somebody else. ❀ lrh

need to hear you.*

AVERY.

One last sickening crack echoed through the barren city streets as Luke's fist connected a second time with Michael's already bleeding nose, rendering the boy dizzy and useless in further conversation.

Seemingly satisfied, Luke climbs off of him, leaving the ragged breathing boy to figure his own shit out on the sidewalk, blood continuously gushing from his crooked nose.

I couldn't look any longer. Luke's previous words to Michael made no fucking sense to me, neither the shift in tone from the redhead himself. Is that how he truly is? So demeaning and vulgar?

"Luke-" I can barely choke out the blonde's name before he's desperately grasping at my wrist, looking both ways across the street before tugging me along behind him to the other side, back towards the parking garage where he'd left his Impala.

By the time we're inside and Luke's already cranked up the engine, I'm effectively silenced by the harshly loud volume he sets on the car's radio. Hundreds of questions are reeling through my mind and I'm doubtful I'll get an answer to any one of them.

I instantly noticed we were heading in the direction of Luke's apartment, in which I hadn't stepped foot in that building since my interrupted date with Michael so long ago.

God, what the fuck did I get in the middle of?

Clearly Luke and Michael have some sort of history, enough to pull the redhead over the bar of a restaurant and pummel him on the sidewalk. I was dying to know the little details.

"Luke.." I tried again, just as he pulled into his designated parking spot in the complex's parking deck. He wordlessly exited, and I nearly stumbled over my own feet in attempts to catch up with him.

The ride up was the same. Luke, with his jaw tensed and hands locked behind his back, didn't utter a single word the entire ride up to his penthouse suite.

And stupidly, I follow him like a love-sick puppy as soon as the metal doors open to the man's living room, dimly lit by the city lights shining through the living room's floor-to-ceiling windows.

He makes a beeline for the bar cart situated amongst the accent wall beside his kitchen, myself standing a few feet away, lips parted in preparation for the slew of questions on the tip of my tongue.

The sound of Luke filling a highball glass almost perfectly to the halfway point fills his empty apartment. He presses his tongue flat against the bottom edge, licking his way up to the rim before downing the contents all in one sip, a grunted sigh escaping after.

I wasn't at all prepared for the look in Luke's eyes as he turned to face me, little splotches of blood coating his white silken shirt. As he traced his tongue across his lower lip, his hands rolled up the sleeves of his top, ever so slowly, darkened eyes trained on mine.

They weren't the usual, lust filled eyes or bright crystal blues I was used to, they were practically black with how blown out his pupils were, as if he was riding some sort of high.

Adrenaline, from punching Michael.

"Luke," my voice is soft, nearly silent as I swallow harshly, my own blue eyes wandering over his frame. His messy blonde locks, the crookedness of his shirt.

The corners of his lips twitched, so quick I hardly noticed how sinister it truly was. "Yes, baby?" he asks, cocking his head as the same dark eyes raked over my dress-clad frame.

I wasn't sure if I was meant to be nervous in this moment, because if I was being brutally honest with myself, I wasn't in the slightest. Nothing Luke could do, even punching Michael like that in the fucking street, seemed to off put me from following the man.