• CHAPTER THREE •
I spent three years going to Luke's house, and it took three years for me to realize that, on top of everything else, he was also musically talented.
We were studying in his room when he started humming. That wasn't new; he'd hummed loads of times, even sing quietly while he worked out problems. But I'd never realized how good his voice was until now.
"Hey, Luke? Do you like to sing?" I asked after being mesmerized in his voice for a minute.
He looked up, and my heart jumped. Don't let him see, don't let him see.
"Yeah," he finally answered. "You wanna hear?"
"Yeah, definitely," I said, smiling.
Luke dropped his maths work, walked out and returned with an acoustic guitar. He walked back in and sat on his bed, motioning for me to go sit with him.
I took a seat beside him, and he began to strum the strings lightly. "Any song requests?" he asked as he tuned the instruments.
I shook my head. "Just something you know."
Luke finished tuning and then cleared his throat self-consciously. "I've never played for anyone other than my mum, so I'm kind of nervous," he said with a little laugh.
"Don't be," I assured him with a mile.
He gave me a crooked grin before strumming the instrument with a more fixed rhythm, starting to sing.
Let's run away
From these lies
I was mesmerized by his voice. It was amazing; rich, smooth, and beautiful.
In the beginning, Luke sort of ducked his head and looked straight down at his guitar, facing away from me. But as he sang, he slowly lifted his head, and eventually he snuck a glance at me.
He finished the song and told me, "Did you really like it that much?" he asked, drumming his fingers against the guitar.
I raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"I mean you had a huge grin on your face when I looked at you," Luke teased, grinning. "How was it, though? Really."
I looked him straight in the eye. "Luke, your voice is amazing. It's mesmerizing. And I don't know why you never told me about this earlier."
He raised his eyebrows. "Mesmerizing, huh?" he murmured, and I flushed.
"The point is, you're crazy talented. You can't just do nothing with it," I insisted.
Luke ran a hand through his hair. "What do you think I should do, then? Drop out, make a band, and get famous?" he joked, and I laughed.
"That'd be ideal, wouldn't it?" I said, indulging in the fantasy with him.
"Very," he continued, his eyes glazing over slightly as he focused on a dream about as tangible as the air we were breathing.
Finally, Luke said, "If it actually happened, you'd come on tour with me, right?"
"Tour?" I asked, stunned. "Me?"
"Yeah. You're one of my best friends," he said, shrugging. "You'd come, right?" Luke looked at me hopefully."
I smiled. "Of course."
Luke smiled. "I could never forget my best friend Providence."
Little did we know that we were both making promises we wouldn't be able to keep.
