Luke decided to stay home from school the next day. He'd spent the whole night crying and laying awake in bed thinking about everything that had happened earlier and when he finally woke up in the morning he realized that he didn't even want to leave his house. He didn't want to face Ashley and he especially didn't want to face Michael.

He came out of his room for a few minutes to talk to his mom, who just freaked out about his nose. It didn't look any better than it did the night before and Liz was sure that it was broken, even though Luke insisted that he was fine.

"Mom, I swear, I'm okay." Luke assured her again, walking down the hall and towards his room.

"Are you sure, Luke?" Liz followed him. "I can take you to a doctor if you want. It doesn't look good."

"I'm alright, Mom, I promise." Luke rubbed his eyes tiredly, leaning up against his doorframe. "I'm just not feeling very well, can I please stay home?"

"I guess." Liz said, letting out a sigh. "Just go back to sleep for a while, yell if you need anything."

"Thanks Mom." Luke gave her a small smile, turning away from his mom. "I love you."

So after getting permission from Liz to stay home for the day, Luke went back into his room and cuddled up under a million blankets to try and hide away from all of his problems like he normally did.

After a few hours of Luke falling asleep and waking up and falling back asleep again, his phone started to ring. He let out a small groan and threw the pile of blankets off of his head, searching around on his nightstand for his phone. He saw that it was Ashley calling and answered immediately.

"Hello?" Luke said groggily as he answered the phone.

"Hey, where are you?" Ashley asked. "You're going to miss English, we're watching a movie today."

"I'm at home. Why are you calling me? Shouldn't you be in class?" Luke questioned. He sat up and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, wincing a little as he touched one of the bruises on his nose.

"I'm walking to English right now, I just realized that you weren't here so I decided to give you a call." Ashley explained. Luke could hear the voices of other students behind her as she walked, probably dodging freshman like they normally had to do when they walked to class together.

"Oh, well, I'm at home. I didn't sleep at all and my nose is all gross and swollen. My mom let me stay home." Luke said softly.

"Wow, that sucks." Ashley sighed. "Do you want me to come visit you?"

Luke opened his mouth to say yes, but then he stopped himself. He felt that Ashley was only offering to come over because she felt bad for Luke. She knew what happened last night and that he was upset and was probably just acting like she cared.

"No, I'm fine. I'll probably be back at school tomorrow, you don't need to come see me." Luke said, letting out another big sigh.

"Are you sure? I can totally just ditch school this afternoon and come over." Ashley said happily, not even suspecting that something was wrong with Luke.

"You don't need to." Luke shook his head. He knew that if Ashley came over he would most likely end up feeling hurt about her whole situation with that Brandon guy again. Every time Luke thought about Ashley he thought about Brandon too, and it just made him sad. Having Ashley with him would most likely make things worse. For once, Luke didn't want Ashley here.

"Luke, I think I should - " Ashley stopped talking and only the chatter of the school hallway was heard on the other side of the phone. "Oh my God!"

"What?" Luke asked, suddenly concerned.

"I just saw Michael walking into our English classroom." Ashley said, laughing loudly.

"Why is that funny?" Luke asked.

"He has a black eye!" Ashley laughed again.

"Why is that funny?" Luke repeated.

"Because it's Michael and he obviously got punched in the face." Ashley said, sounding a little aggravated at Luke.

"Oh my God." Luke mumbled to himself, remembering another thing that happened last night. "Ashton did that."

"Ashton punched Michael in the face?" Ashley questioned.

"Yeah, or at least I think he did. After Michael punched me, when I was leaving Ashton's house, I heard him say to Charlie that he was going to go beat Michael up." Luke said, gently poking at his nose as he spoke to see if it still hurt.

"Oh God, that's so great." Ashley chuckled.

"It's not great." Luke sighed. Sure, he appreciated Ashton punching Michael in the face for him, but Luke knew that after this things would only get worse. Michael would know that this was Luke's fault and he would come after him for this.

