Paper Thin (muke)

23: revelations

It only took Calum eighteen minutes before he was letting himself into Luke's apartment.

"I grabbed Hamms, I hope that's okay?" The grin stretching across Calum's face was contagious as he took off his denim jacket and flung it over the arm of Luke's couch. He was dressed comfortably in his favorite green hoodie and a pair of distressed jeans that looked oddly like Luke's.

"Yeah, Hamms is fine." Luke commented noncommittally as he made his way into the kitchen to grab paper plates for the pizza that had arrived minutes before Calum. He threw them down on the coffee table and Calum frowned.

"Everything okay?"

Luke smiled, his lips feeling too tight pulled across his lips as he nodded.

"Yeah, fine. How are you?" He didn't want to flat out ask Calum about Ashton, but as the other answered with a casual shrug, he knew he'd have to pry.

"Nothing new? How's Ashton and Kaykay?" Another shrug.

"Fine. Two slices?" Calum carried the box and two beers into the living room and plopped down on the sofa, a piece of pizza already in hand.

"Yeah, please." Luke thanked him as he was handed two slices of the greasy, cheesy pizza that they loved so much. Taking a bite felt like all of those months ago, back when he'd first moved into the apartment and he and Calum spent every night curled up on the couch watching Netflix. It felt like home. Yet the scalding cheese stuck to the roof of his mouth was a harsh reminder that they weren't in that space anymore. Things were different now, and Luke wasn't sure how to feel about that.

He grabbed his laptop from where it lay on the floor and booted it up.

"Netflix?" He didn't even need to wait for Calum's reply before he was typing in his updated password (lukemichael2023) and pulling up the familiar screen.

"Okay but literally anything besides Harry Met Sally, we've seen it like twenty billion times."

Luke pouted but maneuvered to his back up choice, Breakfast Club, instead. "Says the one who's always quoting it."

"Only because you make me watch it all the time!" Calum laughed, scooting closer to Luke and throwing an arm around his shoulder. Luke let himself cuddle into Calum's side, not realizing how much he missed the familiar cinnamon and cigarette scent until it wrapped him in a cocoon of warmth.

"I missed you, Cal." Luke sighed as he curled into his best friend's side, not missing the way Calum breathed in his curls before pressing a kiss to the crown of his head.

"Missed you too, Sweetcheeks."

Ashton's biting words rang through Luke's mind, but he did his best to ignore them, living in innocence wrapped in the arms of his best friend. He knew he should be confronting Calum; he knew there was so much left unsaid between them, but he couldn't help but sink further into his friend's embrace and shush the voice in his head, instead focusing on the soft beating of Calum's heart under his ear.

He lost track of time this way, slipping so easily back into their familiar routine and letting himself live in nostalgia. It was so comfortable, so them, that he didn't want to break whatever bubble they were living in. Even as Ashton's words pulsed through his body, even as the guilt and fear and unsuredness crawled through his veins in thick ropes of anxiety, Luke's lips stayed glued shut, eyes locked on the screen as he let Calum card his fingers through his unruly curls. He'd let them grow out much longer than he ever had before, but Michael loved carding his fingers through the ringlets, so who was he to deny his boyfriend the pleasure?

"Your hair's getting so long, bout time for a trim?" It was almost as if Calum could read his mind and Luke just shook his head.

"Michael likes it long, so do I, I think."