haunted || l.h.

31

"Paisley come here!" Luke yelled from somewhere downstairs with excitement present in his voice.

"What's up?" I asked as I hit the last step and began walking towards him in the large dining room.

"Look what I found. We can make bracelets." He said excitedly and showed off the numerous amount of beads in a large container.

"I never would've picked you as the type to get excited over some beaded bracelets." I said and looked down at the container of beads and looked through them a bit.

"I used to make these all the time as a kid but then I lost them. I couldn't find them but then I randomly found them under my bed today. Come on make one with me." He begged and looked up at me with puppy dog eyes from the chair he was sitting at.

"Okay." I said with a small smile. It was crazy to me what he got excited about sometimes. I think one night we were looking for something to watch on tv and he screamed when he saw SpongeBob was on.

He ended up scaring me nearly half to death and almost sending me into a panic attack. Considering I didn't do well with screaming, quick and abrupt touching, or anything of the sort because of my shitty dad. So he immediately settled himself down and calmed me down after relentlessly apologizing for scaring me.

"Your string my angel." He said with a posh accent and handed me a long elastic string.

"Thank you dork." I said with a laugh and took the string from him.

"You better be careful or else these beads will be all over the floor." I said after sliding a couple beads on the string.

"What? Why are you attacking me?" He asked obliviously while I just sent him a look.

"You're like a golden retriever Luke. You have a good time doing something and get excited and then you make a mess somehow or do something crazy." I said bluntly while he just scoffed.

"Well you're a... fuck whats that dog called? Those big lazy ones oh my god." He said in frustration which made my eyes go wide.

"Did you just call me fat and lazy?" I asked in disbelief while his eyes widened at the realization. I couldn't help but laugh at his reaction, it was also the fact that he just called me a fat and lazy dog which was also funny. Slightly hurtful, but mostly funny.

"No no no no. Well yes, you're lazy as fuck sometimes, but not fat. You're not fat, you're light as a feather." He rambled and switched his tone like three times.

"I am not lazy!" I defended.

"Yuh huh. You made me bring you up to your room last night because you 'didn't feel like walking.'" He argued.

"I was tired because you kept me up all night so we could watch your stupid movie." I argued back and leaned back in my chair.

"Because you forced me to watch yours." He said and did the exact same thing as me and gave me the pettiest look I have ever seen.

"I hate you." I said and threw a blue bead at him before continuing back to my bracelet.

"That makes two of us." He said with a heavy sigh which made me start laughing.

"Why are you laughing at my misery?" He asked and pretended to be offended but ended up laughing with me.

"You can't make self deprecating jokes and not expect me to laugh." I said and continued laughing at him.

"You're supposed to feel bad for me not laugh at me." I smiled and shook my head at him. He was so weird, such a dork 100% of the time.

"Well you shouldn't hate yourself." I said and trailed off a bit to hold his hand on the table.

"You got someone like me liking you, obviously you're pretty amazing if I like you." I joked which made him scoff out a laugh and end up letting out a few giggles.

"I hate you." He said and shook his head at me.

"That makes two of us." I said with a bit of a smirk.

"Make your damn bracelet stupid." He said and went back to making his bracelet.

///

"Hey Luke?" I whispered and peaked my head through the door of his dark room. It was probably around 12:30 at night by now. I couldn't sleep, and when I couldn't sleep I would go to his room.

Sometimes I'd irrationally worry about my dad, or even just other things that would keep me up at night. I'd just have these really anxious nights sometimes and the only thing that could fix it and soothe me was him.

"Hey angel, can't sleep again?" He asked and turned over to face me. I slowly nodded my head and pressed my lips together as I shamefully stood with my back pressed against the closed door of his room. I was so attached to him it was embarrassing sometimes.

He could read me like a book though. It's almost like he always knew what I needed and when I needed it. He always knew when I wasn't comfortable with certain people or in certain settings and immediately got me out of it.

One time at lunch his baseball friends came over for whatever reason, I honestly don't remember. One of them was creeping me out and subtly hitting on me or getting a little too close. Luke was invested in his conversation because it had to do with baseball, he loved baseball so I wasn't surprised nor disappointed.

But the second I touched him he looked at me, then looked at him. It's like something clicked in his brain within those three seconds and he immediately got up and walked me around the school for the rest of the period. I didn't even have to say anything, I simply just touched him and he knew, and I needed that from someone.

"Come here P." He said softly and pulled the blanket up so I could crawl into bed next to him.

"I'm sorry if I woke you up." I said softly and cuddled up close to me.

"You didn't I promise, I was already up." He said and softly rubbed my back.

"What was keeping you up?" I asked to distract me from the stress and thoughts that were going on in my head.

"The team were just spamming the group chat about some party after the game next Friday." He said with a sigh and rested his chin on top of my head.

"Are you gonna go?" I asked and traced random patterns on the skin of his bicep.

"I don't think so no." He said truthfully.

"I think you should go. Everyone else will be going and you're the best player." I said honestly.

"No I wanna stay home with you." He said which forced me to look up at him.

"I want you to go, you should go." I said and immediately looked at his jawline just because it was right in my face.

"I'm not leaving you home alone P." He said and looked down at me.

"Then I'll come with you." I said and traced his jawline with my finger.

"You don't like parties or big crowds or any of that. I'm not bringing you and I'm not going." He said and kissed the center of my forehead.

"The school year is almost over, I want you to have fun." I said and looked back up at his eyes.

"I am having fun. I'm having more fun with you than I've ever had." He said and placed a careful kiss on my lips and took my hand off his jaw to hold it.

"Get some sleep angel, I'll kiss you in the morning." He said and gave me one more kiss goodnight. He gave me one every night and every morning now, whether we slept in the same bed or not he always would.

"I'll try." I said with a sigh and nuzzled my face in his chest.

"Do what we talked about." He said softly and rested his chin back on my head. He told me one night when I couldn't sleep-probably one of the first night I came into his room an anxious mess-to think about what makes me happy. He told me that if I focus on happy things and what makes me happy then I'll be able to fall asleep.

"Okay." I said and closed my eyes and started thinking about him.