~Luke~

The next day, the doorbell rang.

And I had to restrain myself from jumping up and running to answer it.

Because I knew who was behind it. It was the girl I’d known since I was eleven years old, the girl that had been my best friend, the girl I’d fallen in love with. It was the girl who’d gotten an internship at a magazine company, the only who’d cried when she figured out she had to leave me. It was the girl I’d made love with the night before she left, the one who completely cut off contact with me for two years.

The girl who’d broken my heart into a million pieces.

And to this day, I was still trying to pick them up, still trying to forget about her—even though she was now walking into our hotel’s living room.

“Hey, Ava,” Ashton grinned up at her from his spot beside me on the couch. Mikey’s arm was wrapped around Ava as they both stood in the doorway.

I was curled up on the couch, biting my thumbnail absentmindedly, my eyes fixated on the screen.

“Hi,” Ava said. I risked a glance at her, drinking up her entire body in a millisecond.

She wore a plain white V-neck t-shirt and a pair of black skinny jeans. Her feet bore no shoes, but she did have on a pair of short ankle socks. Her hair had been pulled back into an intricate French braid, something that completely mystified me.

“And then you just—,” Ava finished off her braid, tying the elastic firmly around her dark brown hair. She looked up at me expectantly, but I could only watch how she bit her lip in concentration or how her brow furrowed when she saw a hair that was out of place.

“—Luke!” Ava laughed, standing up from her vanity and walking over to her bed—the bed that I was sitting comfortably on.

“Why you gotta play full names like that?” I teased her, and she just rolled her eyes. She stood in front of me, her hands on her hips mockingly, and I pouted up at her, making her fight a smile—she never could stay mad at me.

“What are you thinking about?” she joked, like it actually interested her.

I shrugged, “I really want to kiss you again.”

Immediately her face turned crimson, and I couldn’t help but to chuckle lightly. Ava and I had tried to play things off casually, as if nothing had really happened that morning—it had already been a few days, but nothing else could replace the spot the memory occupied in my mind. I was too wrapped around it, too invested—and I knew she was too.

“Luke,” Ava said softly, and I just reached out, grabbing her hand, “I know you like me Aves. And—erm—I like you too. So can I kiss you?”

Ava’s smile was small as she sat down on the bed beside me. “That was my first kiss, you know,” she admitted to me.

I smirked good-naturedly at her, “And this’ll be your second.”

“Shut up,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes.

I laughed, but before I knew it, her fingers had threaded through the collar of my shirt, pulling me closer to her, and her lips were planted firmly on mine. This was nothing like the kiss a few days ago—that one had been timid and hesitant. This was stern and certain—she knew what she wanted, and I was ecstatic that it was me.

“There,” Ava pulled back, pressing her lips together, even looking slightly winded. I grinned widely at her, and she just returned a small, timid smile, her cheeks slightly pink.

“You’re too much, Lucas,” Ava clucked her tongue. I just chuckled and snuck another kiss to her cheek.

“Hi Luke,” the real Ava said quietly as she eased down onto the couch beside me.

There was a pillow on my lap, and I was clutching it tightly, wishing that I could simply disappear right now. Calum was sitting on the floor in front of me, except he was eyeing Ava suspiciously. He’d been relatively calm lately, but as soon as she’d knocked on our door, he was tense.

I wanted to yell at him and tell him to quit being so horrible to her—to stop giving her such a difficult time. But at the exact same time, I wanted to be there, to egg him on, and to even join him. I just wanted Ava to see how much she’d hurt all of us—how much she’d hurt me—and I wanted to make her feel the same way.

But at the same time—she was still Ava. Still the girl I’d fallen hopelessly in love with.

And the thought of hurting her made me want to rip my heart out of the confines of my chest, just so that I wouldn’t have to feel horrible, her pain harming me so much more.

I was so fucked.

So utterly, desperately fucked. I was all over the place, never knowing what I wanted, and that was bad. That was so bad—I couldn’t afford to be confused, but I was—leading me back to the conclusion of being ‘utterly, desperately fucked’.

