Shots - Frat!l.h.

Twenty-Two: Luke

  "She wasn't exactly sure when it happened. Or even when it started. All she knew for sure was that right here and now, she was falling hard and she could only pray that he was feeling the same way." ― ,   Nicholas Sparks, Safe Haven

Luke Hemmings

I woke at the sound of my phone ringing, Nora's groans oddly adorable as she told me to turn it off. I reached onto the bedside table, my headache strong from the alcohol I'd had the night before. Although I was used to drinking, and my tolerance was usually high, there was something about expensive alcohol that lingered for a longer time than the cheap beer from frat parties. 

Despite how reluctant I was to leave the sacred space under the warm sheets, I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and slipped a shirt on. I'd taken off my pants and shirt late last night, which left me in my two day old underwear. 

"Hello?" I said, my voice rough and raw. I'd sunken strong drinks last night, and my throat was getting the worst of it. With the exception of my head. 

"Luke?"  A voice sounded through the other end. It was one that i recognized almost immediately, despite the fact that we hadn't seen each other since the last time he'd flown to California.

"Ben," I said, acknowledging my brother. "Hey."

"Been a while, huh?" My brother said. He sounded tired, and my eyes glanced at the clock on the bedside table. I made my way onto one of the love seats in our room, watching as the sunlight filtered into the hotel, casting an angel-like air. The clock read 8:14, and I wondered why he was awake. 

"Yeah," I nodded, knowing he couldn't see me.

"Why didn't you tell me you were home?"

"New York isn't my home."

"You know what I mean."

I shrugged. "I wanted to be here for the least amount of time possible. I thought you might be at the gala last night, but you weren't, so."

"Shit. You went?" He said, and I could tell he felt guilty for not being there. Ben, out of the three boys my parents had had, was easily the most involved with our parents. None of us really wanted to be around them, and my other brother, Jack, had moved to Italy for 'work', but we all knew he wanted to get away from them. Ben didn't have the chance to do that, because he'd gotten his high school sweetheart pregnant in their senior year. My father had offered my brother a job to support his new family, and ever since, Ben had been stuck under his wing. I felt bad when I moved away from New York, knowing fully well my brother would go insane if he was stuck with them, but he had moved out to a house in the country not long after I left. Before that, he'd been staying with his child and his girlfriend on one of the levels of our home. 

"Yeah," I answered. "It was bad. They're still just as horrible."

"They're not all bad," He said, but even I heard the grimace in his voice.

"They called the girl I was with poor and then barely acknowledge her existence. Dad brought up Zoe, too."

"Fuck," Ben said. "Hell, that's horrible."

"Yeah," I answered. My brother was defensive because he knew that my parents could have thrown him out and left him all on his own. In a way, what they did was worse, because now my brother would always be dependent on them. As soon as my brother had gotten Julianna, his girl, pregnant, my father had deemed him irresponsible and had scratched off his name to be the heir. But he had still offered him a contract, and because my brother didn't go to college, this would be the best job he could get and he knew it.