"Luke," I said, gently kicking Luke from under the table.

He looked up from the book he was reading, the same one he always carried with him. He was either a very slow reader or he had read the same book a million times, I had never bothered to ask. I liked watching him read, the way his eyes flicked across the page so quickly and how he chewed on the end of his pen when he wasn't marking things in the pages. It was cute. Luke read the same book every time we came to the library while I worked on my homework across from him, only stopping every once and a while to check and see if I needed any help.

"Yeah?" Luke asked, his pen hanging between his lips. "Do you need help again?"

"No, it's not that." I said quietly. Luke closed his book and took the pen out of his mouth, setting them both down on the table in front of him. He leaned forward, a puzzled expression on his face.

"What's up?" He questioned.

"Can you come over for dinner tonight?" I asked, feeling more nervous than I probably should be. Luke had stayed for dinner more than a few times before, but I imagined that this time might be a little different.

"Yeah, of course. What are we having?" Luke laughed, clearly not sensing how I was acting.

"I don't know." I shrugged. "My mom will be home."

Luke had also met my mom many times, but he hadn't seen her recently. And by recently, I mean not since Luke and I started dating. Now that Luke's mom was doing better we spent a lot of time at his house, since most of the time we had a lot more privacy. My mom knew that Luke and I were good friends and spent a lot of time together, but otherwise she was pretty oblivious to the fact that Luke was my boyfriend. I planned on telling her tonight, before it go too late.

"Huh? That's fine, Stel. I'll behave." Luke giggled again. He grabbed his other books from the table and turned away to put them in his backpack, still smiling at me.

"She doesn't know we're dating." I warned, also beginning to put my things away. It was getting late and I was all done with my homework anyway, we might as well just get going now.

Luke stopped moving and looked back up at me, sitting up slowly. "Oh, she doesn't? You never told her?"

"Not yet." I shook my head, wondering if Luke was going to get upset by this. It really didn't seem like something he should be mad about, but I could never be sure with Luke. His emotions flipped from one to another, sometimes the smallest things could set him off.

"Does Eric know? Your brother knows, right?" Luke asked.

"He knows that we like each other, but not that we're officially...together." I mumbled.

"You really haven't said anything to her yet? It's been, like, almost two months." Luke sighed, running his hands over the front of his sweatshirt and smoothing it down.

"I know, and there's really no reason for me not to tell her. I just...haven't." I sighed. The only think I was afraid of now was my mom being upset for not telling her about Luke sooner. I didn't think she would be that mad if I just told her now, but I knew that if I kept my relationship with Luke a secret she may be in the long run.

"But you want to tell her, tonight?" Luke asked.

I nodded, grabbing my bag of the back of my of my chair and standing up. "I just...I think I should. Before you leave, I mean."

"Why does that matter?" Luke stood up too, following behind me as I made my way out of the library.

"Well, I don't know..." I shrugged, trailing off. "Maybe I'll want to visit you or something later in the year. It'll make more sense for me to go visit my boyfriend than some kid that used to tutor me."

"You'd want to come visit me?" Luke chuckled, a smile appearing on his lips as he grabbed my hand and laced our fingers together.

"Well, yeah." I scoffed. "You are my boyfriend. What am I supposed to do?"

"I just didn't know you would want to do that." Luke said quietly. He held the front door of the library open, letting me walk through before he did.

"Do you not want me to?" I asked, stopping in front of Luke as he let the door close behind him. He folded his arms over his chest and let out a small groan, obviously getting frustrated.

"Of course I would want you to visit me. I didn't know that you would want to." Luke explained. "I didn't think that we were going to be doing things like that."

"Things like what? Visiting each other?" I asked, not understanding what Luke was trying to say. We hadn't talked about him moving away much, but I had always assumed that we would just make a point to try and meet up with each other whenever we could, it just seemed to make sense to me. I thought it would have made sense to Luke too, but apparently he hadn't had time to think about it as much as I had.

"No, you don't understand, I - "

I cut Luke off, not willing to listen to him. "Are you saying that you don't even want to try and see each other next year?"

"Jesus Stel, can we please not start an argument right now? Let's just go home and talk to your mom or whatever, let's just finish this later." Luke snapped. He turned and started walking down the street, not waiting for me to catch up with him.

The subway ride back to my apartment was almost silent except for the few times that Luke tried to make me laugh by making a funny face or telling a corny joke. It wasn't that I was mad at him, I just wanted to take some time to calm myself down before starting a real fight with Luke. I really didn't know enough of his side in this to be upset with him, not yet. He probably had a pretty good reason for saying what he did.

