out of breath ; hemmings au

thirteen

I wake up to a crunching noise, and when I slowly open my eyes, I find Luke's staring at me. The sunlight creeps through my eyelids hurting my now constricted pupils, but I could still see Luke eating some crackers.

"Morning," he mumbles still chewing the food.

"Eat with your mouth closed," I mumble and he opens his mouth showing off the half processed cookies inside his mouth, making me wrinkle my nose in disgust.

He chuckles shoving one more cookie into his mouth. "Have some," he half offers, half demands extending the box to me.

"No, I'm okay," I dismiss him.

"Eat," he puts it even closer to me and I take one rolling my eyes. "We'll have to keep moving soon, yeah?" I nod.

When I'm about to bite the salty cookie I realize my throat is dry, so I ask him for water. He hands me a bottle and after sitting up over the blankets, I instantly take one hand to my forehead.

"Are you hungover too?" I ask before drinking some of the water.

"Yeah, it's a bitch," he chuckles.

"And my body is in agony. I didn't think this was going to be so uncomfortable," I whine and he nods in agreement. "How long will it take us to get to the next town? I really need to pee."

"Like three or four hours I think, so I guess you'll have to find a spot in the woods," he's wiggling his eyebrows as if it was funny, as he pointed at the trees surrounding the clear we're at.

"That's gross."

"Is whether that or keeping it in," he shrugs smiling. "Whatever floats your boat."

I roll my eyes. I didn't have a choice but to get into the woods and hope there're no insects or animals to surprise me and make everything worse. I tilt my head back groaning making him realize I'll do it. He gives me some napkins we had in the bags we got yesterday, and pats my back in encouragement. I take them and walk to my new personal toilet.

I walk towards the tall trees and hide behind one, sure enough Luke wouldn't see me from the truck. When I go back to where he was siting, I was incredibly disgusted by the experience. Of course I've done it before, but I was too drunk or coked to even care. Luke laughs at me, shaking his head, and I raise my eyebrows questioningly.

He shrugs and says, "You're funny. So stiff at moments like this."

"What did you expect? I can't even wash my hands..." I look down at them not knowing how to fix my problem.

He laughs again taking another cookie. "You'll survive," he says before shoving the cracker into his mouth.

"Can we please head to that town we're going to already? I need to clean myself up," I plea to his blue eyes and, then again, he chuckles.

This Luke is the one I enjoy as a companion. The one who jokes around and smiles, someone that can take me out of my misery. I would like to be able to choose his state... like an interrupter with the 'kind Luke' as an option I'll turn on regularly. Not the mean, self-centered guy he knows how to turn into, like last night. I don't want yesterday's Luke back. He can't break my trust as Calum did, I couldn't handle it. Especially not now since he is all I have at the moment.

"Yep, let me get my jeans," he says once he's done chewing.

Luke gets rid of the crumbs, rubbing his hands against each other. He climbs down the truck and grabs his black jeans from the floor to pull them up his legs.

I follow his actions by getting up from our last night's improvised bed with the crackers' box and the bottle of water. I settle myself on the co-driver sit and we both fasten our seatbelt. He runs the car and soon we're on our way to the next stop. Thankfully is another motel in which we'll sleep on a comfortable mattress, covered in soft sheets.