"I have to go now, okay? I'll come over in a couple hours." Ashley said quickly. The bell had probably rang and class was starting, and even though Luke and Ashley could usually get away with talking throughout the entire class period she probably wouldn't be able to stay on the phone with Luke for the whole hour.

"Ashley, no - " Luke began, but Ashley hung up the phone too quickly for her to hear what he was going to say. He didn't want Ashley to come over, he just wanted to be alone.

Luke sighed and laid back down on his bed, not feeling much better from how he felt earlier that morning. He was angry and scared and confused, mostly about the fact that Ashton had supposedly punched Michael in the face. Luke was sure that it was just going to make everything much worse.

Luke pulled out his phone again and opened up his messages, figuring that he might as well get this out of the way before it was too late.

Puke Hemmings: why did you punch michael

ashtonio irwin: He totally deserved it. He hurt you and that's not okay. He deserved to be hurt back.

Puke Hemmings: but now he's probably gonna be mad at me

ashtonio irwin: If he gets mad at you then I'll just beat him up again. I won't let him do this to you again, Luke.

Puke Hemmings: you made this so much worse :-(

ashtonio irwin: Dude no I didn't. Just calm down, everything will be alright. Michael's learned his lesson now, he knows that what he did was wrong and now he won't do it again.

Puke Hemmings: ashton :-(

ashtonio irwin: Alright man we can talk later about this, I have to go pick up Charlie from school right now. Everything will be okay, don't worry.

Puke Hemmings: :-( why are you picking up charlie?? its not even noon!

ashtonio irwin: We have stuff to do... It's really no big deal... Lol. I'll talk to you later!

Luke gave up on trying to text Ashton and just set his phone down again, knowing that it wasn't worth it.

He stayed in his room for a little while longer and finally turned on his laptop, putting on a movie for himself. Luke happily watched it by himself, enjoying his time alone for once. Usually Luke was abnormally clingy and always wanted to be around other people, but today he was feeling just fine being on his own.

When Luke was about halfway done with his movie Liz came in and told him that she was going out to run some errands and would be back in a few hours, and that Luke should call if he needed anything. Luke just shrugged and told his mom that he loved her, asking that she close to door on her way out of his room.

It took Luke another 20 minutes for him to realize that he was actually alone in his house, which was something that rarely happened. So, being the horny 17 year old boy that he was, Luke closed out of Netflix and opened up a different website instead.

A few minutes later Luke was a moaning, sweaty, mess, his eyes shut tightly as his hand pumped up and down his, well, his dick. God, it felt so good, he hadn't done this in a long time and it felt great to finally have a release like this. He bit down on his bottom lip, trying to hold back some more moans as got closer to his climax.

It was actually kind of strange. Usually when Luke did stuff like this he would pay more attention to the girl on his computer screen than anything else. Sometimes he would imagine that hot girl from his Chemistry class and sometimes he would picture Charlie, but most of the time it was no one specific. Luke didn't care enough to think of anyone specific while he jacked off.

But nope, not this time. This time the only thing running through Luke's mind was Ashley. Ashley and her pretty hair and her perfect smile and her ass. Yeah, mainly her ass. Luke had never really thought of Ashley this way, except for that one time at Calum's party. Suddenly all he wanted was for her to be on top of him again, just like she had been that first night.

"Oh, God." Luke moaned, throwing his head back as his hand moved faster. "Oh, fuck - "

"Luke!" Someone yelled from the hallway, and before Luke even had time to react his bedroom door flew open.

"Fuck!" Luke yelled louder, now more startled than anything else, sitting up quickly and slamming his laptop shut. There was really no use in trying to hide this, though, Ashley was already standing in Luke's doorway and there was no way that she didn't see what Luke was doing a few seconds before.

"I told you I was coming over." Ashley shook her head, leaning against the doorframe and crossing her arms over her chest.

"You could have fucking knocked." Luke whined. He ran his fingers through his hair, which was damp with sweat and sticking to his forehead.

"Do you want me to leave you alone for a few minutes so you can finish up?" Ashley asked teasingly.

"No, I don't want you to leave me alone." Luke scoffed, covering his lap with blankets again, hoping that Ashley wouldn't come any closer to him. "How did you get in my house?"

