summer bucket list // l.h

02.

// ☼ marina

"Are you ready to go to the store?" Luke said in a honeyed tone as I looked up from Paper Towns and narrowed my eyes at him. I had watched him work out of the corner of my eye all morning, he had gardened and he had mowed the lawn before cleaning the pool - shirtless, might I add - and then he had cleaned the house.

There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary with him, and I didn't know why I had the squirming feeling of a hundred wasps attacking my stomach whenever I was faced with him. Luke made me nervous, in a bad way. Luke stared down at me in my blue bikini as I stayed sitting on the banana lounge by the pool, just reading the book and trying to finish it as soon as possible so I could mark reading a book off of my summer bucket list.

"Yeah," I sighed, "Give me a minute," I dog-eared the page I had stopped at in my book before I stood from the pool lounge, stretching out my bronzing limbs before putting my clothes back on, sensing Luke's eyes on my every movement. It made my skin prickle with intensity and nervousness as his blue eyes gazed over me, as if he was seeing straight through to my soul.

"So I hear you're from Florida?" Luke asked as I climbed into the passenger seat of his old car, having to push several empty takeaway chinese containers out of my way and getting hit in the face with the smell of teenage boy and some sort of interesting spice.

"Yeah," I stated, sighing as I realized I may as well be at least civil to Luke, seeing as he was officially the first person apart from my Aunt that I had even spoken to in California, and who knew, maybe he could help me complete my bucket list. Actually, that was a really good idea, becoming friends with Luke so that I could complete my summer bucket list.

"How do you like it there? I was thinking about going to the University of Central Florida next year," Luke inquired and I glanced at him, he didn't like like a UCF kind of guy, he looked like an Ivy League sort of guy. Like one of those cocky assholes that graduate with a football scholarship under their belt to Duke or Yale.

"The weather is better than here, to be honest. Its too hot here, in Orlando it's always the perfect temperature," I offered up a timid smile to the blonde with his hands on the wheel and he replied by grinning at me, "But as far as UCF goes, I think it's a pretty great college. I went on a field trip with my senior class like a month ago and if I planned on going to college, I'd totally go there," I mentioned to Luke, though I couldn't see why he would care what I really thought about UCF.

"What do you want to do after high school then, if you're not going to college?" I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye again, the angry wasps still swarming in my stomach as the nervousness refused to go away. Luke didn't seem to know who I was, or who my parents were. He didn't realize it didn't matter what I did after high school, I was set for the rest of my life.

"Oh, I, I'm not sure yet," I lied, what was the point in telling him the truth? That my parents were Mark and Misha Winston, the CEO's and face of Winston Records, a famous record label that had signed many famous artists to this day. It was a family business I didn't necissarily want to get in to, but I knew that eventually I would so my parents would definitely let me have my trust fund when I turned twenty-one.

"Really? What, you're a senior with no clue what you want to do after graduation?" Luke snorted, as if my confusion about my future was something completely strange, like it never happened to anyone else, like I was the first one undecided about the direction their future was going to take after they said goodbye to high school.

"Okay, so what do you want to do after high school, Mr I'm-so-sure-of-my-future?" I rolled my eyes, expecting a muttered reply similar to the one I had given him, but no, what came of Luke's mouth was nothing short than a sureness I had never seen present in a teenage boy before.

"I'm going to be a Forensic Anthropologist and work for the FBI," Luke grinned at me as he turned into a local Wal-Mart, which was cluttered with cars and people doing their weekly shopping. I just blinked at Luke for several minutes as he pulled into a parking space, terribly, might I add, and stopped the car.

"So like in Bones?" I remembered my mother watching the show when I was younger, but she stopped when it went on for too long. I think that now it was on season nine and still going, but I couldn't be sure seeing as I didn't watch it either, I just knew what the show centered around.

Luke looked chagrined and I knew that I had blown his cover, "Yeah, exactly like Bones," He muttered, "But I really do want to do that," He said quickly, as if assuring himself that that was the life career he wanted to pursue more than me.

"Sounds like fun," I was being sarcastic as I undid my seatbelt and got out of the car, but Luke seemed to take my sarcasm as authenticity and launched into an explanation of what the job would entail, though I honestly couldn't care less. I knew that a Forensic Anthropologist basically figured out the cause of death and who they were, but apart from that it didn't matter to me.

"So what do you like to eat?" Luke seemed to notice that I wasn't listening and changed the subject to something I could reply too, which seemed to quiten the swarming wasps in my stomach to a dull buzz.

"You're alright, Luke, you're alright," I decided right then and right there that Luke would be the perfect person to help me complete my summer bucket list.

Luke looked baffled at my sudden outburst, and he raised an eyebrow before replying, "Yeah, but what food do you like to eat?"

I'm not happy with this chapter but oH WELL.

So I live in Australia and I have no idea what I'm writing about, even after researching shit, so lets just pretend the University of Central Florida is one campus and not like, twelve different ones and we're going to pretend I know what I'm talking about with all the slang and language and all of that. Okay, good. Okay.