“I can’t believe that you’re forced to tutor that asshole,” Lux and Tyler’s friend Chelsea said as they stood by their lockers in the hallway before school.
She was staring someone down with a mean-spirited look – which Lux could have only guessed to be Louis, by her previous words. Lux’s gaze followed hers and she found Louis standing across the common area in a group with his friends – or should she say henchmen?
“Yeah,” Lux said, watching Louis interacting with the king douche himself, Andy Walker.
“Tell me again why you let him in your house?” Chelsea asked, looking over at Lux with a displeased look on her face.
“Uh, I don’t know,” Lux said with a shrug, wondering why she seemed so utterly offended by Louis.
“He knows where you sleep now, Lux. Doesn’t that disturb you?” She asked, making a disgusted face.
“He never even went in my bedroom!” Lux shot at her incredulously. Who did she think she was? Some common whore?
“I should hope not! I meant, he knows where you live,” she said, looking back down the hallway at Louis.
“He’s always known where I live,” Lux told her casually as she put her books in her bag.
“Gross! Why?” Chelsea exclaimed, looking at Lux like she was crazy.
“We’ve lived in the same neighborhood since he move here,” Lux explained, rolling her eyes at her. Her behavior was getting a little out of hand.
“What do you guys even talk about?” She asked, looking in his direction again.
“Trigonometry,” Lux said dryly. What the hell else did she think they talked about?
“That’s it? I mean, that’s all you talk about?” She pressed.
“What do you wanna know?” Lux asked, giving her a weird look. It’s not like she and Louis had any deep meaningful conversations or anything.
“I don’t know. What do you say to each other? Like, is it awkward?” She asked, shrugging her shoulders.
“Of course it’s awkward! Louis Tomlinson was sitting next to me at my kitchen table,” Lux told her with a slight scoff.
“HE HAD DINNER WITH YOU!?” She yelped, freaking out more so than the situation warranted.
“No! We did our homework!” Lux told her.
“Oh,” Chelsea said, calming down significantly.
“What the hell?” Lux laughed, sending her another odd look.
“It’s weird,” she said quietly.
“He kept like, looking at me,” Lux told her as she let her gaze fall back on him across the open space.
“Looking at you? Like how?” She asked, sounding intrigued now that she was finally getting the dirt on the situation.
“I don’t know. Like I’d look up from my homework and he’d be looking at me,” Lux told her, shrugging her shoulders.
“What a weirdo,” Chelsea scoffed.
“That’s what I said!” Lux said with a little laugh.
“You called him a weirdo?” She asked, which cause a smile to pull up her lips.
“I called him weird. And I told him he should medicate himself,” Lux laughed, remembering the awkward conversation with him.
“Nah-uh!” Chelsea said wide-eyed.
“I did. He was creeping me out,” Lux told her, nodding her head.
“What did he say?” She asked, still pressing her for information.
“He left,” Lux told her flatly.
“You offended Louis Tomlinson?” Chelsea asked amusingly.
“Not hardly. He just… he had to go, I guess,” Lux told her with another shrug of her shoulders.
“I still think it’s really weird that you’re being forced to tutor that stupid jock,” Chelsea scoffed as Lux finally shut her locker, ready to get to class.
“Eh, it is what it is,” Lux said, pulling her backpack onto her back.
Of course when Lux turned to head toward class, she ran right into Louis’ friend Andy.
“Watch it, spaz,” Andy sneered, pushing her off of him.
“Fuck off,” Lux spat at him as he went by. Andy just chuckled menacingly back at her as he continued on.
Lux looked up to catch Louis’ eye and noticed he was smirking at her as he walked by, following Andy. She felt a little uneasy with the way there was sort of a sparkle in Louis’s eye as he looked at her – like they were friends or something. Like things weren’t totally weird, in a fucked up way.
In class, Lux heard Louis clear his throat from behind her. She couldn’t figure out if he was doing it to get her attention, or if he just had an itchy throat. But when she felt a piece of paper drop over her shoulder, she realized he was trying to get her attention.
