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The shrill ring of the class bell startled Julie out a daydream. She blinked exactly four times in confusion before her eyes found Flynn’s.
Flynn was laughing at her. “What, did you go off to Luke land again? Honestly, you’re a hazard to your own health!” She stuffed her notebook and pencil into her bag and tapped her foot impatiently at Julie to do the same.
Julie’s cheeks lit on fire. “Shut up! I do not go to Luke land!”
Okay, so she totally did. Sue her.
Could you blame her? It had been exactly two weeks since Luke Patterson, her reluctantly acquired bandmate-slash-teen-hearthrob, admitted he’d been in love with her since the day she told him he’d written a shitty, weak bridge and showed him how to fix it.
They were in their honeymoon stage.
One people at school were quickly finding out about, if Luke had anything to say about it.
Though it shouldn’t have been surprising after the first five times he’d done it, Julie’s feet still stumbled beneath her as she walked out of her classroom to see him lounged casually against the lockers across the hallway, waiting for her with that boyish cocky and sweet smirk he’d somehow perfected over the years spread straight across his stupidly pretty face. “Jules!”
Flynn snorted and patted Julie on the shoulder before she left them, heading in the direction of her algebra class near the cafeteria.
Julie barely had time to acknowledge Flynn’s absence before Luke bounced off the lockers and approached so quickly that people definitely took notice of the fact that he’d once again been waiting for Julie Molina outside her classroom. The sideways stares they received snapped her out of her stunned immobility.
“You don’t have to walk me to all my classes, you know? You’re going to end up late to one of yours and then your mom isn’t going to let you come over and I’m gonna be super sad about it.” Still, she shyly reached forward for him and he entangled his fingers with hers to lead the way toward her locker.
“Don’t worry about me, boss. I’m just being a gentleman. Emily raised me that way, ya know.” The nonchalant air about him didn’t suit him in the slightest. Luke was the most intense person she knew. And as much of a gentleman as he had proven himself to be, there was just no way she’d believe he kept meeting up with her between classes just to be an escort service.
Julie raised an eyebrow at him as they reached her locker. “Liar.” She hip checked him playfully before she spun her combination into the dial and swung her locker door open.
They both exchanged their books for their next classes (after it became apparent this walking together thing was a permanent development, Julie had shyly asked if he wanted to leave some of his books in her locker. He’d never been so enthusiastic in an agreement in the time she’d known him) and he huffed out a breath. “Fine. I just don’t want to spend any time apart from you. I’m a Stage 5 Clinger.”
The admission was obviously a reluctant one on his part, his eyes cast down to the zippers on his backpack even though he’d pretty much already finished putting his books away.
Julie’s heart skipped in her chest. Little statements like that always hit her like a ton of bricks, a reminder that this was actually happening and that Luke Patterson wanted all their classmates to see that she was his girlfriend. The whole concept still felt like a dream in her mind.
Eyes darting the halls to confirm no teachers were around to scold her, she reached up on her tiptoes and pressed the fastest of kisses to his warm, pink cheek. He grinned instantly.
No one noticed except for the classmates who seemed to watch their every move these days.
“Please, keep clinging. It makes me feel like less of a disaster when I constantly want to engage in gross displays of PDA.” Julie bit her lip to hide her smile at the way his whole face seemed to light up.
“We can be gross. Boys are always gross. Be as gross as you want. I’ll like it, I swear.”
Julie’s nose wrinkled as she laughed. As much as he said that now, she’d known Luke for a long time and absolutely could not picture him willingly engaging in the level of public gross-ness she’d find ideal for their newfound relationship. Images flashed in her mind of the two of them attending football games together, him leaning entirely against her in the stands basically begging to be cuddled. Him propped against the lockers talking with Alex and Reggie, arms wrapped securely around Julie holding her against his side so she could just exist in their presence. Her sat in the cushion of his lap under the big tree out front, lounging with both their friends for an outdoor lunch in which they both shared all their favorite snacks and Luke’s fingers drew tickly little patterns across her knee just as an additional point of contact.
Her face lit on fire at that last one. Too far, Julie. Too far.
Her mind was brought back to the present by Luke’s fingers gently tugging at one of her curls before tucking it gently back behind her ear. “Man, you have no idea how much I love you, do you? Whatever you were just picturing in that big brain of yours, I wanna do it.” His hand smoothed her hair against her head as his thumb grazed against the apple of her cheek. She’d grown familiar enough with his expressions the last few weeks to know that he desperately wanted to kiss her. But he wouldn’t, because they were in the school hallway and he’d never do anything that might get her in trouble.
Luke saying “I love you” wasn’t new, exactly, but Julie’s heart didn’t seem to get that memo and always tried to pound right out of her chest every single time he said it. “I love you, too. Walk me to history?” She shut the door to her locker and lifted his hand up and over her shoulders, and he caught on and settled his arm around her shoulders, tucking her in close to his side and smacking a kiss right onto her temple.
“You got it, boss.”
“And maybe we could do lunch outside tomorrow? Invite Alex and Reggie and Flynn to join?”
Luke smiled that perfect, boyish confident and in love smile of his that she’d learned was reserved especially for her. “I’ll bring the snacks.”
And, yeah, maybe he was as in love with her as she was with him after all.