Somehow Luke managed to make himself go back to the park after the almost nervous breakdown Luke felt coming over him as Ashton noticed the nail polish on his fingers. Whenever Luke got extra anxious in a certain setting he never wanted to go back, strongly believing that he would just get anxious all over again. For some reason, Luke ended up back there. He was still apprehensive but it wasn't so bad.
After coming home the day he learned Ashton's name, he picked at his fingernails the entire way to his room, not hearing his mum greet him because his mind was only on completing the task of scraping away the colors from his fingernails. He stood in the middle of his room for quite some time, just picking and picking at his thumbs until tiny blue chips landed on his black socks. When it came time to finish off the orange-pink color, Luke sat at his desk, turning the lamp on so he could see what he was doing. All his nails had been chipped clean, leaving around a pile of his scraps that he blew away.
He admired the work that he had done, feeling accomplished that he was able to do every single nail. The anxiety had gone and he could happily choose a new color to paint his nails. Luke decided to go with black, thinking that it looked really cool to him and if people saw that color, mainly Ashton, he'd think that a boy wearing black nail polish wasn't so bad.
Luke was nervous about approaching Ashton after he had got up and left him so abruptly. He didn't know if Ashton wanted to talk to him anymore after that. There wouldn't be any blame on Ashton if he'd rather have nothing to do with Luke because he thought he was a freak or something.
"Hey, you're back." Ashton said, no bandana tied around him to keep his hair from falling into his face this time. He looked up after Luke walked over to him and stopped at his feet. "Is everything okay? You left so sudden."
Luke let his thumb smooth over his other glossy painted one as he did his best to keep eye contact with Ashton. He hadn't realized how much he was really trying to remain out of his comfort zone because of this boy.
He slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, everything's fine."
Then Ashton smiled that simple warm smile that gave Luke small glimpses of hope that he wasn't going to be a complete wreck.
"You want to join me again? We can hang out if you want to." Ashton invited him and just as the other day, he moved over so Luke could sit with him.
As Luke took careful steps over to the spot, Ashton leaned against the tree for support. Luke sat with his legs folded, remembering the song his primary class would sing about when learning to sit. It was something about a butterfly flapping its wings and being happy. He didn't know why the song still stuck with him to this day.
"So," Ashton started, the end of his word falling off before he shook his head. "I'm sorry but I forgot your name. Could you tell me again?"
"Luke." He answered, nodding his head slowly to distract himself from wanting to pick at his fingers. Being around Ashton just kept those nervous feelings there but he thought he could beat them by engaging with the other boy.
Ashton snapped his fingers and then pointed at Luke. "Right! Okay. So, Luke, how old are you?"
"S-s," Luke paused, his 's' sound sounding like a sharp whistle. That was embarrassing for him and it didn't help when he heard Ashton chuckling. He could feel his face turning red as his body temperature elevated. "S-s-17."
"Cool! I am too. Going to be turning 18 pretty soon." Ashton told him easily.
A small smile tugged at the corner of Luke's mouth.
"And you have dimples. That's another thing we have in common." Ashton said as he excitedly sat up.
Luke looked down, shying away from Ashton a bit. Since he never really smiled to anyone anymore, nobody would ever noticed that he had dimples. The way Ashton pointed them out straight away made some sort of shiver run through Luke. He was used to getting them because of his anxiousness, which everything about Ashton made Luke feel.
YOU ARE READING
Chipped Nail Polish (Lashton)
Fanfiction[Short Story] Where Luke wears nail polish and picks at it when he's nervous to deal with his anxiety. Ashton happens to make him very anxious.