“Don’t say hello to him,” Calum muttered under his breath.

I simply remained indifferent, willing my eyes to stay glued to the television screen. I risked a glance at Calum and found that his teeth were grinding together and that he was stiff.

Ava sighed softly and turned slightly away from me, striking up a conversation with Ashton, who looked more than happy to be able to talk to her again. I noticed multiple times that her hands would come up to adjust her bra, but hey, I wasn’t a girl and I didn’t know the difficulties.

I pulled my beanie forward so that it was seated a bit more firmly on my head, wishing that the material was big enough for me to crawl into and never come out.

“This is impossible!”Ava groaned and threw her pencil down onto the graph paper. I looked up at her, and she mimicked me, except her eyes were red and shiny.

I sat up and scooted closer to her, “Hey, hey, no it’s not.”

She was lying on her stomach, and I sat beside her, looking down at the paper, “It’s trig, Aves. Easy. For this one—,” I tapped the page with my pencil, “You’ve got to solve for ‘x’. Then use the Pythagorean Theorem.”

“How do I solve for ‘x’?” she whimpered, burying her face in her hands. I put a hand on her back and rub circles with the tips of my fingers, “Use the angle…do you remember?”

“No,” she sobbed. I just sighed and grabbed her paper and her textbook, sweeping both items to the side. I tossed my pencil to the end of the bed and lay down next to Ava, my arms circling around her. She cuddled up to me and entombed her face in my neck.

“Why can’t I be smart like you, Luke?” she asked me, looking up. I smiled lightly and pressed a soft kiss to her nose, proceeding to duck lower and turn my face to the side, our lips fitting together perfectly like magnets. I kissed her for a few moments before pulling back.

“You’re extremely smart, Aves,” I told her, “You help me with English, remember? And French. And science.”

“But why can’t I be good at math?” she whined, and I just chuckled, “No one’s perfect.”

“You’re perfect, Blondie,” she told me sincerely. I laughed loudly, and she looked up at me with a crease between her eyebrows, “What’s so funny?”

“I’m just not,” I admitted, “I’m not perfect at all.”

“You are to me,” Ava said, looking up at me with wide doe eyes.

I smiled at her, my fingers drawing imaginary circles on the small of her back, “Well, thank you. You’re perfect to me too.”

“I’m not,” Ava said quietly, looking down at my chest. Her fingers were clutching the material of my shirt, letting the fabric slip along her skin, but I didn’t mind.

“I’m not,” Ava repeated, “There’s so much wrong with me. The stupid anxiety, the stupid math. My own dad thought I wasn’t good enough.”

Ava sighed lightly and just closed her eyes, feeling ashamed. But I just looked at her with parted lips, completely and utterly shocked that she felt that way. She wasn’t crying—and for that I was proud—but I wanted her to see that she was so amazing, so absolutely beautiful on the inside and out.

“Come with me,” I told her quietly, grasping her hands. She stood up, sighing again, “I’m really not in the mood, Blond—”

“Just trust me, okay?” I told her.

Her shoulders slumped dejectedly and she nodded, sitting up. I grabbed her hands and pulled her up so that she stood. Then I made my way over to her nightstand, and turned on the radio that sat atop it. I sifted through her mass of CDs before finally finding one and popping it in, upping the volume and transferring to the right track.

Soon, soft music was wafting from the speakers.

“‘A drop in the ocean’?” Ava questioned, looking up at me quizzically as I approached.

I merely smiled lightly at her, “Mm-hm. You always said I was a sap.”

“And you just proved me right,” Ava smirked back up at me, finally getting into the playful banter. My smile just widened as I grabbed her by the hips and pulled her closer to me, and she let out a soft breath as she wrapped her arms around my neck.

I pressed a soft kiss to her hair, and she turned her head, laying it on my shoulder. I placed my chin on the crown of her head as we swayed in time to the beat of the song.

“Blondie?” Ava said after a few moments.

“Yeah?” I cleared my throat. She looked up at me with twinkling eyes, “Will you spin me around like what they do in the cheesy movies?”

