i love you, but.. // lierra

28

Just Us (Strings Version) - James Arthur

Luke wakes up abruptly, trying to understand where he is. His eyes hurt from probably crying in his sleep. It's difficult to open them, and he wants to go back to sleep more than anything, but he knows he has to wake himself up completely so he doesn't fall into the same trap again. His body aches with every move because of how tense it is during the night. The small alarm clock on Sierra's bedside table shows 6:03, which means her alarm will go off in exactly 36 minutes. He will have to get up with her too, as he promised to give her a lift to university, so this fact and also being scared to fall asleep again lead him to getting out of her hug carefully. He walks out into the sunlit living room and squints his eyes immediately. After several minutes near the oven, he gets so caught up that he doesn't notice shirtless Sierra peeking out of her bedroom and leaning on the doorframe, watching him silently.

"Do you always have to cook with music on?" she asks after a song ends, and she gets a few seconds of silence before the next one starts. She can't help noticing that the songs on the playlist are devastatingly sad.

"Did I wake you?" he turns to her at once, eyeing her outfit-or more like the lack of it-up and down with a barely noticable smile.

"Pretty much so." she nods.

"Sorry. But I'm making you pasta." he motions to the pan, "With shrimps." He had to go through the depths of her freezer for those.

"Damn, you're getting good." she says quietly, finally coming up to him to hug. She inhales the smell of her tangerine shower gel on him, which reminds her that she should probably take a shower too.

He smiles, "Calum's been teaching me all these years."

"You never cooked with Calum." she looks up with a frown on her face.

"Well, I watched! And since we started dating, I started watching more attentively." he argues jokingly.

"Aren't you sweet?" her sarcastic tone gets him in a better mood, making him forget how he actually started the day.

"I am, yeah."

They finish their breakfast slowly, as they got up a lot earlier than they needed to, so Sierra even gets the desire to do her makeup today while Luke helps her with the hair. It's quite long and thick, but she refuses to cut it, even though she clearly struggles with handling it. Luke loves helping her with it. He loves how different their hair is, and that he needs to learn to deal with hers in a whole new way.

"Can't believe I'm actually gonna live with you in just a day." Luke says quietly with a smile as they stop at the traffic lights on their way to the university building. He takes off his sunglasses because he turned left, and the sun isn't bothering him anymore.

"You're excited?" she asks, biting into her lip and not looking at him.

"Very." he smiles harder, showing his dimples, and nods, turning to her. She still doesn't look at him, her eyes staring aimlessly in front of herself. "You don't believe me? That I want this?"

"It's just too easy." she sighs, finally meeting his eyes. He has to turn away slightly to watch the road, but he can't postpone this conversation. She's been quiet all morning, and he thought it was because he woke her up, but now it's obvious that she's had an actual reason.

"Seven years of loving me and thinking that it's not mutual is easy?" he scoffs. He can never stop thinking about how difficult he's made it for her, in the past and now.

"No, I mean, you made up your mind just like that, then we had sex, and now everything's back to normal?" she's not used to something being so easily resolved. She's used to endless arguments, silent treatments, and passive aggression. Not from him specifically-they rarely seriously argue-but that's how she thinks people deal with things.