Lux grabbed the folded up piece of notebook paper off her lap, gripping it in her hand as she looked up to make sure their English teacher wouldn’t see her opening it. With stealth like movements, she opened up the note under her desk before laying it flat across the top of it.
My place or yours.
Four simple words and an incorrect punctuation. This kid needed more help than just trigonometry apparently.
Lux hesitated while coming up with something to write back, but then she grabbed her pencil and scratched across her own message.
It doesn’t matter to me.
She folded up the slip of paper and carefully threw it back to him, keeping her eyes on Mrs. Mackey the whole time. It didn’t take long for Louis to throw the note back and it was easy to figure out why. All he did was draw a circle around the word ‘yours’ – meaning he wanted to study at her house again. And she silently cursed herself for allowing him a choice in study venues.
“Are we going to have to do this every night?” Lux asked once they were seated at her kitchen table together that afternoon.
“What?” Louis asked, looking up at her through his long eyelashes.
“Study… together?” She asked awkwardly, feeling her cheeks heat up suddenly under his gaze. He stared at her blankly, and it only made her feel bad for even saying anything.
“I mean, you understand some of it, don’t you?” Lux asked, trying to make is sound less harsh than it did initially.
“If you don’t want to do this, then fine,” he said, dramatically closing his math book after having just opened it.
“That’s not what I said,” she told him and he scoffed back at her.
“Uh-huh,” he grunted, opening his text book back up.
“You know, you’re kind of a douche,” Lux told him flat out, finally having the nerve to say it out loud.
“And you’re kind of a bitch,” he shot back, not bothering to even look up at her. Lux rolled her eyes, but ignored his retort.
“You don’t even know me,” Louis said after a few silent moments.
“You don’t know me,” Lux shot back incredulously, ready to argue if he was.
“Brainy, know-it-all…” He stated, finally looking up at her.
“Dumb jock with an over-powering God complex,” Lux retorted. His scoff was so loud it nearly reverberated off the four walls of the dining room.
“You don’t know anything about me,” he said, shaking his head as he looked back down at his homework.
“Enlighten me,” Lux said, rolling her eyes at him.
Louis looked up at her momentarily before he shook his head again, ignoring her words.
“My opinion of you plummeted during freshman year,” Lux went on to say. He looked back up at her with a look of genuine curiosity.
“You’re just a bully,” Lux told him with a glare in her eyes.
“How?” He said with obvious attitude in his tone and it caused Lux to laugh out loud.
“That’s a joke right? You and your douche friends go out of your way to laugh at people – to do mean things to people,” Lux said, calling him out.
“Well, I mean… Andy does,” Louis said quietly.
“You do,” she retorted incredulously.
“What?” He snapped at her. Wow. As if he didn’t know.
“Last year I accidentally dropped my books on the ground and instead of you being a gentleman, you kicked them all the way down the hallway like they were a friggen’ soccer ball,” Lux pointed out.
“Last year,” he scoffed and rolled his eyes.
“Oh, did you get a conscience between then and now?” Lux asked him sarcastically.
“Whatever,” he scoffed, trying to go back to his work.
“My point is, is that you don’t really deserve my help. You go through life thinking the world owes you a favor. You think you can just bullshit your way through things and it’ll all work out in the end – but it doesn’t, okay. I’m not gonna sit here and do your homework for you. If you want to learn, you need to put the effort forth,” she ranted.
“I never asked for you to do my homework for me!” Louis yelped, looking completely annoyed with her.
“I’m just saying, you need to actually pay attention,” she snapped.
“I don’t need a fucking lecture from you,” Louis shot at her, which startled her, because she couldn’t even remember the last time someone used such profanity in her house. It was weird.
“And I don’t need to tutor you,” she retaliated.
“Then I’ll fucking leave,” he snapped, slamming his book shut again.
“Shut up and stop being a baby. Open your book,” Lux ordered. She almost couldn’t believe she was talking to someone that way – no less someone with a significant social standing at her school.
Louis’ eyes stared into hers and she could see a challenge in them – like he was debating telling her to fuck off, or to obey what she said. Luckily for his sake, he obeyed.
“Now, what did you get for question five?” Lux asked, bouncing back from their fight as if it never even happened.
