start over // lrh

three

"Mariah called", I told Luke as I placed the cordless phone on the kitchen counter. I walked around the table, opposite to where he was sitting.
I had been halfway through eating out my pancakes when the landline phone started ringing, I'd cussed at the person who had ruined my delightful breakfast moment.

"Yeah, she called me too, this morning", he said with a sigh, he didn't seem to be a huge fan of Mariah.

I really didn't talk to her but ever since Luke arrived, she seems to have grown very fond of me.
Basically, Mariah calls me every day, to collect daily report about Luke- what he's eating for breakfast and dinner, if he's sleeping properly, signs of weird behavior or withdrawal symptoms.
I didn't understand her need to be this skeptical; she was worried that if Luke relapsed or got into trouble everything could get so much worse than it already is worse yada yada yada.

Anyways, I was telling her about Luke, that he had been completely fine: eating french toast daily for breakfast and rejecting bacon, watching a lot of TV after midnight, and sleeping during the day. She had pointed out that he can't stay in the house forever, especially with this kind of unhealthy routine. I had recited one of the twenty rules from her terms and conditions she emailed me:

7-Luke Hemmings shall not be allowed to drive on his own, nor is he privileged to leave the house on his own.

She had told me that the rules said he wasn't allowed to leave the house on his own, that it'd be nice of me to show him around the city, and the car I was given wasn't supposed to be a decoration piece. She ended the call before announcing it was final that I was taking Luke out.
So here I was, mentally preparing myself to drive around the city with my best friend, living my best life. Joy.

It was two in the afternoon. Luke had gone to take a bath, and to change into something more sophisticated than a Courage The Cowardly Dog tee and gingerbread man pajamas he was wearing at the breakfast table - that by the way, didn't even match. And why would someone watch Courage The Cowardly Dog, let alone wear it's merch, creepy shit happened on that show.

When Luke returned to the kitchen, he was wearing a black T-shirt underneath a leather jacket, with black skinny jeans.He had his hair up in a man bun, but they weren't greasy. It was getting hot in here.

I mean the weather, I mentally scolded myself.

We walked out of our suite, with me one step ahead of Luke, leading the way. I was so nervous to look back at him. When we had finally reached the car, I remembered that I had to drive again.
Seeing a drunk driver driving his car over the bridge into the river this morning, it wasn't helpful. drunk driver driving his car. that'd make a nice tongue twister, I thought

I became super nervous seeing the car, and Luke had caught me wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans. He didn't look happy, remembering the last time we had been in the car together. He just impatiently glancing at me to step towards the car. When I didn't move for a while, Luke became frustrated and turned to me, so we were face-to-face.

"Oh for the love of God, let me drive", he said out of irritation, and motioned me to hand him the keys. I gave him an uncertain look. He wasn't allowed to drive.

"I won't wreck it, promise", he placed his hand on his heart, in an oath- taking way. He probably had read the insecurity in my expressions. "And besides you drive like an eighty five year old grandma". He chuckled.

"I do not", I couldn't help but feel offended, widening my eyes at him.

"Of course you don't", Luke said dismissively, and took the keys from the loose grip of my hand left hand, that was resting on my side. Just the brush of his fingers against my palm made my heart race quicken.

***

After extremely long twenty minutes ride of me yelling frantically at Luke to stop at the red light or make sure he was following the speed limit, Luke finally decided to slow down. I was about to thank him but then I saw my favourite ice-cream stall, I placed my hands on the window and squeeled, "ice-cream!" .

I reckon if Luke was wondering that I was the one who needed counselling, not him. I kept him telling how great the ice-cream here tasted as we walked towards the stall. We were greeting my a woman with honey colored skin and dark hair.

"Cindy's, what can I get for you?", she smiled, displaying her perfect white teeth.

"Butter scotch and vanilla", Luke said to the woman after looking at the flavours.

"Vanilla and strawberry with almond topping, please", I said to the woman and he made a face.

"What?" I looked at him questioningly. Chocolate strawberry swirl is fucking great, don't fight me.

"Strawberry, really? It tastes like flavored medicine syrup". Boy has no taste.

"Hey, vanilla and butterscotch is so lame", I sucked at comebacks.

Luke opened his mouth to make a snarky comment when the woman interrupted us.

"Here you go", she tapped my shoulder. I turned around and gratefully took the cones from her. She handed the other one to Luke.

"That'd be 1.20 pounds", She said, handing him a receipt. Receipt for ice-cream? At a stall? Weird.

I handed her the cash, and my eyes landed on the receipt, that Luke was still holding in his hand: It was handwritten with a black pen, just the total of 1.20 pounds, but when my eyes landed at the end of the paper, I saw that the woman had left something- her number and her name- Mia, written in a very girlish and cursive handwriting. It was cute.

"Are you going to call her?" I said to Luke, nudging him with my shoulder, as we began walking away. He just shaked his head. We were walking closer that we should be.

"Or we could give her a prank call, from my phone you know", I suggested, making a sly face. He just shoved the paper into his pocket and sighed.

"Want to walk around for a bit?" Luke asked, looking at me. It was obvious he wanted to change the topic.

"Sure", I nodded my head eagerly.

After a bit of walking, we sat down on a bench. It was a small park. Luke leaned back, folding his harms behind him. None of us had really eaten our ice-creams and the chilly weather wasn't going to melt it anyway, so no hurry.

"Hey, I have an idea", I turned to Luke, eyeing his cone.

"No", he replied flatly, keeping his eyes shut.

"Not really, I was thinking of mixing our ice-creams", my tone sounded excited.

"Dear Lord, do you really have an obsession with experimenting with your food?" he opened his eyes and stared at me, giving a disgusted look.

"Maybe", I took the wafer out of my ice-cream and used it as a spoon, and scooped some of his ice-cream- without his permission with it, proceeding to dip the other end into mine.

I devoured the moment as it melted in my mouth. It really did taste good, better than the time I poured yogurt on my ice-cream. I shivered at the memory.

Luke did the same with his wafer, surprising me. I thought he wasn't into this.

He popped the ice-cream covered wafer in his mouth, and closed his eyes. It wasn't a bad sight. In fact, not bad at all. I could see the stubble growing on his chin and make out the veins on his closed eye lids-
That's creepy, oh god.

He looked at me."Delicious", he said after finished his bite, he turned and smiled at me.

***

a/n: Is medicine syrup a thing? idk