"Listen, Stel," Luke spoke as we walked into my apartment building. "I'm sorry for snapping at you, I've just been frustrated with a few things lately and I lost it for a second."

"It's okay, I should have just let you talk in the first place." I sighed.

"So we're good?" Luke asked, smiling.

"We're good." I agreed, taking Luke's hand in mine again as we waited for the elevator. A few seconds later the doors in front of us opened and we stepped inside, awkwardly standing there while we waited for the doors to close.

"What are you frustrated about?" I asked after a few seconds, hoping that Luke would actually choose to be open with me about whatever it was.

"I've been trying to start - well actually first I should say that I've been trying to stop - "

"Calum, come on!" I could hear Michael's voice coming down the hall before I even caught sight of him, loud and laughing like he always was. Seconds later Michael appeared in front of us and stuck out his arm to stopped the elevator doors from closing, still waiting for Calum. He didn't seem to notice that Luke and I were even in here, his head was still turned in the direction that him and Calum were coming from.

Calum was giggling quietly to himself when he appeared at Michael's side, his head down as he walked as slow as he could. It was obvious that he was messing with Michael, who was obviously impatient. "Was that fast enough for you?" He asked.

"Not nearly as fast as I would have - " Michael turned around and finally saw Luke and I and stopped walking immediately, his eyes growing wide.

"Luke, Stella, hey!" Calum laughed, stepping into the elevator behind Michael. He grabbed the collar of Michael's shirt and tugged him forward, finally allowing the doors of the elevator to close. Luke reached across me and pressed the buttons for my floor as well as Michael's, trying to ease up the awkwardness between all of us.

"What are you guys doing here?" Luke asked, eyeing Calum and Michael suspiciously.

"We're just going up to my place." Michael shrugged. He looked back and forth from me to Luke to Calum and back to me, knowing that I knew a lot more about Calum and Michael's relationship - or whatever they wanted to call it, since neither of them were admitting anything at the moment - than Luke did.

"To do what?" I questioned, biting back a laugh.

Calum's eyes set on Michael's for a second before receiving a small nod from him, like permission to speak. "Video games, pizza, you know, guy stuff."

"Guy stuff." Luke repeated, glancing back at me. He thought that they had secret little crushes on each other as well, but he would never say it out loud to either of them. I knew that as soon as we were alone again he would start laughing about this like it was the funniest thing in the world, but for now he was refraining himself.

"We're just going to hang out, I guess." Michael laughed nervously. "What are you guys going to do tonight?"

"Oh, you know, just some really hardcore sex, the usual." Luke said blankly, as if he was totally serious. I slapped him lightly on the arm and he turned back to look at me, a wide grin now apparent on his face.

"He's lying, we don't normally have hardcore sex." I sighed, watching the expressions on Michael and Calum's faces go from horrified to relieved.

"But we did it in the shower!" Luke protested, spinning around to face me. He folded his arms across his chest and pouted, staring down at me.

"You almost fell." I laughed.

"Almost." Luke muttered to himself, turning back around.

"I've done it in the shower before." Calum spoke up, ending yet another awkward silence between all of us.

"You've what?" Michael almost shouted, his voice cracking at the end. I almost face-palmed myself right there, Michael could not be any more obvious. He didn't even act like way when he got jealous around girls, and suddenly he gets all flustered when Calum's here? I needed to sit down and talk to Michael about this soon, it was getting out of hand.

"With that girl I was dating." Calum nodded. Thankfully the elevator had stopped by now and the doors were opening, now on Michael's floor.

"With what girl?" Michael interrogated as the two of them shuffled out of the elevator, leaving us behind without saying goodbye.

Luke burst out into a huge fit of laughter as soon as they were gone, no longer able to hold back. I started laughing too, finding the whole thing a lot funnier than I probably should have. Just as the doors were closing once more an arm stuck out in between them, forcing them open again. Luke clapped his hands over his mouth as the doors separated and revealed Michael again, who didn't look very happy.

"I'm not gay." He whispered, leaning in closer to both of us. The doors began closing again and Michael slipped out of the elevator, disappearing and allowing Luke to start laughing again.

"The way that he denies it is so funny." Luke said, gasping for air as he continued to laugh.

"It really is," I giggled, "he says the exact same thing every time and nothing else."

"I don't think he realizes that we'd be totally fine if he was gay, or if Calum was." Luke wiped under his eyes, having shed a few tears from laughing so hard.