Louis ignored Lux the next two days in school. He didn’t ask whose house they’d be studying at. He didn’t show up at her house for their tutoring session Thursday or Friday – nor during the weekend. And it made her think she must have really offended him.
Lux decided that by the end of English class on Monday, if he didn’t ask her about tutoring, she would ask him.
During English, Louis kept bouncing his knee at his desk, which in turn shook Lux’s desk – distracting and annoying the hell out of her.
“Could you please stop?” Lux asked quietly, turning around slightly to face him.
He immediately stopped bouncing his foot, which she was grateful for. But a few minutes later he started up again. She tried to deal with it the best she could, until it started shaking her desk again.
“Louis! Please!” Lux said a little too loudly, causing their peers to look over at them. Lux quietly slumped in her seat as her cheeks rapidly blushed. But at least she got Louis to stop tapping his foot, and to keep better control of himself for the rest of the period.
After the bell rang as they were gathering their belongings, Lux decided she better try talking to him.
“What’s up with you?” Lux asked, looking at him skeptically.
“Nothing,” he scoffed, walking passed her up the aisle to leave the classroom.
Lux quickly gathered up the last of her stuff into her backpack and followed behind him.
“Louis!” She called after him.
“What?” He asked, sounding annoyed as he turned toward her.
“When are we gonna… study again?” She asked, lowering her voice as she noticed he was looking around, probably making sure none of his friends saw him talking to her.
“Uh…” He stammered, his eyes still darting around.
“Don’t you need help?” Lux asked quietly.
“I don’t need help from anyone,” Louis snapped and Lux knew he was still upset with her from the last time they worked together.
“Oh, yeah. Failing trig is so cool,” Lux said, rolling her eyes.
“I’m not gonna fail,” he scoffed, narrowing his eyes at her.
“Not knowing what the hell you are doing pretty much automatically ensure that you’re gonna fail,” Lux shot at him.
“I don’t need you telling me I’m fucking stupid,” he spat at her.
“I didn’t even say that! I’m helping you. How is that calling you stupid?” Lux asked incredulously, confused at his overreaction.
“I don’t need you insulting me every time you’re ‘helping me’,” he retorted, using air quotes and everything.
“Yeah. Well, I didn’t need you insulting me and being a royal asshole to me for the past three years either,” Lux snapped, causing Louis to scoff and roll his eyes. She sighed, realizing they were getting nowhere bickering with one another.
“How ‘bout we… start over? Just like, be civil with each other,” Lux proposed and watched as he nodded his head in agreement.
“Alright,” she said with a nod of her own head.
Louis’ vision cut away to look down the hallway. Hers followed, seeing his group of friends meandering their way. Louis immediately started backing away from her.
“We’ll talk after class,” he told her and turned to walk toward his buddies, pretty much acting as if being seen with her was the most uncool thing in the entire world.
While sitting at her kitchen table – once again – with Louis, Lux couldn’t help but wonder how in the hell it happened. Why were they always going to her house? They went to his house the first night, but every other time they studied together, they ended up at hers.
“Hey, kids,” Lux heard her dad say as he walked into the dining room.
Lux felt a slight twinge of fear, hoping her father wouldn’t completely embarrass her. But she quickly willed the thought away, remembering that she didn’t give a shit what Louis Tomlinson thought about her. Her dad was smart enough to know not to say anything incriminating anyway. He was pretty cool about privacy and all that. Lord knows she didn’t need Louis to find out anything embarrassing about her. Who knows what he would do with the information.
“Excited for soccer season?” Her dad asked Louis.
“Of course. Spring is on its way,” Louis said with a wide smile.
“That is quite a handsome accent,” her dad said cheerfully, causing Lux’s cheeks to blush immediately. Could he be any more embarrassing?
“Thank you, sir,” Louis chuckled.
Lux watched as his whole demeanor changed now that he was talking about something he liked and was talking to someone he didn’t hate.
“Are you a senior this year?” Her dad inquired.
“Yes, sir,” Louis said with a proud smile.
