re pretty unforgettable.”

“No, Niall,” she protests. “That is definitely me.” She lips one of the pictures that shows our faces out of the plastic cover and holds it up to her face. “See the resemblance?”

I look back and forth between her face and the picture. “I mean, there’s a bit of resemblance,” I say slowly. “But I doubt it’s you.”

Luke pulls out her phone. She quickly types in her lock code and open up her photo album. She starts going through her folders until she finds the right one and presses on it. A second later, many pictures of her family open up. She scrolls to them until she finds the right one. It’s a picture of a small brunette girl, what looks like a couple, and a brunette boy on the right of the girl.

“Holy shit,” I curse, taking her phone. I zoom in on the picture and my eyes widen. “That’s me.”

Luke looks up at me and I stare back at her. How is this possible? How the hell did I get in that picture with her and her family?

“I found this picture in one of my albums at home,” Luke says. “I took a lot of pictures of the photo’s in the album to keep on my phone. When I found this picture, I asked my parents who the boy was. They said they didn’t know. It’s been a while, and I completely forgot about the picture until now.”

I stay silent, shaking my head slowly.

“Maybe you should go ask your mum about it?” Luke suggests.

“No,” I say quickly. “My mum wouldn’t know but then she’d bug me about it for the rest of my life. She already thinks we should date and won’t quit nagging me about it.”

Luke pulls back and looks me in the eye. I blush ,realizing what I just told her.

“Your mum thinks we should date?” Luke asks, smirking a bit.

I shrug.

Luke blinks, tugging her ponytail. “Do you think we should date?” she asks quietly.

Of course I do. I like Luke an awful lot, and it would mean the world if she wanted to date me.

“Yeah,” I nod. “I think we should.”

Luke smiles to herself and looks down at the photo album. Then she looks back up at me, eyes bright.

“Remember how you said you knew me from somewhere? That we had some sort of
connection?” she recalls. I nod, waiting for her to go on.

“Well maybe this is it,” she says. “Maybe we were friends a long time ago, and that’s how you remember me. That’s why we got on so well in such a short time.”

It makes sense. Still, she looks so different from when she was younger, I don’t know how she could looks so familiar to me. Age has done her well. She could now well go on and be a model.

“Maybe,” I say. Luke sighs and runs her fingers over the picture again. My mind directs my mouth to bring something else up.

“Are you still coming to my party?” I ask.

Luke looks at me. She looks unsure. I can tell she doesn’t want to go as my date. That’s what the look on her face is implying, so I make it easy for her.

“You don’t have to go as my date,” I say gently. “I just want you to be there.”

Luke looks like she’s debating on her options. Finally, she comes to a decision.

“I’ll go,” she breathes out. “But not as your date or anything.”

I’m a little disappointed but I’m still glad that she’s coming. I’m happy enough to the point where I want to kiss her. Luke’s face is so close, all I have to do is lean in one more inch and her lips would be on mine. Shit, I need the brace myself. Luke has established our limits with each other, and I’m not going to lose her for letting my desires get the better of me.

“What are you thinking about?” Luke asks.

“Nothing.” I shake my head and stand up. “Want to go for a jog. It’s a nice day today.”

Luke nods and stands up with a smile. “I have nothing to wear, though.”

“You can wear my sweats,” I shrug. ”I’ve got a bunch of hoodies as well.”

Luke nods and follows me to my room. I hand her a pair of gray sweats that I’ve grown out of, pretty sure that they will fit Luke. I hand her one of my hoodies and let her take the bathroom first. While she changes, I slip on my pair of sweats as quickly as possible and pull a hoodie over my head.

“Are you decent?” Luke calls from inside the bathroom.

“Yeah,” I laugh. Luke walks out with her hands over her eyes. She peeks through an opening between her fingers, then drops her hands all together.

“You look nice,” I tell her. The sweats look a little big, but not as big as the plaid pajamas did. The hoodie is definitely a bit large on her, but there’s nothing I can do about it. She still looks beautiful.

Luke smiles and lets out a yawn.

“Oh come on,” I grin. “It’s nearly noon. You can’t still be tired.”

“I woke up with a hangover,” she says bluntly. “Calm yourself.”

I laugh loudly and pull my running shoes on.

“Hey Niall?” Luke’s hand touches my shoulder. I turn around and smile up at her.

“Yeah.”

“Can you laugh again?” she asks, rocking on her feet. He cheeks have turned extremely red and she’s biting her lip. I laugh again, just because she asks me to.