"He doesn't even give us a chance to say anything about that, he just jumps in with the 'I'm not gay' stuff and then says something about boobs to cover himself up." I said, calming myself down. The elevator landed on my floor and we stepped out of it, walking hand in hand down the hallway.

"Okay, on a more serious note..." Luke chuckled as we reached my front door. We stopped outside of it and turned to face each other, still holding hands.

"Why is this more serious?" I asked.

"I'm going to meet your mom for the first time as your boyfriend and not your math tutor." Luke said quietly, his eyes traveling down to the floor.

"She already loves you, you'll be fine." I assured him. It was true, my mom did like Luke a lot. I think that she was just happy that I was finally hanging out with someone other than just Michael for once. Trust me, she loved Michael too, but Luke being so smart probably made her like him just a little more. My mom usually wasn't very strict at all, I don't think she would have a problem with Luke and I dating.

"I'm nervous." Luke sighed. He pulled his sweatshirt down farther so it covered his hands, suddenly looking more vulnerable than before.

"Don't be." I shook my head at him.

"Maybe you can give me a blowjob or something to calm me down?" Luke asked hopefully, and innocent smile on his face.

"Luke!" I gasped, "I don't think we have time for that!"

"So when we do have time you owe me a blowjob, got it?" Luke laughed, bending down quickly to kiss me on the forehead.

"I never agreed to that!" I pouted.

"Please?" Luke begged.

"Let's just go inside," I laughed, opening the front door and letting myself inside. I took off my shoes and my jacket, throwing them both down by the door. "I'm home!"

Eric was sitting at the table when we walked in, a plate of food already in front of him. I could hear the sink on in the kitchen and knew that my mom must be in there, and already I was starting to get nervous. I knew that we were going to be fine, I was just psyching myself out for no reason. I had a tendency to do things like that.

"Mom, she's home!" Eric yelled, his mouth full of food.

I passed by Eric and gave him a small wave, neither of us being phased by seeing each other. It seemed like Eric was always around, I saw him almost too much. Luke trailed slowly behind me as I entered the kitchen, also mumbling a quick hello to Eric while he ate. Luke reached forward and grabbed my hand in his but dropped it almost too quickly, remembering that my mom still didn't really know about us.

"Stella, hi!" My mom turned away from the sink and rushed over to me, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. "And Luke, you're here too!"

"Mhm, nice to see you again, Stacy." Luke nodded, calling my mom by her first name like she insisted he did. It made Luke laugh a little too hard the first time she introduced herself that way, and later he said something along the lines of "Is your grandma hot? Cuz you know, Stacy's mom has got it goin' on.".

"I thought the two of you already studied at the library?" My mom questioned, turning back to the food she was preparing. It looked like pasta, which really wasn't surprising at all. It was probably leftovers from a few nights ago, that's what it always was.

"I asked Luke if he wanted to come back here for dinner." I said slowly, glancing to the side at Luke, who was eying the pasta.

"Oh, great! It seems like it's been so long since I've seen you, Luke, it'll be good to catch up." My mom babbled excitedly. "It's only leftovers, I hope that isn't a big deal. Let me just fix up some plates for you two and then we can all sit down."

"Oh, don't bother making me a plate. I ate earlier." Luke blurted out, though I knew that he was hungry by the way he had been looking a the food.

"Luke," I said quietly, turning to face Luke.

"Stel," He mocked, glaring down at me. He knew exactly what I was going to say, and that was that he should eat more. But no matter how many times I said something like that to Luke he continued to stay the way he was, getting by on eating bags of popcorn and chips - and sometimes frosting, but that was a rare thing.

"I'll just share some of my food with Luke." I said, taking the plate from my mom. We walked back into the dining room and took our seats on one side of Eric, who was still eating like he hadn't seen food in days.

"When are we going to say something?" Luke whispered, he picked up one of the forks my mom had given him and stabbed at the pasta, not bothering to actually pick up some and eat it.

"Soon." I whispered back. Judging by the way my mom was acting around Luke right now I already knew that she would be completely fine with our relationship, I just didn't want to spring it on her out of nowhere.

"So," My mom said, sitting down in front of us with her own dinner plate. "How's school, Luke?"

Luke had just been about to put a forkful of pasta in his mouth, but set it down again to answer my mom."Uh, it's okay. I actually just got accepted into UCLA, so..."

"Oh, that's great! So you'll be going there after next year?" My mom asked. Eric perked up a little at the mention of UCLA, which had been a college that he was interested until he decided to basically throw his whole high school career away.

