Laced • Luke Dunphy

VIII

My whole body freezes, my eyes staring blankly as the world disappears. After what seems like an eternity, Luke pulls away. He searched my eyes worriedly, as if asking if I liked it. I didn't want to admit it, but I kind of did.

"What the fuck are you playing at?" I spit, coming to my senses. I push him away, trying not to look at his hurt expression, and walk into the den, falling onto the couch.

He thinks he can insult my intellect and then kiss me? Who does he think he is.

He walks out the bathroom, gives me a pained look, and walks back to the living room, where I hear Haley and Alex simultaneously telling him off and asking if he's alright.

Jay and Gloria must've arrived while we were in there, because Manny comes into the den and sits next to me.

"How you feeling?" He asks, looking at the annoyed look on my face.

"My arm is good. My feelings, though? I don't know anymore." I sigh and turn the tv on. He gazes at the tv before grabbing the remote and turning it off again. I look at him and he doesn't have to say anything for me to know what he's saying. I sigh.

"Luke just did the weirdest thing. He annoys me about not being to finish a 5 year old's puzzle and then he kisses me." I give him a pointed look, but, to my surprise, he isn't shocked.

"About time, too." He chuckles.

"What?" I cry, "No! I feel like I'm going crazy. Why does everyone find this perfectly normal? It's not." He shakes his head and chuckles again.

"I always knew he liked you. So why are you upset? And why is he getting screamed at by his sisters?"

"I pushed him away." I scoff. Oh, now you're shocked, I thought to myself as he raised his eyebrows.

"Why?"

"He mocks me and then kisses me like it'll make everything fine. That's just not how it works."

•

Luke's pov

"That was your plan? I mean, really, you couldn't have actually thought that would work." Alex adjusts her glasses and lays her book on the coffee table, all the while fixating me with her piercing eyes.

"Yeah," Haley turns her phone off to give this problem her whole attention, "what she said."

"You guys aren't helping, you know." I rub my face with both hands and sit between them. They look at each other for a while, thinking.

They take turns coming up with dumb ideas, immediately discarding them and staring at the ground or wall.

Alex raises her forefinger excitedly, "How about..." she thinks for a moment, the shine in her eyes fading, and shakes her head sadly.

Lily strides into the room, arms piled high with dolls, peeking around the heap to see where she's going. When she reaches us, she drops them on our lap.

"Play with me." She says, squeezing her way between Alex and I. We all start coming up with excuses but her angry glare stops us mid sentence.

"Play with me." She says again, followed by small oks and sures. Smiling triumphantly, she watches as we each grab two dolls and start waving them around.

"My problem still isn't fixed." I say, making my dolls fight.

"There would be no problem to fix if you weren't an absolute idiot." Haley grunts as she braids her doll's hair.

Lily glares at us, indicating that we're betting too chatty for her liking, so we shut up and plaster fake smiles on. The four of us sat there, playing with Barbies and Kens until Cam told us lunch was ready.

"Thank god." Alex grumbles under her breath, pushing the pile of dolls off her lap.

Lunch at the children's table was awkward. Of course, it wasn't actually a table, we were just sitting in a circle on the den's carpeted floor.

Jamie glared at me, occasionally leaning over to whisper something in Manny's ear, to which he rolled his eyes, or throwing a pea at Lily, or feeding Joe.

I ate silently, focusing on my food as the others talked playfully, loud laughs bouncing around the room.

"Hey, remember when we dared Luke to only talk in crazy frog quotes for a day and he was too stubborn to say no so he was saying bing bing all day?" Manny manages to say through short breaths and wheezes. Jamie's so caught up in laughing that she doesn't even realize I'm part of the story.

"Or when you weren't listening so we started making up this story about how we kill thousands of people." She snorts, tears brimming in her eyes, and she looks like she can't breath properly from all the laughing. I choke on a pea as I try not to laugh.

"What about when we wanted to get fake IDs and Jay caught us talking about it but it turned out we just wanted to buy fish at petco." I suggest, and their strange laughs make me laugh.

After a few warnings from mom, who wasn't happy about all the noise, we eventually calm down and finished eating, apart from Joe. As Jamie gave him large spoonfuls of baby food, she smiled at me.

"I'm sorry for pushing you away." She mumbles in my ear.

"I'm sorry for kissing you like that, no warning." I reply, but she shakes her head. My heart is doing somersaults, my stomach filled with angry butterflies.

"Don't apologize," she smiles at her feet.