"I rang the doorbell, like, 10 times." Ashley said, rolling her eyes. She was probably exaggerating, but Luke didn't say anything. "Finally I got tired of waiting for you and I walked around to see if the back door was open. It was."

"Great." Luke mumbled.

"I brought you lunch." Ashley gave Luke a cheesy smile, showing him the takeout bag she held in her hands.

"I'm not even hungry." Luke pouted, folding his arms across his chest.

"Can I come sit with you?" Ashley asked, still keeping her distance.

"Yeah, whatever." Luke shrugged. He really wished that Ashley hadn't come over, Luke had told her that he didn't want her to visit him and he wished that she would have just respected that for once.

"I'm sorry." Ashley sighed. She passed Luke the bag of food and he smiled a little when he realized that she'd gotten him his favorite sandwich, the one on the ciabatta bread.

"It's fine." Luke said, shrugging again. He began eating his sandwich, acting as if he hadn't eaten anything in days.

"How's your nose?" Ashley scooting across the bed and closer to Luke.

"It's alright, I guess." Luke said, his mouth full. "If it doesn't start to heal in a couple days my mom will take me to the doctor, but I think I'll be fine."

"That's good." Ashley nodded. "I'm sorry about what happened."

"It's not your fault." Luke chuckled softly. It really wasn't her fault, it was no one's fault but Luke's.

"Yeah, I know, but I just feel bad, okay? After you left my house last night I read all of your texts and listened to the messages you left me and I feel really bad for not being there when you needed me." Ashley sighed. "You got punched in the face and you had to spend time with my stepmom while I was out on a date. That's not fair."

"Helen made me lasagna." Luke shrugged. He wanted to show Ashley that he didn't really care whether or not she went out on dates with boys that weren't him. It didn't matter, it was really none of his business, and Luke wanted Ashley to know that his life didn't revolve around her.

Even though it kind of did at this point.

"Of course she did." Ashley scoffed. "I'm sorry."

"Oh it's fine, really. You were...preoccupied." Luke said, taking another bite of his sandwich.

"Luke." Ashley groaned, bumping Luke's shoulder with her own. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not mad or anything." Luke said quickly, hoping that Ashley wouldn't be able to tell that, yeah, he was mad. "I'm not mad at all, it's fine, you can do whatever you what. Go on dates, kiss boys, fuck them, whatever."

"Luke, oh my God." Ashley said, letting out a groan. "I went on a couple dates, I'm not going to leave you."

"Oh, I'm not worried about you leaving me. I just told you, you can do whatever you want." Luke said, laughing nervously. "I can't control you. I'm just your friend, I'm not even that important. I shouldn't influence your decisions anymore than anyone else."

"Stop it, Luke." Ashley said, trying to end Luke's pointless rambling.

"Hmm? Stop what?" Luke asked. He poked at his sandwich, suddenly feeling too sick to want to eat any more.

"I can tell that you're jealous." Ashley said blankly.

"I am not!" Luke protested. Yeah, he was jealous too.

"You totally are." Ashley said, letting out a small laugh. She leaned over and ran her fingers through his hair, and Luke blushed again. "Luke, it's okay, I just went out with him a couple times."

"But a couple times turns into a few, and pretty soon you're living on a farm with 10 children." Luke shrugged, trying to keep a straight face as he spoke.

He was so obliviously jealous, Luke didn't even know why he was still trying to hide it.

"Well I hope that we go on more than just a few dates before we start having kids..." Ashley trailed off. Luke could tell that she was trying to make a joke about this, but he didn't find it very amusing.

"I'm not kidding Ashley, this isn't funny!" Luke whined, covering his face with his hands.

"It kind of is. You're jealous, I get it. It's okay, I think it's really cute." Ashley giggled, grabbing Luke's hands and pulling them away from his face. She gave him another cheesy smile and Luke felt his face get hot again.

"I'm not jealous. I'm just concerned. You're my best friend, I don't want anything to happen." Luke defended himself. He folded his arms across his chest, trying to scoot away from Ashley a little more.