“Again,” she smiles. I laugh louder, pulling my other shoe on.

“Again,” she laughs. I grin and laugh the loudest I can. Luke starts laughing, too. Her laugh is pretty.

“Thanks,” she says. ”I just needed to hear you laugh. You’ve got a nice laugh.”

I give her a sexy duck face and stand up.

“You’ve got a nice face.” I wink, walking out the door.

Luke giggles and follows behind me.

---

We jog through the woods, talking more about our lives. It seems that every time we talk, I get to know something about her I didn’t know before. We reach the topic of her real name. She tells me that she hates the name “Lucilia.” Luke says that it sounds like an old grandma’s name and people gave her funny looks it school because of it. Then comes the topic of school. Luke is out of high school and should be in college, but she stalled because she doesn’t have a plan. She doesn’t know what she wants to do.

“I think you’d be good with kids,” I tell her. She shoots me a disgusted look, telling me I’m wrong.
“Little kids are annoying.” She says, before sprinting ahead of me. She looks extremely beautiful when she runs. It’s like a dove flying in the sky. She’s so graceful, and I can tell she loves it.

I reach the waterfalls and Luke is already there, sitting on the fallen tree trunk.

We engage in conversation while catching our breaths after our jog.

“What would you probably be doing right now if we hadn’t become friends?” I ask her. She thinks for a moment, then gives me her answer.

“I would probably be in my room, crying over my dead mother, stuffing my face with ice cream.

“Huh,” I laugh. “sounds exciting.”

Luke rolls her eyes. “My life is far from exciting.”

“Until I came around,” I wink at her. She rolls her eyes again but fails to hide her smile.
“What would you be doing?” she asks me.

“Probably sitting on the couch playing Fifa or watching television.” I answer truthfully. My life would be pretty boring without Luke and I wasn’t afraid to admit it.

“Why do guys like video games?” she asks. “I don’t get it. Instead of playing Fifa, why can’t you just go out and play real soccer? And Call of Duty, is that some way to get all your anger out? It’s just shooting people. That’s a bit brutal, don’t you think?”

I love how she analyzes everything. It’s a bit weird and annoying sometimes, but overall, it is one of the many things I like about her.

“It’s not that brutal,” I say. “It’s just a video game.”

Luke shrugs and kicks the gravel at her feet. The rocks and pushed forward, into the water.
Suddenly she looks up and stands in a hurry. “I need to get home,” she says. “I forgot to feed Hotshot.”

She grabs my hand when I don’t budge and pulls off of the tree trunk. Unfortunately, my weight is too much for her and she falls back, hitting her knee on the tree trunk.

“Shit!” she yells, rubbing her head. “Why the hell are you so damn heavy?”

“Sorry,” I blush. “You okay?”

I grab her hand and pull her up. She gives me a look but when I smile at her, her expression softens.

“Yeah, I’m good.” She looks down at her hands and back up at me. I stare back at her. I’m not sure what to do. Luke squeezes her eyes shut and opens them again.

“You know,” she says slowly. Her voice shakes. “My mind is telling me that my father is the priority. That I can’t deal with you and him at the same time. Being friends with you is alright, but I would be a terrible girlfriend. My mind is telling me to worry about the man who raised me, to forget about you for a bit.”

My smile drops.

“But you know what, Niall?” she grip my hand tighter. “My heart wants you.”

And just like that, I’m grinning again.

“I could kiss you right now,” I say quietly. Luke notices and raises her eyebrows.

“Erm, I mean I can kiss you, but we shouldn’t kiss because we’re friends.” Shit. “Not that I don’t want to kiss you, because I do, but I’m not sure you’re ready to kiss me, since you just told me that you want to give it a go, and I don’t want to push you.”

“Niall, you’re ranting.”

I shut my mouth and force myself to say nothing more.

Luke adjusts our hands so that they are intertwined. I’ve never held her hand like this before. She grip my hand tightly and pulls me as I get over my ridiculous ranting.

When we reach her house, my heart is pounding faster than ever. I’m holding Luke’s hand. Damn, I feel like a fan girl. It’s just Luke. It’s just the girl that I’m sure I’m falling for. Give it a rest, I tell myself.

Fuck yes. I’m holding Luke’s hand.

Notes

Ahaha so Niall is happy.... Quick update since i got some votes!!!! :) and don't forget the comments and votes for this chapter too!!!!