haunted || l.h.

10

"Hang out with me today." Luke said and abruptly walked next to me at my locker.

"I don't get a 'hello Paisley how was your day?' You just jump right in huh?" I said which made him roll his eyes.

"You never get a 'hello Paisley how was your day?'" He said and leaned his back against the lockers.

"That's probably why I don't hang out with you very much." I said and closed my locker and started walking to class.

"You hang out with me all the time, except not outside of school. You haven't been over in like a week, and I need Paisley time." He said which made my cheeks get slightly warm.

"Fine I'll come over. But you better entertain me." I said and pointed a finger at him.

"Okay, what do you want to do?" He asked and stopped me in the halls.

"I don't know... I kinda want cookies, can we make cookies?" I asked and watched his face scrunched up in confusion.

"Cookies? That's what entertains you?" He asked and raised an eyebrow.

"I haven't had homemade cookies in so long, come on please?" I begged.

"Fine we can make cookies. Anything else you'd like to do?" He asked.

"I don't know. What is there to do?" I asked and shrugged my shoulders.

"We could go out to dinner." He suggested but I knew damn well why.

"No." I said with a laugh and shook my head.

"Come on Paisley, let me take you out on a date." He pleaded but I just shook my head at him.

"Friends don't go on dates." I said and started walking down the hall.

"I don't wanna be friends." He said and quickly followed behind me.

"Weren't you the one that asked to be friends?" I asked and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Yeah but that was temporary, I wanna be more than friends." He said which made me sigh.

"I'm not in a place where I can be more than friends with someone." I said and stopped next to the door of my classroom.

"Why not?" He asked with a sad look on his face.

"Because I'm not. I've never been more than friends with anyone, I've hardly even been just friends with anyone before, and I don't know if I'm ready for any of that." I said truthfully while he just looked at me for a few seconds.

"We'll go slow, and we'll go at your pace. If you don't want to do something just tell me and we won't do it." He said and slowly took my hand in both of his.

"I don't know Luke." I said and looked down at our hands just before the late bell for this period went off.

"Go to class, you're already late." I said and took my hand out of his and walked towards the door.

"See you at lunch?" He asked and I just nodded and sent him a half smile before walking into class.

///

"P?" Luke asked after we had gotten in his car to head to his house. Recently he's been giving me a bunch of different nicknames, like P, Pais, or Paisey Pie. I'm not sure why but I actually didn't mind it. I've never had a nickname before so it actually felt good in a sense.

"Yeah?" I asked and kept my gaze out the window.

"Why don't you like it when people touch you?" He asked which made me tense up a bit.

"I don't know." I lied and held my hands together in my lap.

"Yeah you do, you just don't want to tell me." He said and I just stayed silent for a while.

"It doesn't matter." I said, leaving the rest of the car ride to his house silent. I knew he wanted to keep asking me questions, I could feel it in the air, he probably just didn't want to set me off.

"Why do you flinch every time I touch you?" He asked after we had gotten settled in his house.

"I don't." I said and went to sit on the couch.

"You do, and you know you do. I just want to know why, I've wanted to know why since I met you." He said and sat down next to me.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore." I said and sat with my legs crisscrossed.

"Let's make cookies." He said and stood up from the couch. He stuck his hand out for me to take while I just looked up at him, and then back down at his hand. I slowly and hesitantly took a hold of his fingers and stood up next to him and followed him in the kitchen.

"Luke your making a mess." I scolded as he got flour all over the counter.

"I'm not trying to." He said defensively.

"It's not hard to not make a mess." I said and did the exact thing that he was just doing but didn't make a mess.

"You're a lot neater than I am." He said and continued to make a mess with everything else that he put on the large bowl.

"Clean up your mess." I said and started putting all of the ingredients away.

"No." He said and threw a handful of flour at me.

"You jerk." I said and threw a handful at him. As he got ready to throw another handful of flour at me I ran out of the kitchen. I heard him as he followed behind me.

"Come here Paisley." Luke laughed as he looked around for me. I couldn't help but laugh at the situation I was in. Luke was chasing me around the house with flour in his hands and all over his face. I didn't even know where I was in his house because it was so big. I'm definitely in a spare bedroom but I have no idea how I got here.

  As I tried to listen for where Luke was and see if he was coming I felt arms wrap around my waist from behind and pick me up off the ground. It scared me nearly half to death, and probably would've sent me to a panic attack if I didn't hear Luke's giggle from behind me.

"You scared me." I scolded breathlessly and put my hand on my chest as he put me down.

"Did I actually? I'm sorry Pais." He said with genuine concern in his voice.

"It's okay." I said softly and whipped some of the flour off my face.

"Why did you get so scared?" He asked which nearly made goosebumps rise on my skin.

"Let's go clean up." I said just to divert the conversation, and because this flour was everywhere.