"Oh, of course." Ashley rolled her eyes.

"You need to tell me if he does something to hurt you." Luke said, his voice dropping down to a whisper. He turned and looked at her, a serious expression on his face.

"Why? So you can get punched in the face by someone else?" Ashley sighed. "Luke, you don't need to get in the middle of any of this. Things are fine with me and Brandon for now, you don't need to worry."

"Yeah, fine." Luke mumbled. He poked his nose again out of habit, flinching at the pain.

"That looks like it hurts." Ashley pouted.

"It doesn't hurt that much anymore." Luke shrugged. He was lying, it hurt really bad, but Luke didn't want Ashley to know.

"Do you want some ice or something?" Ashley kneeled up on the bed, so she was facing Luke. "It's still swollen, Luke, I don't think it's still supposed to be swollen like that."

"Ashley, I'm fine." Luke said shaking his head. "You're worse than my own mother, I swear."

"I'm worried, Luke, it doesn't look good." Ashley sighed. She cupped Luke's cheeks in her hands, tilting his head to the side so she could examine his nose better.

"It looked even worse last night and you didn't seem to care." Luke mumbled and tried to move his head, but Ashley was holding him so tightly that he really couldn't.

"Luke, come on." Ashley groaned again. She let go of Luke's face, resting her hands by her sides again.

"I'm not in a very good mood." Luke sighed and slowly pulled away from Ashley, laying back down on the bed and curling up with his pillow.

"I know, I can tell. I'm sorry." Ashley let out another deep sigh. She sat down next to Luke, who had buried his face deep into the pillow and was trying to avoid Ashley all together.

"Can we just cuddle or something?" He mumbled softly, barely taking his face away from the pillow to speak. "I'm sad and tired and my face hurts so fucking much. Just hug me for a while, please."

"Go wash you hands first." Ashley ordered, and Luke couldn't help but smile a little.

"Oh, come on." Luke groaned, sitting up and running his hands through his hair again.

"Luke, when I walked in you had your hands down your pants, I don't want that anywhere near me." Ashley said, a slight scowl on her face as she looked at Luke.

"Fine." He sighed and rolled off of the bed, figuring that the least he could do was wash his hands after having Ashley catch him doing something like that.

Luke shuffled down the hall and into the bathroom, where he cleaned himself up and looked at his nose a little more in the mirror, poking at it again. Finally he gave up and walked back into his room, finding Ashley sitting up on his bed, scrolling through her phone.

"Hi." Luke said softly, standing at the edge of the bed. He felt so pathetic, it was his bed and he was nervously waiting there for Ashley to invite him to sit on it with her.

"Come here." Ashley said, dropping her phone next to her on the bed and holding her arms out for Luke. He smiled and crawled across the bed until he reached Ashley, immediately pulling her down with him.

They laid there in silence for a while. Luke wrapped his arms around Ashley's waist and she rested her head on his chest, their steady breathing the only sound in the room.

This wasn't normal, the feelings between Luke and Ashley were definitely not just friendly, and Luke knew that. He was fully aware. He didn't like it, either. He was scared that him discovering these feelings would just cause more problems in the long run and that really frightened Luke, so he decided that staying quiet about this would be best.

"I'm sorry that I'm such a pain in the ass." Luke sighed after a few minutes.

"You're not a pain in the ass." Ashley whispered, her fingers gently playing with the hem of Luke's shirt, lifting it up and then pulling it down over and over again.

"Don't lie to me." Luke mumbled.

"Luke." Ashley said quickly, turning her head so he was looking directly at her. "You're the good kind of pain in the ass."

"That sounds super kinky." Luke smirked.

"That's not what I meant." Ashley said, blushing at her word choice. "I meant that I don't care that you're an annoying little shit sometimes."

"Gee, thanks." Luke scoffed.

"Are you feeling better?" Ashley asked quietly, sitting up. Luke whined at their lose of contact, pulling a face at Ashley as she checked her phone again.