“Fuck yeah,” I said, “Thought you’d never ask.”

“You’ve got the cheesy lingo down,” Ava giggled.

I just rolled my eyes playfully at her and gave a sharp tug, so that her body was pressed flush against mine. I heard the light breath she let out, and she stared up at me with wide, innocent eyes—maybe I was getting a bit turned on, imagining where this could lead, but I didn’t want to force Ava into anything.

“I think you’re stunning, Aves,” I told her seriously as my left hand came up to stroke her cheek.

Her Adam’s apple bobbed lightly and I couldn’t help but to smile—it always seemed like we were taking shifts, one of us having to be the awkward one, the other completely comfortable and confident. And now, it was her turn.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she let out breathlessly, hoping to lighten the mood somewhat. And I suppose it worked, because I let out a laugh. I smiled widely at her, unable to believe that I’d gotten this lucky—at the age of nine years old, I’d practically been allergic to girls.

And now, at seventeen, I was holding the most beautiful girl in the world in my arms.

I leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to Ava’s lips. Her fingers gripped at the small hairs on the back of my neck and deepened the kiss even further, her mouth responding with a sort of urgency that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“You okay?” I asked her, pulling back slightly and resting my forehead against hers, both of us breathing heavily.

She nodded, “Is it so wrong to want to kiss my boyfriend?”

Boyfriend. That word never seemed to fail to put a smile on my face. I shrugged mockingly, “I suppose not. I mean—look at me.”

She chuckled, “My very cocky boyfriend,” she added, and I just pouted mischievously.

She laughed a bit louder at my facial expression before stopping and thinking, “You know, you still haven’t spun me yet.”

So I did. Many times.

I spun her to the point where she was crying out that she was dizzy and begging me to stop, laughs lacing through both of our voices as we bantered. And then we’d fallen onto her bed, both of us laughing so hard that we couldn’t remember our own names.

And then I’d kissed her—long and hard, a proper kiss. And she’d kissed me back, both of us isolated in our own little world, too caught up in each other to notice anything else.

And it was then that I’d realised I’d fallen in love.

I shook my head free of those thoughts, suddenly feeling exhausted and nauseous.

Calum was still glaring at Ava as she spoke with Mikey and Ashton, and I nudged him with my foot. For once, his eyes tore away from my ex-best friend and he looked up at me. We communicated with our eyes, and I think he got the message that I was trying to convey.

Cut it out.

But he just shook his head lightly, his eyes stern, and I knew there was no use in trying to change his mind. I sighed lightly, wishing that he’d quit being so difficult, but at the same time, I was happy that he was being so cold to her.

I was so, so fucked.

I focussed my attention to the conversation.

“I still feel like nothing’s changed,” Ashton was confessing to Ava.

She leaned forward, looking genuinely intrigued by what he had to say, something flashing in her eyes that I couldn’t quite recognize—maybe determination?

“Really?” Ava questioned, “What do you mean?” she asked the question with a different edge to her voice, almost like she really was in desperate need of hearing the answer.

Ashton shrugged, “I don’t know—I mean, before we got here, I thought that we’d missed our flight before Calum pointed out that it was our jet. Remember that Cal?”

Ashton laughed at the memory, but Calum just stayed indifferent, grunting out a low ‘yeah’.

“And it still shocks me when you see—like—fucking crowds of girls outside the hotel. I’m just like—‘back the fuck up for a moment’,” Ashton continued, not seeming fazed by our friend’s crabby mood.

Ava laughed at his bluntness, and I just sighed, chewing on my thumbnail and squeezing the pillow tightly with my other fist.

This was going to be a long day.

Notes

Heyyy! Sorry for taking so long! Hope this chappy wasn't too crappy! (See what I did there?)

Anywho, vote, comment, subscribe and all that jazz! Can we perhaps make it to over 57 votes? Please? It would mean the world, guys!

I can't decide who's point of view I like writing in the most! Comment down below and let me know!

~Cuties~