"I, um, I actually got permission to graduate at the end of this year, because of how good my grades are." Luke said, nervously chewing on his bottom lip.

"Really? That's wonderful! Your mom must be really proud of you." My mom nodded, putting a bite of pasta in her mouth. My mom knew very briefly about Luke's situation with his mom, as in, she knew that they fought a lot. That's why she was always okay with him sleeping over here, because she was aware that sometimes things got a little out of hand at his house. She had no idea what extent Luke's mom had actually gone to at times, and we planned to keep it that way.

"Oh, yeah. She's really proud." Luke chuckled lightly, "I think she's just happy that I'll be moving out sooner than we all expected."

"So, Stella, are you going to be able to keep up your math grade with Luke gone?" My mom asked, a laugh escaping her lips.

"Well, we plan on keeping in touch." I answered a little too quickly, preparing to explain everything to my mom and to Eric.

"Oh, re - "

"I'm in love with Stella." Luke blurted, quickly shutting his mouth. He turned to me, a very apologetic look on his face. "I'm sorry, I just got so nervous. Sorry."

"What did you say?" Eric laughed, finally looking up from his plate. He wasn't upset at all, just amused with the way Luke was acting right now, like a scared little chipmunk.

"He didn't really mean for it to come out that way." I said, almost laughing at this whole thing.

"I didn't." Luke shook his head, confirming what I had just said.

"What did he mean?" My mom laughed. I was instantly relieved, she wasn't taking this the wrong way at all. I knew that she would be fine, I had nothing to worry about.

"Luke and I are dating." I finally spoke after a few seconds of silence, my lips breaking into a smile. Eric sighed beside me, as if he had been waiting for me to make that confession for a while, and my mom smiled back at us.

"I'm her boyfriend." Luke said, also smiling.

"Aw, how cute!" My mom gushed. "I always liked the idea of the two of you together, Luke is much sweeter than that Ashton boy anyway."

"Mom!" I groaned, not expecting her to react exactly like that.

"I'm going to have to agree with you there, Stacy." Luke chuckled. His hand trailed over my thigh until he came to my hand, lacing our fingers together once again.

My mom stood up after that, taking her plate with her as she entered the kitchen once again. "So, does anyone want dessert? I think I have a pie in the fridge."

-

I sat down on my bed and let out a big sigh, glad to finally be alone after all that happened tonight. After finishing dinner Luke and I decided to watch a movie with my mom and Eric, since we had nothing else to do. It honestly wasn't as bad as I had anticipated it to be, we all got along with each other and my mom wasn't nearly as embarrassing as she had been around boys I've brought home in the past.

I laid back the bed as I waited for Luke to come back in, who had been pulled aside by Eric while we were all getting ready to go back to our rooms. Of course Eric had decided to be a protective big brother with Luke instead of Ashton, who was the one that I really needed protection from in the first place.

Finally after what felt like forever, Luke entered the room again, looking just a little embarrassed. He came and sat down next to me, kicking off his shoes as he crawled over.

"I didn't know that your brother had the ability to be that scary." Luke chuckled.

"What did he say to you?" I asked, laughing as well.

"'Make one wrong move with her, and you're dead.'." Luke quoted my brother, his voice going lower. "I'm scared, I would never make a wrong move with you."

"I think he's all talk, he wouldn't be able to hurt you if he tried." I shrugged it off. Eric just wanted to scare Luke, that was all.

"I hope you're right." Luke said. He shifted so he was now sitting with his legs crossed and his hands in his lap, staring down at me.

"My mom took it well." I noted, not knowing what else to say.

"I was so scared that I blew it." Luke laughed, "I just got so nervous that I blurted out that I was in love with you, I thought she was going to want to kill me."

"Well I told you that you had nothing to worry about, she loved you before and I'm pretty sure she loves you even more now." I said, sitting up. I crawled across the bed until I was facing Luke, who was still staring down at his hands that were resting in his lap.

"I just want everyone to be happy, you know." Luke said quietly, his shoulders going up in a small shrug.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I just want you to be happy and I want your brother to be happy and your mom to be happy." Luke elaborated. "I want my mom to be happy and I want Michael and Calum to be happy, too. I just want all of you to be happy and I get nervous when I feel like you aren't going to be."

It was both adorable and worrying that Luke always did this, put other people's happiness before his own. It was like he didn't realize that he matter too, he didn't have to spend all of his time making sure that the people he cared about were fine, because they usually were on their own. Luke didn't take nearly enough time to make sure that he himself was happy, and that's what I didn't like. Luke deserved to feel that way too.