"If you want to leave, you can." Luke said, nodding towards her phone. He figured that she had a better offer than laying in bed with Luke for the rest of the day.

"I don't want to leave." Ashley shook her head, throwing her phone down again. "So, are you feeling better?"

"A little." Luke shrugged. His nose still hurt like hell, but Luke didn't know what he was supposed to do about that. He knew that if he went to a doctor they'd just tell him to wait for it to heal on its own. He just needed something for the pain, the pain was what was killing him.

"You sure?" Ashley questioned.

"My nose fucking hurts." Luke finally said, sniffing once. "My head is pounding, I feel like it's about to explode. My heart has been beating so fast all day today, I'm afraid I'm going to go into cardiac arrest. Other than that I'm fine, absolutely perfect."

"Oh, sweetie." Ashley pouted, but Luke could tell that she was trying to hold back a laugh. "Did you take anything to help with the pain?"

"No, I didn't take anything." Luke shook his head. "I came straight home and fell asleep right away, and I've been in bed since I woke up a few hours ago."

"I'm going to get you some ice and some painkillers, alright? You stay here." Ashley said, getting up from the bed and making her way out of Luke's room. "Do you want anything else?"

"No, I'm okay." Luke said softly. He hadn't expected Ashley to just jump up and start caring for him like that.

"Stay here." Ashley ordered before walking out of the room and down the hall, disappearing to go find what she'd promised.

Ashley was back a few minutes later with a glass of water and pills in one hand and an ice pack in the other. She crawled onto the bed again and over to where Luke was sitting him. Ashley handed him the water and painkillers and Luke too them without protest.

"Put this on your nose." Ashley ordered, handing Luke the ice pack. He flinched, not liking the feeling of the cold ice pack on his skin.

"No, it's cold." Luke whined. He shook his head, trying to back away from Ashley. She groaned and placed the ice pack on his nose again. "No, Ashley, it hurts."

"It's swollen, Luke, the ice will help." Ashley said, moving closer to him and still fighting to get Luke to use the ice.

"I don't want it." Luke pouted. Ashley sighed and gently grabbed Luke by the shoulders, pushing him back against the headboard of his bed so he couldn't move anymore.

"Why are you being so stubborn?" Ashley asked. She crawled onto Luke's lap, and suddenly he was too nervous to fight with her. "The ice will help, Luke, I promise."

"It stings." Luke whimpered, but he continued to allow Ashley to put the ice on his nose.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Ashley asked, letting out a sigh.

"It just hurts a lot." Luke said, trying to assure Ashley that nothing was really wrong. If his nose didn't hurt so much Luke would be acting a lot differently.

"It'll feel better if you keep the ice on it. The swelling will go down and the painkillers with help, too." Ashley said, keeping the ice on Luke's nose.

"I know." Luke whispered. He sat in silence for the next few minutes and watched Ashley, staring at her while his chest rose and fell again from how hard he was breathing.

"Just keep the ice on it." Ashley whispered again.

"Okay." Luke nodded. He stopped trying to fight with Ashley about keeping the ice on his nose and just stayed there.

He didn't even know what to think anymore or what he was supposed to do. Everything felt different now and it was all Ashley's fault.

"What are you looking at?" Ashley asked softly, noticing how hard Luke was focusing on her.

"Nothing." Luke mumbled. "I'm not looking at anything."

"Do you want to hold this on your own now or should I stay on top of you?" Ashley smiled, referring to the ice pack pressed to Luke's nose.

"Stay on top of me." Luke said quickly, not even taking another moment to think.

"Alright." Ashley laughed, shifting her position once more and making Luke wince again at the pain in his nose. It didn't hurt as much as it did before, Ashley was right, the painkillers really did help.

Then everything was silent again. Luke didn't speak and Ashley didn't either, she just remained sitting on Luke's lap, holding the ice to his nose.

"So..." Luke said after a few minutes, trying to make conversation. "How's that Brandon guy?"

"Whenever you say his name you sound like you're about to throw up." Ashley huffed. She reached out and brushed some of Luke's hair off of his forehead again, using her free hand to run her fingers through it.

