Sunshine || Jai Brooks

chapter fourteen; perfect, but awkward

It was nine o'clock and that meant two things: Aileen had been home alone two hours now, after leaving the boy's place with her best friend. It also meant that this would be normally Luke's and her hour to text each other excessively.

It was great, actually, how they had managed this to be their hour. It was great how she had felt so close to him, yet not close at all. They knew nothing about each other, they didn't even know one another's favorite color. They still didn't know that, they still hadn't talked about anything else but practical things - like the weather, their plans for the day, programs on the television. Things that had nothing to do with their opinion.

She wondered though, how he was doing. If he still thought the same about after that night, that he still wanted her to be happy. If he didn't mind having her around the house and to hang with his brother, instead of with him. But especially since what William had said; did he think they were better off as friends?

However, she had to and this would be the best time. Perhaps it could bring back old memories and they could continue to contact each other, even though they were friends now. She could still tease him, she could still send him stupid puns she would find on Tumblr. He could still send her stupid texts about nudes. It was fun with him and she didn't want any of this to end, just because she had mistaken her feelings for him as... whatever it was.

Aileen grabbed her from beside her laptop, beginning to type in a text. She deleted it again, sighing dramatically and staring at the screen. This really wasn't working, she knew it. But she had to try harder, or this was going to haunt her for the rest of the night and she didn't want that.

'hey, luke. What's up?' Nope, definitely not. That would sound too serious.

'luke, what's up?:)' No, this was worse. She never used emoticons if it wasn't needed.

'yo, luke. dude, what's up?' She was about to actually push the send button - yeah, same. What the hell? She wasn't one of his guy friends - until her phone started buzzing in her hand. It was Luke himself who was calling her.

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you want?"

"I can feel the love," he commented, chuckling at the other end of the line. A few strange noises were heard, something like cars passing by and it confused her more than she was curious at what the reason was he called her. They never spoke on the phone. They never did those things, because he said it was awkward. "Anyway, I'm standing outside your house and I need to talk to you."

"Sounds serious," she joked as she stood up from the chair she was sitting on, making her way out of her room. "I'm not prepared and that makes me a little skeptical to let you in. The best thing to do is to turn off all the lights and hide under the bed."

"Or you should man up and open the door."

She ended the call as she opened the front door, revealing Luke. He was standing there with his hands in his jeans pocket, trying to force a sweet smile instead of a nervous one. And she could literally feel herself getting nervous too. "I tried texting you, but I couldn't come up with anything that sounded like myself."

"Oh, wow," he walked past her, into the house and Nala began yelping. Cody just ran towards her special cardboard box and hid herself. Why Nala was so protective, she really had no idea. Maybe she could feel how worried she was what going to come and what he wanted to talk about. But Luke was fine, an actual sweetheart. So, she shut Nala up, pointing at the dog couch. It made Luke chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck and then sat down on the couch. She sat down on the other. "What did you want to text me about?"