“It’s the big one. The year for college scouts to snag you right up,” her dad said, talking to Louis as if he knew him – as if they were old friends.
“I’ve got high hopes,” Louis chuckled.
“I’ve heard you’re quite good at what you do on that field,” her dad continued.
When her dad and Louis started talking soccer stats for last year’s season, Lux stopped listening. Even trigonometry was more exciting to her than stupid soccer. Sometimes she thought that maybe her dad wished he had a son – or that Lux would at least start dating a nice, respectable fella with a love for sports. With the way her dad was oogling over Louis, she could only imagine what kind of scenarios were floating through his head.
“Would you like to stay for dinner, Louis?” Lux heard her dad offer, which quickly broke her away from her homework.
Say what now?
“I’m about to grill up some hamburgers if you’re interested,” her dad told him. Louis looked over at Lux quickly, only to find an overly shocked expression on her face.
“Uh, sure,” Louis said, answering her dad.
What in the hell just happened? Shang-fucking-haied.
“Good, good. Why don’t you two finish up your homework while I go get it started?” Her dad said, smiling at the both of them before he got up from the table and exited to the kitchen.
“Your dad is fantastic,” Louis said, looking over at Lux. She couldn’t do anything but stare at him blankly. She was literally speechless.
“What? Am I that bad that you can’t even fathom having dinner with me?” He asked, letting the smile drop off his face.
“’Fathom’? What – do you have a word of the day calendar or something?” Lux snorted and Louis’ eyes narrowed at her.
“I thought we were being civil to each other now,” he shot at her.
“Sorry,” Lux said sheepishly, but couldn’t help letting out another chuckle.
“Yeah,” he said, annoyed with her again.
The two of them went back to their homework, but Lux’s mind was still stuck on her father’s interaction with Louis. It made her feel really weird.
“Did you know that athletes – soccer players in general, are usually blessed—or cursed, depending on how you look at it—with natural physical ability and acute mental agility? It manifests into self-confidence and mental toughness. Or, as some would say more clearly, arrogance,” Lux told Louis. He immediately let out a disapproving scoff.
“Would you disagree?” Lux asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.
“I don’t know why you constantly sit up on your pedestal and judge me. You don’t know me, okay,” Louis said for like the third time that night.
“I wasn’t judging. I was just—” Lux started.
“You were just implying that I’m arrogant,” he snapped.
“Do you deny it?” Lux asked, quirking her eyebrow.
“God!” Louis scoffed loudly, his reaction startling her and caused her heart to beat manically in her chest.
“Maybe I should just ask Mr. Dixon for another tutor,” Louis offered, looking visibly upset.
“You think you’re going to find someone better to help you? I have the highest score in that class,” Lux scoffed.
“Who’s arrogant now?” Louis shot at her and she rolled her eyes.
“This just isn’t gonna work out,” Louis told her finally.
“Its fine, Louis. Just… let’s get back to work,” Lux said, trying to shrug it off.
“Are you going to be nice?” He asked hesitantly.
“Only if you’re gonna be nice,” she shot back at him.
“I’m not being mean!” He said incredulously.
Lux took a deep breath and nodded her head as she picked up her pencil so they could get back to work. The two of them got most of their homework done before her dad was bellowing that the food was almost done.
“I’m gonna go wash my hands,” Louis told Lux before closing his textbook and putting it into his backpack.
He disappeared down the hallway as Lux put her own book away. She was going to just wash her hands in the kitchen, but realized that Louis Tomlinson was wandering around her house and she found that to be rather unsettling, so she set out to find him. And of course, she caught him lurking outside of her bedroom door.
“Ahem,” Lux cleared her throat loudly. Louis jumped slightly as he turned to face her.
“What are you doing?” Lux asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
“I had to see where the trigonometry princess sleeps,” he said, smirking at her as he moved away from the doorway.
“Hmm…” Lux hummed, looking at him skeptically.
“It was on the way to the bathroom. You can’t blame me for being curious. You’re so… cryptic most of the time. This is not at all how I would picture your room, by the way,” he said, smirking as he took another look into her private space.
“Why were you picturing my room?” Lux asked him suspiciously.
