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“I think that one was really good,” Luke says, shutting down the webcam and gently placing his guitar on the table. Luke is always so careful with his guitar. It’s the best thing he owns, Michael knows how much he cares about it.
Michael cares about his too, and Luke’s. Guitars are their only ticket out of this dump. Michael’s never been good at anything other than music. If they fail, they’re never getting out of here.
“I fucked up the intro.” Michael rolls his eyes at himself as he remembers. He nailed that part every single time they practiced, and then once the camera turned on, Michael’s fingers forgot how to work.
Luke shrugs. “No one will care. Or even notice, probably.”
“Someone might. We want people to take us seriously.”
“They will. It’s not like you pulled your pants down and did a dance. You messed up a few notes. It’s fine.”
Michael shrugs this time, and doesn’t respond. He doesn’t really feel like recording it again anyway, so. He likes other parts of it the way they are – like how Luke forgot the words in the second verse and turned those dewy blue eyes to Michael for help. Michael loves when he does that. He loves that Luke trusts him, in those moments, to bail him out.
“We don’t have to post it, if you don’t want.”
“All the ones you did by yourself are so good,” Michael says, aware of exactly how whiny he sounds. “I just don’t want the first one I’m in to be shitty.”
Luke stands up and goes to the fridge to pour them both a glass of water. “Okay, first of all, my videos are complete shit. I’m crazy nervous in all of them. And second, you missed like two notes. Honestly, no one is even gonna be able to tell.”
“I guess.” Michael takes the glass Luke hands him and downs it in two long swallows.
“Do you wanna do it again?” Luke asks.
“Maybe. Not right now, though.”
“Okay.” Luke nods, and fixes his hair. He compulsively fixes his hair. It always makes Michael’s fingers itch to get into his own hair, just in case Luke is trying to subconsciously tell him it looks stupid or something. “What now, then?”
“Wanna hang out in my room for a bit? My parents won’t be home for an hour.”
Luke smiles shyly, but nods again, and then follows Michael down the hall. In the few months since they’ve been friends,hang out in my room has come to mean lie together in Michael’s bed and talk about things they wouldn’t tell anyone else. Michael’s not sure exactly how that happened, but he likes it. He likes Luke. He regrets not being friends with him for so long. Michael’s never been good with people. He always says the wrong thing, or says too much, or makes a joke no one finds funny. It’s a lot of work for him, sometimes, to exist around the other humans and not end up with them wishing he’d go away. With Luke, Michael doesn’t have to try so hard. There are things that he can say to Luke, secrets he can tell him, that Michael’s never told a living soul before and might not ever again. Somehow, with Luke, Michael feels safe. He feels protective, too, at the same time, because Luke is shy and sweet and needs looking out for, and Michael loves being the one to do it. People aren’t very nice to Luke, sometimes. They aren’t really nice to Michael either, but Michael can take it better. It makes him mad, makes him want to punch their faces until they’re too scared to ever look at him wrong again. It doesn’t hurt him like it does Luke.
Michael pulls off his sweatshirt before he climbs onto his unmade bed, and Luke climbs in after him, lying down so Michael can tug the blankets over them both. Luke shuffles in, slotting himself into Michael’s arms; in the spot that’s become his. They both know exactly how he fits here.
“Why does your hair smell like strawberries?” Michael asks, inhaling the scent anyway, because confusing or not it still smells nice.
“Ran out of shampoo. Had to use Mum’s.”
Michael laughs a little, and teases, “Manly.”
“Shut up,” Luke mumbles, no real heat to it. “I think Mr. Watson’s toupee was on backwards today.”
Michael laughs louder. “It so was. I kept hoping he would bend over and it would fall off.”
Luke giggles a little. “We’re mean.”
“He’s mean. He deserves it. If he gives me any more demerits I think my dad is going to ground me until I’m thirty.”
“He gives you demerits because you break the rules,” Luke points out.
“Whose side are you on?” Michael asks indignantly.
“Yours,” Luke says quickly. “Always yours.”
He slides a hand onto Michael’s chest, twisting the fabric of Michael’s shirt between his fingers, and falls silent for a while. Michael closes his eyes and rests his mouth against Luke’s soft hair.
“How long have we been friends?” Luke’s quiet voice inquires after a few minutes.
“I don’t know. Not that long. Why?”
“Is this weird for you?”
“Is what weird?”
Luke gestures within the miniscule amount of space between their chests. “Lying like this.”
