when we collide ✰ l.h.

Chapter 25

"So how was your Christmas?" Luke asked, his quiet voice being muffled by the speaker on my phone.

"Same old, same old." I sighed. I rolled over in my bed to face my wall, curling up into my sheets. "My parents took Effy down to my grandparent's house literally an hour ago." I double checked the time, making sure I was right.

Every year Effy is taken to my grandparent's house after we have a Christmas dinner, it used to be me accompanying with her, but this year I actually had a say in whether I could go or not and with a guilty heart, I turned it down. I didn't want to be stuck there until after New Years especially with Luke's surprise party that he decided was at my house.

"It was boring without me, right?" He laughed. A small smile pulled at my lips as I laid on my back, now staring at my ceiling. It was almost 11pm and I had felt exhausted from the day's activities of opening presents and cooking and cleaning and practically running around the house all day.

"Of course it was." I said, laughing along with him. Usually we had seen each other for at least 10 minutes on Christmas but we both seemed to be completely occupied with our lives for once and weren't able to get together today.

"Mhmn." He mumbled into the phone, his voice obviously tired.

"Do you want me to let you go?" I questioned in concerned. I heard a few blankets ruffle around and I furrowed my eyebrows as I waited for his response.

"Can you meet me outside your house in 5 minutes?" He suddenly asked. I kicked my blankets off of me and sat up, rubbing the side of my arm from the cold air in my room.

"I don't see why not." I told him. "But my parents are probably going to be home soon." I became weary of his request, not knowing what he was up to. It couldn't have been very much since he was walking instead of driving.

"Where's April and Travis?" The sound of a door shutting behind him was easily heard, then the word 'shit' fell from his mouth. Luke's parents weren't too worried about him.

Obviously they cared for him and everything, but they knew he wasn't the one to get in a serious amount of trouble and most of the time he was coming over to my house anyways so he didn't exactly have to sneak out.

"Travis is with his girlfriend and I have no clue where April is. They all ditched after dinner." I explained. I held my phone to my ear with my shoulder as I was starting to change into pants rather than shorts so I wouldn't have to be so cold.

"And your mom didn't even question why they just left?" You could tell he was outside from the way he was breathing into the phone, it sounded like he just ran across the street.

"Nope." I simply answered, flipping the switch on so I could see down the stairs. I hopped down them, listening to him ramble on about how his parents were wanting to leave early to get to Times Square for the ball drop. I walked into my kitchen as he went on, now tuning him out from making myself distracted.

"Autumn?" Luke practically yelled into the phone.

"What?" I innocently replied.

"Can you let me in?" I then heard a knock on my front door, he had probably been knocking for a while and I had just drowned in my own thoughts.

I hung up on him, scurrying towards my front door. I struggled to open my door from my sudden excitement that came over me and I finally got it unlocked and swung it open with ease.

Luke was standing right at the top of the steps, his back facing towards me. I knocked on my door that was behind me to snap his gaze away from his phone. He looked up once then over his shoulder, smirking at me or rather my Christmas pajama pants.