"Luke," I sighed, "I want you to be happy."

"Oh, I am happy, Stel. Most of the time." Luke mumbled the last part and looked down again, tugging the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands once more.

"Luke, what were you trying to tell me in the elevator earlier today?" I asked, just remembering now. It was really the first chance we had gotten to discuss that, we hadn't been alone since the second we stepped foot in the apartment.

"What? When?" Luke looked up at me innocently, acting as though he had no idea what I was talking about.

"We were coming up here and you tried to tell me something, before we ran into Calum and Michael." I explained. I was curious as to what Luke was trying to start, and stop.

"Hmm? Oh, that." Luke nodded, finally remembering what I was talking about. He seemed to do that a lot recently, space out about things. I would ask him a question and he would take forever to reply with an actual answer.

"Yeah, are you going to tell me?" I asked.

"It's not really a big deal, babe." Luke sighed. He grabbed a pillow from the top of my bed and placed it on his lap, using my hands to fluff it a few times. "I was just rambling on about something."

"It seemed like a big deal at the time." I countered. I wasn't trying to pick a fight with Luke, I just wanted to help him. I could tell that there was more to what he was telling me and I just wanted him to explain what was going on before anything got too serious.

"I don't really want to talk about it." Luke shrugged.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

"Uh huh." Luke nodded. "I'm very sure, Stel, it wasn't anything important."

"You can't always do this, you know." I let out a sigh, reaching out to grab both of Luke's hands and stop him from hitting the pillow any more.

"Do what?" Luke questioned, cocking his head the side. By now I had known Luke long enough to see that he was trying to play innocent here, like he didn't even know what I was saying to him. While it was adorable, it really got nothing accomplished. I just wanted to be there for Luke and I wished that he would understand that.

"You can't just pretend that nothing's going on when there's obviously something bothering you." I said slowly, choosing my words carefully.

"Please," Luke said, just barely above a whisper, "please don't start a fight. I can't handle any more fighting."

"Any more fighting? What do you mean?" I asked. Luke and I rarely fought anymore, unless it was for the small arguments we had like earlier today. They always ended fast, though, and neither of us were ever really mad at each other for a long amount of time.

"I got in another fight with my mom the other day." Luke said quietly, glancing up at me for a second before looking down again.

"Was it bad?" I asked.

"She hit me, but only once this time. She's better, I told you." Luke mumbled.

"Luke," I groaned, "this really needs to stop. You have to tell someone about this."

"No, Stel, I can't. She's better now and so am I. I don't need to ruin anything else for her. I'll be at college and out of her hair soon, anyway. Things will be fine." Luke said, sounding more panicked than before. He bit at his lip as his eyes flicked down from his hands to my face and back again.

"I just wish you would tell someone besides me about this, you don't deserve it." I shook my head, trying to reach out for him once more.

"But I do." Luke nodded, his words fading as he spoke. He grabbed the pillow from his lap and put it under his head, laying back on the bed. He pulled the covers to the side and crawled in, not bothering to take off his clothes or anything. He simply got in there without even taking more than a few seconds to think, like nothing else really matter.

"Are you spending the night?" I asked, wondering if I should make the effort to go into Eric's room and ask for something that Luke could wear to bed. Of course that wouldn't go over very well now that Eric knew Luke and I were dating, no matter how many times I would tell him that there wasn't going to be anything going on.

"Can I, please?" Luke asked, his voice slightly muffled by all of the blankets surrounding him. "I don't feel very good right now and I don't trust myself to go home on my own."

"Yeah, of course. You can stay as long as you need to, Luke." I nodded. I'm sure that my mom would be okay with him sleeping over again, especially if I told her that he wasn't feeling well. She didn't need to know the details, just that he wasn't well enough to go home.

"Thank you. I love you, Stel. Goodnight." Luke mumbled, already drifting off to sleep.

"I love you." I whispered back, knowing that he would be asleep in seconds. And I was right, Luke didn't end up responding to me and a few minutes later the sound of his soft snores were coming from the mess of blankets around him.

-

ok so last chapter you got your shower sex so this chapter was a bit more serious

dat ending was the worst tho

I know that I said I wasn't going to bring sad Luke back but I just had to a little for this one part

like I said I'm trying to slow the chapters down a little more for the ending

sorry if this chapter sucks or isn't what you wanted, im just super tired right now :(

goodnight!!