Michael shakes his head. His lips catch on Luke’s hair, moisture sticking to the dry strands. “No. Is it weird for you?”
“No. I just didn’t want you to think it was weird but, like, do it anyway because you didn’t want to say no.”
“Wasn’t it my idea, the first time?”
“I don’t remember.”
Michael squeezes his arms around Luke a little tighter, a hug inside a cuddle. “Well, whatever. No, it isn’t weird. I like it.”
“Okay. Good.”
He goes quiet again, and Michael tries not to sigh audibly in relief. It isn’t the first time he’s felt that close to Luke asking the wrong question and figuring it out. Michael doesn’t just like him, Michael likes him, and he probably can’t ever tell Luke that because Luke is straight and it would ruin everything. It hurts like hell, though, sometimes, to be this close to Luke and not be able to kiss him. Michael really, really wants to kiss him. He wants to know what Luke’s lips taste like, how soft they are, if he’d let Michael put a tongue in his mouth. He never really got what all those love songs were about until he fell for Luke.
Luke yawns and stretches just a little, and then cuddles in closer. “You know, we’re gonna need more people than just the two of us if we’re gonna be a real band.”
“How about Calum? I bet he could learn to play the bass. It’s only four strings, it can’t be that hard.”
Luke wrinkles up his nose. It’s a habit of his. Michael is dangerously attracted to it. “I don’t think Calum likes me.”
“You don’t think anyone likes you.”
“Well he never talks to me!”
“He likes you just fine,” Michael argues. “I think maybe he’s a bit mad because you kinda replaced him.”
“As what?”
“As my best friend.”
Luke lets out a tiny groan. “Well now I feel bad. That’s not fair.”
“So let me ask him to be in the band. Then we can all be best friends.”
“Okay,” Luke says, and then adds, “Doesn’t he wanna be a football star?”
“I’m sure he’d rather be a rock star. Wouldn’t you? They get way more girls.”
Luke shrugs listlessly, and then seems like he’s about to say something but changes his mind.
“What?” Michael pushes.
Luke buries his face against Michael’s neck instead of answering.
It’s entirely unacceptable. “You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
“What if …” Luke begins, and then it takes him a long time to complete the sentence. “What if I didn’t want a girl?”
Michael frowns. “You … no?”
“I’m not saying. I’m just … what if?”
Michael’s heart speeds up. Half of him is thinking, holy crap, this is it, Luke is about to confess his undying love for Michael and they’ll kiss and have sex and ride off into the sunset together. The other half wants to murder the first half for being so stupid, because even if Luke is into boys, he certainly wouldn’t be into Michael. He’s way too good for Michael. He’s so close, though, and he’s warm and he smells good and Michael just wants. He wants it all, every bit he can’t have.
“If nothing,” he says, finally finding his voice after Luke’s sort-of confession stole it away. “Then you don’t want a girl. Who cares?”
“Everyone cares,” Luke mumbles, sounding embarrassed and ashamed and it makes Michael ache. “Everyone says that’s gayand it means stupid, everyone calls each other homos and it’s an insult.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t mean that.” Michael himself has been guilty of both those offenses. He doesn’t mean it literally, no one does. “They’re not, like, actually saying it isn’t okay if you’re gay. It’s just shit people say. I say I wanna kill people when I’m mad at them, I don’t actually mean it.”
Luke nods a little but doesn’t seem convinced.
“Have you told anyone else?” Michael asks – selfishly hoping the answer is no. He likes being the one Luke tells his secrets to.
“No. Just you.”
Good, Michael thinks. What he says is, “How come?”
“‘Cause I don’t even know.” Luke squirms a little. He’s uncomfortable talking about it. “I don’t know what I … I’ve just been thinking, sometimes. That maybe girls aren’t … like maybe I’m not. At least not completely. But I don’t know, and I don’t know how to know, and it’s all really …”
He runs out of breath all at once, and snuggles closer to Michael instead of ending the sentence. He’s hiding in Michael’s arms, Michael gets that now. This is the one place Luke feels safe. It makes Michael’s ache go away, replaces it with spreading, slow-burning warmth.
“Scary,” he finishes, for Luke, and Luke nods. “It was for me too. Still is, really.” Michael told Luke he was bi a couple of weeks ago. It’s the truth, but it felt like a cop-out because it wasn’t what Michael really wanted to tell Luke.
