Selfies with Luke Brooks

Paint

The shop was called 'Mr Porters Paint Emporium'. It was in the corner of fed square and looked as of it had been splattered with all different colours of paint.

"Have you ever actually been here before?" I asked Luke as we entered the crowded shop. It had buckets and buckets of different varieties and brands of paint stacked on shelves 6 metres high. I looked up at the tallest shelf as Luke answered.

"Nope, but the shop name sounded cool." I snapped my head round to face him. Back in England, my dad had a rule when I was younger to never go into a shop unless you're 100% it's safe. It was stupid I guess, but I was nostalgic.

"Great. So we're picking out the colour of my room from a shop that 'sounds cool'." I replied sarcastically using air quotes to emphasise it.

"Yeah. What's wrong with that?" Luke asked while he raised an eyebrow.

"Luuuuke," I dragged out his name. "What if they're drug dealers?" I lowerered my voice.

"You're right Lace. Mr Porters Paint Emporium sells cocaine." He answered sarcastically. I laugh a little. "Shut up." I said and blushed.

"Anyway, if we've established that you're not gonna be sold drugs, let's move onto what colour your room should be."

"Well obviously not orange."

"Obviously." He smirked. "How about over here?" He walked over to a shelf labelled 'Honeymooners'. It was buckets of different shades of red and black and white paints. They all came with cringey names and descriptions like 'Romantic Midnight Black - For the first midnight together. You won't be getting much sleeping done.' and 'Seductive Cerise - Unleash your seductive side'. I was blushing so much I had turned the colour of 'Charming Crimson'. He laughed when he saw my face.

"No good then? I guess they're more me. Personally, Naked Raspberry is my favourite. I feel it reflects my personality." Said Luke.

"Can we just get a light blue please?" I tried to ignore his comment about naked raspberries but I was blushing still, so he must have known.

"I guess. If you want to be boring.." Luke smirked again. He walked over and picked up a large bucket containing a turquoise type colour.

"This one okay?" He asked.

"Perfect." I replied.

We walked to the counter that was the other side of the store and was served by an old lady.

"Luke, you do it." I gestured at the counter.

"Why can't you?" He asked, looking a little concered.

"Please, Luke." He sighed and walked up to the counter and the old lady began asking all sorts of questions about him, it turned out she knew his mum. See, the reason I didn't want to go up to the counter was because I have bad social anxiety. I'm okay around people I know, but new people is a big no-no. Except Luke. When I met him I was fine. I don't know why though. I couldn't tell Luke about it thought. He'd probably laugh. Just like my ex.

But I don't want to go there yet. I looked at where Luke and the old lady are talking and notice she'd finished asking questions and was

now serving him. I walked up to where they were, slowly because there was no queue and because I was making sure not to make direct eye contact with the women.

"Luke, how much?" I ask, making sure the old lady didn't hear.

"Uh, 10 dollars including the brushes Julia just sold me. But don't worry,

Lace. I paid." He replied.

"Why? I'm sorry, I feel really bad."

"Don't worry Lace." He smiled. I smiled back, gratefully.

"Thank you." Luke picked up the bag from the counter and smileed again at the old lady, who I now know as Julia.

"See you Luke." Julia says to him, completely blanking me.

As we leave the shop Luke whispered in my ear "Still convinced she sells drugs?" It sent a shiver down my spine.

"Nope." it was meant to come out loud but ended up barely audible. I coughed to cover up the shiver. "Anyway, at least I don't have a crush on Julia." I tease and make kissy noises.

Luke blushes "Shut up I do not."

"I was kidding but if you're getting that defensive.." I joke some more and Like laughs. We

continue the circle of teasing the entire way back to my apartment.

"Yo mama so fat, when she went to the movies, she sat next to everyone." I said to Luke as I put my keys into the door. We had gotten on to yo mama jokes now.

"Oh, burn." Luke follows me in and we walk straight into my bedroom. We had decided on the way here to just start painting straight away as the floor boards were bare in my room and we had oldish clothes on.

I pulled the lid of the paint and dunked my paintbrush in as Luke thought of another yo mama joke.

"Oh I know a good one. Yo mama so stupid she tried to put her m&ms in alphabetical order." He laughed at himself and picked up a brush. I noticed he was looking away. All I had to do was get his attention and..

"LUKE!" I screamed. He jumped and spun to face me. Just as I flicked paint onto his shocked expression. His mouth hung open as he tried to comprehend what had just happened. I worried for a split second if I had gone too far and if maybe I shouldn't have done it but it was only a split second because before I knew it,my hair had been dyed blue by a flying paintbrush. I threw more paint and so did he and before I knew it we were both smurfs. We looked at eachother in silence for a second. Both dripping in paint. And I began to laugh and so did Luke and before we knew it we were lying on the floor wiping tears from our eyes, our heads resting next to eachother. Slowly the laughter died down and a comfortable silence grew.

"Lace?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"I haven't laughed that hard in a while." What do I say to that? I thought. I'd made him laugh. Eventually, despite the conficting feelings over what to say. I said,

"You're welcome Luke. Maybe we should paint my room now though?" and hoped it sounded like I wasn't nervous.

"If there's any paint left, you mean."

"Shut up, come on." I sat up and offered him my blue hand. He took it and sat up too.

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"You're still holding my hand."

"Oh yeah." He quickly let go and we both stood up and began (properly this time) to paint.

(A/N: we don't proof read much so please ignore any mistakes <3 ~Molly).