Over (Luke Hemmings)

10

Maria

I was waiting for the stop light to turn to green, careful not to get hit by any vehicle -- even a bike, since it had scared the jibbly wibbles out of me since childhood. The wind hit my face, like a boulder made of nothing but air. My hair rambled and sprawled in different directions, making me frown. I woke up early today to fix my hair and now the wind had styled it to its brutally ugly liking.

I felt a tap on my shoulder. Surprised by the sudden human interaction in the morning, I turned to see Luke with a smile on his face. "Morning." He cheerfully greeted, as he always did for the past weeks.

I forced a smile back. "Morning." It's obvious that I wasn't much of a morning person.

"Hey uh, did you know Ashton left town already?" I turned to Luke and raised both of my eyebrows in surprise.

"I haven't talked to Calum in days! So, that means all of this is over, huh?" I looked down to the not so beautiful pavement, thinking of how I'll be stuck doing work alone again. Now to think of it, I might not even enjoy waking up early for work anymore. Luke was one of the reasons I happen to put a smile on my face before work lately.

"Yeah... I'll talk to Ava today. I think I'll quit the cafe work." He said, a forced smile surfaced out from the both of our lips.

"Oh. Alright. Aren't you gonna do your shift today?" I hope he would. The thought of me working alone saddened me.

I faced him and he nodded. "The objective was to keep you away from Ashton and now he's gone so you're fine. I'll still check on you once a week so don't try to miss me so much." His smirk always made me smile but now I didn't even feel like smiling. Though I hated to admit it, I was gonna miss him working next to me.

Ava had called me to her office by the time lunch had finished. I looked around casually in search for Luke but I couldn't see him anywhere. He might have left. What was the point of staying when he had nothing to do, right?

"You what?!"

"Yeah, I begged him to stay work for us. Even gave him a raise for the month. He's been helping the cafe. Our customer rate increased when he started working here. Not surprising. He's a hell of a good looking lad." Ava smiled. I had a strong feeling she knew that I didn't want him to leave.

Turns out Luke had only been in the staff room, changing into his work clothes. I don't know why but the black apron suited him very much. Maybe I just liked how he wore it.

"Huh, look who's still here." I said, softly nudging him on his side while he made coffee and I cleaned the table where there was a sticky stain of caramel syrup left since yesterday with a wet cloth.

"Missed me already?" Luke smirked, swiping his tongue over his lips then to his lip ring.

"Maybe."

aW