“So it would be okay with you? If I maybe …”
“Of course it would,” Michael assures him. “How could you even think it wouldn’t be?”
“Why did you hate me before?” Luke asks, suddenly sounding close to tears.
Michael panics. “Because you hated me.”
“I didn’t, though. I thought you were so cool, ‘cause you were tall and you have awesome hair, but you hated me and I never knew why.”
“I don’t know,” Michael whispers. His eyes burn, hating himself for making Luke upset, even indirectly. “I didn’t hate you either, I just … I don’t know why I acted like I did. I was stupid. I’m so sorry.”
“Everybody would hate me if they knew.”
“No they wouldn’t. And even if they did, fuck them. Who cares about anyone else? You got me.” Michael rubs Luke’s back, trying to calm him down, soothe him. It works a little, and then when Michael gets his fingers into Luke’s hair it works even more.
Luke sighs softly, but it sounds exhausted instead of unhappy. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“You know I won’t,” Michael promises. “That’s our rule, right? Stuff we say here, stays here.”
Luke nods. “Thanks, Mikey.”
Michael wishes he had any amount of control over the way it lights him up inside when Luke calls him that. “So is there, um. Is there, like, a specific boy?”
He doesn’t even really want to know – regrets the words the moment they’re out of his mouth. The best case scenario is for Luke to say no, there isn’t. If he says he likes Alex or Jake or one of the other guys from their class, Michael might cry. He almost wishes Luke hadn’t confided this particular secret in him. It just feels like he’s that much closer now, at least over the hump of having body parts he thought Luke wasn’t attracted to, but at the same time even farther away because now all Michael wants to do is make Luke his but he still can’t.
“Maybe,” Luke whispers.
“Do I get to know who it is?” Michael hopes he manages to at least mostly hide how much he wants to scream right now.
Luke is quiet for nearly a full minute, and then his voice shakes when he says, “What if … it was you?”
Michael’s heart stops beating. Then it speeds way up to compensate. In the space of a second he feels like puking and yelling and crying and laughing and so many other things he doesn’t know how to sort it out in his head. “Is it?” he croaks, sounding ill, like he’s been coughing for a week and a half when he hasn’t.
Luke extracts himself from Michael’s grip just enough to look up at him, to turn shiny, bright blue eyes in the direction of Michael’s quickly unravelling grip on his own sanity. “Would that be okay? You don’t have to like me back, I promise I won’t make it awkward, I just …”
Michael shuts him up by kissing him, because it’s all he can do. There’s nothing else, no other options anymore. No other ways out of this. Luke’s lips are just as soft as he always thought they’d be, and Luke makes a startled noise and then melts into it, kissing Michael back, kissing Michael back. Michael isn’t even remotely responsible for the pathetic whimper that bubbles out of his throat, or of the way his stomach lurches and twists, exploding in frantic butterflies.
Luke wraps a hand around the back of Michael’s neck to pull him closer, kissing him eagerly, messily, and it’s way better than Michael imagined in all the time he’s spent imagining exactly this moment. He wasn’t prepared for reality. Maybe no one ever really is.
Their lips slide together, slow and sweet and warm. All in all, it’s been one of the better afternoons of Michael’s life, he thinks, as he slips his tongue along the seam of Luke’s lips and tiny fireworks explode inside him when Luke opens his mouth and lets Michael in. Their lips fall apart when Michael needs to breathe, and he pants as he stares at Luke – pink cheeks, wide eyes, lips shiny and red. He’s so God-damn beautiful and even if Michael wakes up right this second and finds out this was all a dream, he won’t even regret it.
Luke smiles shyly, unsurely, and asks, “Um. So … does that mean?”
“Yeah, it definitely does,” Michael answers, laughing a little because he’s happy. “For the longest time, I … I never thought you’d like me back.”
“Why wouldn’t I like you back?” Luke’s eyebrows stitch together, like it’s a real question. Like he really doesn’t understand how far out of Michael’s league he is, with his talent and his perfect smile and his eyes the color of the ocean.
“I just thought you didn’t,” Michael says, because it’s the only answer he knows Luke will accept. If Michael tells him the real reason, Luke will insist on spending the next hour explaining exactly why Michael’s wrong to think he isn’t good enough, and Michael would rather spend that time kissing Luke until he can’t feel his lips. “Can I kiss you again?”
Luke presses his lips together and smiles, pure happiness this time, and it makes Michael ache again, but in the good way. The best way.