“I wasn’t. I’m just saying, if I were to take the time to picture your room, this wouldn’t be it,” he told her.
“That just goes to show that you don’t know me,” Lux said as she bypassed him and headed toward the bathroom.
“You’re right,” he said, following after her.
Lux flipped on the light and headed to the second of the two sinks, whereas Louis went to the first. The two of them washed their hands in silence – a very awkward silence. When Lux looked up into the mirror, Louis was looking over at her. Their eyes connected for a little longer than necessary before she looked away, reaching for the towel to dry her hands. When she was done, she handed the towel to Louis and made her way out of the bathroom, feeling extremely weird being in such a confined space with him. She would take the risk of him lurking her bedroom again just to get out of the awkward moment.
Her dad and Louis talked soccer through the entirety of dinner. Lux sat bored out of her mind. Even though she kind of admired Louis for obliging all of her dad’s questions and really seeming like he was enjoying the company.
“Lux and I will have to catch some of your games. Huh, Luxy?” Her dad said, finally throwing her into the conversation.
“Huh?” Lux asked, looking up at him.
“I told Louis that you and I will have to go see him play sometime,” her dad said, smiling enthusiastically at her.
“I hate soccer,” Lux said flatly.
Both her dad and Louis’ smiles faded somewhat from her comment and she kind of felt bad for even voicing her opinion. But they ended up just shrugging it off and went back to talking to one another.
Lux cleared the table while they finished up their conversation, feeling like a fly on the way. She was losing her father to this soccer playing, trigonometry failing boy. Why couldn’t she be born male for her father’s sake?
Her dad finally excused himself when Lux insisted they finish their homework because it was getting late.
“So, your mum… she’s dead, huh?” Louis asked quietly as they worked through the last few math problems. He didn’t say it rudely – he just seemed to be wondering.
“Yeah,” she said awkwardly.
“How long?” He asked quietly.
“All my life,” Lux told him, feeling a twinge of pain in her heart as she thought about her mom.
“How…?” Louis asked, looking at her oddly.
“She died during child birth,” Lux said quietly.
“I’m sorry,” Louis offered.
“It’s okay. I’ve had seventeen years to get used to the fact that I’ll never have a mother,” Lux said with a shrug. In reality, she knew she’d never get over it. Life just wasn’t fair.
“I have a mother and it’s really not all that it’s cracked up to be,” Louis told her.
“Don’t say that,” Lux said, shaking her head sadly.
“It’s true. She… she cares more about my little sister’s than anyone else – especially not me,” he told her.
“At least she’s there,” Lux countered.
“Hardly,” Louis scoffed.
“What about your dad?” She asked hopefully.
“My step-dad. And honestly, he’s never home. Mum’s gone a lot too. They think that because I’m the oldest I can just fend for myself or something,” Louis said with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I forgot you had sisters,” Lux said, more to herself than to him.
“Four of them,” he said with a nod.
“Four?” She asked, looking at him oddly. She only ever remembered two of his sisters.
“Lottie is twelve, Fizzy is ten, and then there are the twins, Daisy and Phoebe, who are seven,” he explained.
“I didn’t know about the twins,” she told him quietly.
“Yeah, they’re a handful,” Louis said with a smile.
“I can imagine,” Lux chuckled.
She couldn’t help but feel like they were having a moment. Louis was sharing personal tidbits of his life with her. And she just shared the most person tidbit of hers – her mother’s death, how she was the reason she wasn’t there. A sense of respect for Louis was settling in with her and she kind of liked it.
“Is that why you always want to come here to study? So you don’t have to be home?” Lux asked, putting two and two together. Louis’ eyes met hers and she could see her question made him uncomfortable.
He just shrugged as his eyes dropped away from hers again. And Lux knew he was closing off again – his wall was being built back up.
“I mean, it’s okay. We can study here,” she told him and he nodded slightly.
“Let’s just finish these last couple problems,” he said, wanting to get back to business.
“Okay,” Lux said with a light smile.
She wasn’t positive, but she thought that maybe she and Louis just kind of became friends.

Notes

Let me know what you think! Thank you!!