"The thought of him does make me want to throw up." Luke shrugged.

"You've never even met him." Ashley laughed lightly.

"I bet he's an asshole." Luke pouted, folding his arms over his chest again.

"He's really not." Ashley argued, a slight smile on her lips. Clearly she thought that this was still funny, but Luke wasn't taking it as a joke. He was serious about what he was saying.

"I could treat you better."

"Luke, where is this coming from?" Ashley questioned.

"What do you mean?" Luke asked.

"I'm not an idiot, Luke, I can tell that you're super jealous over this for whatever reason and I want to know why." Ashley said, and Luke just stared blankly back at her. "Come on, Luke, tell me."

"It's nothing, okay? It's really nothing." Luke said, shaking his head.

"It's obviously something." Ashley pulled away from Luke and set the ice pack down next to them. She moved off to the side, so she wasn't on Luke's lap anymore.

"It's just - I don't know, I'm your best friend, right? We do everything together." Luke said, swallowing hard. "But now you're hanging out with - with this Brandon and I know that you're going to forget about me. He's going to take my place."

"He's not going to take your place." Ashley said. She'd stopped smiling, finally realizing how serious Luke was. "He's just a guy, Luke - "

"But I'm just a guy, too!" Luke interrupted. He crawled off of the bed and stood up, looking down at Ashley.

"You're over thinking this." Ashley sighed, running her hands through her hair. She stood up from bed as well and walked over to Luke. "You're tired, Luke, I think you should just get some rest."

"What, do you think I'm delusional or something?" Luke scoffed. "I know what's happening, Ashley, I've been through this before! You're going to start to go out with that asshole and forget all about me!"

"How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not going to do any of that?" Ashley groaned.

"I'm just scared, okay?" Luke sighed. "All everyone's ever done is leave me and I'm scared that you're not an exception to that. You've had your fun with me and now that you have a better offer you're going to leave."

"That won't happen." Ashley shook her head, walking closer to Luke. She grabbed both of his hands in hers, pulling him closer. "I don't have a better offer, you are my better offer. Nothing is going to change."

"Things already have changed." Luke mumbled, looking down at Ashley.

"What do you mean?" Ashley asked, her voice also quiet.

"My nose hurts." Luke blurted out, not wanting to say what he was actually thinking.

"The ice is over there." Ashley pointed to the spot on Luke's bed where they'd been sitting but kept her eyes trained on Luke's.

Luke turned away from her quickly and grabbed the ice off of the bed again, placing it on his nose.

"Luke - "

"Maybe you should just go home." Luke muttered, shaking his head. Luke suddenly felt just like he had the night before; like he'd made a mistake. And it was too late to go back and fix this.

"I don't want to." Ashley said. Luke turned around and looked at her, a sad expression on his face. "What's wrong?"

"Jesus Christ, Ashley, just go home." Luke groaned, running his hands over his face. Things only got worse when she was here, Luke would feel much better if she just went home and left him alone.

"I'm just trying to help - "

"Well you're making things worse." Luke snapped. He made his way towards the door, showing Ashley the way out.

"Luke, I don't understand." Ashley followed after him. She grabbed his wrist and pulled Luke back.

"I'm sorry." Luke said, realizing how much of a jerk he was being. "I told you, I'm just having a bad day."

"Yeah, I know." Ashley sighed. "I guess I shouldn't have come over. You clearly wanted to just stay alone, I made things worse - "

"Oh God, just shut up." Luke groaned again, pulling Ashley forward and wrapping his arms around her.

"God, you are a pain in the ass." Ashley chuckled, squeezing her arms tightly around Luke's waist.

"The good kind, right?" Luke asked.

"Right." Ashley laughed, allowing Luke to walk them backwards and pull Ashley down on the bed with him.

-

I feel like this sucks and I'm sorry it's taken me forever to update

don't hate me ok the next chapter will be great

this was a filler ok cuz I have good stuff planned for later I just need to break it all up you know

anyway I hope you all enjoyed this if you have any ideas for this that you want to share with me let me know!!