Another Life (Sequel to Toxic) - Luke Hemmings

Chapter 3

After sitting in my room for a couple hours, Sophie and I couldn't just sit around any longer. It was a blizzard outside, so we spent a good half hour trying to figure out what to do indoors that would keep us entertained. I finally came up with inviting Valentina over so we could have more to talk about.

We still didn't know her, and we definitely wanted to. I had gotten her number yesterday in class since our professor wanted us to have at least one person to text if you missed a day. I asked her if she was around, which I knew she would be because what the hell else was there to do right now? She answered only after a few minutes and was knocking on my door in only a couple more.

"Hey, we're just watching Netflix." I opened the door for her and let her in.

"Hi Val." Sophie greeted her from my bed.

"Hey." She waved to Sophie and followed me over to my bed. We just sat with our backs against the wall and fell into light conversation.

It felt like we had only been talking for an hour, but when I glanced over at the clock it was already 5. I had to turn my lights on since it was now getting dark out. We'd exhausted so many topics already, and now Sophie was filling her in on the fact that she and Ashton were together.

"Yeah, Ashton and I have been dating for what, Izz? A little over a year now?" She said, checking with me as I did some quick math in my head.

"Yeah just about." I added in, watching as Val took it all in.

"Shit, Calum was pretty hot though, is he dating anyone?" She asked, making both mine and Sophie's eyebrows raise.

"He's extremely single, actually." I told her.

"Yeah, Mike's single too. You still need to meet him." Sophie said, giving me a weird look right after. I realized what she was trying to do and felt almost shitty about it.

"Do you have a picture?" Val asked. Sophie ripped her phone out of her pocket and pulled one up faster than I could even get to my own phone. "Oh, shit. Are all your friends hot?" Val chuckled, still scrolling through Mike's Instagram.

"All two of them." I laughed. I saw Val furrow her eyebrows at the screen a couple times, and she finally looked up at us.

"Who's this, then? He's in almost every picture." She said, turning the phone around to show a picture of Mike and Luke from the summer before I met them. Thinking about how much Luke had changed since that picture blew my mind, considering he looked like a completely different person as of now.

"We don't really talk abo-" Sophie went to shut it down, but I honestly didn't feel the need to lie about it.

"Luke." I cut her off, which made her grill me for a second. "That's my ex." I told her. Her eyes widened at the thought.

"Is he just not around anymore?" She asked. I didn't really see her question as pushy, even though we had literally just met this girl. 

"He's around. Mike hates him now because he cheated on me, but Calum and Ash have been talking to him again. It's been almost 7 months since I left him so I don't really care what they do." I summarized it vaguely, but Val nodded.

"So Luke's off limits for multiple reasons." She chuckled. I rolled my eyes at her playfully.

"He doesn't even look like that anymore. I barely recognized him when I saw him again." I chuckled back.

"Yeah, he looks worse now, right Izz?" Sophie chimed in. I could tell she was trying to keep my mind out of the gutter, but I could still appreciate some things.

"I may hate his guts, but I can still admit that he looks fine as hell." I turned to see her rolling her eyes, only the irritation was gone. I knew adding in the hating his guts part would please her.