He Was P(L)uke

19

Michael flowed around like a prairie dog on autumn. His arms stretched to the sides, whole body touching the water. His eyes were shut close after some minutes.

"I'm tired." He said.

"Say it to me." I retorted, laying back again on the seat besides the pool. We were currently at the Hood's residence. Calum and Stacy were preparing some sort of 'fancy' dinner, as they said. Ashton, Michael, and me were sitting by the pool and swimming for awhile. And well Kiera was there too, with Luke sitting besides her. She had her legs down the water, and so was Luke, with his crutches behind him. They were watching the sunset, and chatting about the babies. They were oh too cute (note the sarcasm).

"Dude, I know I've said it before, but I really like Stacy's mom." Michael muttered, Ashton coughed on his drink, eyes wide open. He turned to me and furrowed his brows.

"Oh no." Ashton muttered. "You cannot do that!"

"Yeah, I can." Michael complained back, eyes shooting open. Ashton, who sat besides me shook his head forcefully.

Story time. On second grade, me and Ashton used to joke around about Barbies. As a kid, I never liked playing with dolls. It was probably the reason why I didn't have much girl friends. It was all guys. Back to the point. Barbies can twist their head around like owls, and that made us laugh a lot. So we where in music class, and Ashton began making fun of the dolls. And without even caring much, he broke his neck. The teacher called the doctors and his parents and literally told them 'Your kid was trying to do some sort of demonic act. His neck broke, his eyes turned this sort of black, and he bled through his nose.' Since then, people called him 'Demonash'. And I thought people would forget about calling me vomit. But they didn't.

"Don't twist your neck, dude." I muttered. He kept doing the same, until it hurt him, and I laughed.

"You cannot do that. Stacy's head over heels for you-"

"I heard you!" Kiera yelled, interrupting Ashton. We all turned to her, me locking glances with Luke. But he always looked away. "Stacy does like you too much, but you know-"

"Yeah I know." Michael said frustrated, turning around with a huff.

"What is she talking about?" Ashton asked confused, brows furrowed as he stared at Michael. And the thing here is that I know very well how to analyze people. Uncle Tom taught me this when I was younger. He used to say 'By someone's behavior, you can know many things about a person'. That helped me in life a lot. I understood that Calum could get unusually uncomfortable whenever someone talked about football, although he was the star player of our school's team. Or that dad was always hype since he was the youngest child.

And I learnt so much from people by this. Stacy's not patient at all, due to her parents giving her everything she wants whenever she wants it. Ashton enjoys way too much talking about babies, because he always wanted a baby brother. And Luke... I know I'm such a creep... But I always notice how he bites his lip when he's scared or nervous. When he's happy, he laughs really loud he claps and scrunches his nose. His blue eyes get a shade darker when he is frustrated or sad. I did knew him all too well.

Back to the point. Michael fiddled to much with his hands, his eyes were focused on the water besides him, and his tone of voice wasn't sure of what he was saying. He was lying.

"She's talking about nothing." Michael said back. Ashton and I shared a glance, me shrugging carelessly. After some minutes of me and Ashton taking selfies, Stacy and Calum came back with a bag of food on their hands.

"Stacy doesn't know how to cook." Calum began. "We had to buy it, not even cook it."

"Oh but I know! You're just not a good helper."

"I'm the cook here. You're a nobody."

"We all know you don't know how to cook-"

"Charlie, do you like how I prepare pizza?" Calum said turning around to face me. Ashton giggled beside me, Michael and Kiera huffing.

I nodded my head. "I do-"

"You see, I can cook-"

"Charles do you like my hamburgers? The ones with double cheese." Stacy asked. Ashton whispered 'The ones she bought from the store?' But I just nodded. When Stacy and Calum fight, I'm always involved. And it's quite funny to see. Calum sometimes bites Stacy's arm, and she responds by grabbing his nose and twisting it. I would say that the lack of speaking made them do that. But no. We would always hand out as a trio. And they sure enjoyed that. Note the sarcasm.

"Okay, shut up." Kiera finally intervened. "I'm hungry and there's two creatures inside me that are too." Ashton giggled, standing up and helping Calum with the drinks. Kiera and Stacy arranged the food, while Michael dried himself up. And well me and Luke stared at the work everyone was doing. I tried walking slowly towards Luke, who was standing up and grabbing his crutches. He was ignoring me, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. He didn't wanted to even look my way. So I kept walking quietly, until I reached him.

"Hey." He jumped with horror, slamming one of his crutches my way. I gasped, and he clutched his chest.

"You scared me, dude!" He groaned. "Sorry, Charlie." I smiled, and he played with his fingers. I swallowed the incredibly awful pain in my stomach and stared at him. I know he hadn't forgotten. He had not forgotten about the tremendously tight hug he had given me, or the kiss on the cheek I had received after he dropped me at Ashton's house. And I'm sure as hell he had not just forgotten about the whole thing of 'I love you like that', although I was covered in vomit. One does not just a forget vomit, I learnt that the hard way.

"Hey Luke. Umm-"

"Luke babe, come here." Kiera yelled interrupting me. I rolled my eyes and walked away before he could even say anything. I walked to Ashton and hugged him, his smile spreading further as he hugged back. And I felt bad again.

-/-

"Why is he ignoring me?" I asked frustrated, laying my head back on Calum's shoulder.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "Sometimes boys do that when they're scared. I did that with my first girlfriend." I had told Calum about what Luke had said the same day, when we were having dinner at Ashton's. And he was ecstatic about that. He yelled with me, cried for awhile, and even told his mom he was going to throw a party just for that. "I know Luke. He's been my best friend for far too long. I know he's just ignoring you. No hard feelings."

"What am I supposed to do then?" I argued. He shrugged again, and passed his arm across my stomach. We were still at Stacy's house, both of us outside in the pool seats. Luke walked towards Calum, and sat on the seat besides him. Calum shyly squeezed me towards him. And whispered some thing that made my eyes go wide.

"Let's make this bastard jealous."