Puzzle Pieces || Luke Hemmings

Thirty Four

Sunday

February 1st, 2015

-

| Luke |

I slowly open my eyes to the small amount of light pouring in from my blinds. I hear a noise from my connected bathroom and then hear Dylan's laughter before the door opens and she becomes visible to me.

"You're awake." She says smiling and walking over to the bed sitting indian style next to me.

"You were here all night?" I ask her and she nods."But won't your mum be angry?" I ask her.

"No, I told her I was with Bridget and Bridget went to Dylan's house so if my mother called her's to ask her dad where she was he would say that she was at Dylan's with me." She says and I chuckle at her prolix explanation.

She reaches down and conjoins our hands together and I realize she has one of my t-shirts on and a pair of my boxers.

"I picked the boxers." She says and I take a closer look before laughing because she picked Spongebob boxers that were given to me as a joke although I wear them sometimes.

"You're so adorable." I tell her and she beams at me. I pull her hands and she lays down next to me with her head on my shoulder and I sigh rubbing her back as her hand finds it's way to the hem of my shirt only to slip under it and rub over my stomach.

"Bridget told me to be careful with you before she'd met you." She tells me and I glance at her to see her eyes are shut, causing her long eyelashes to fan over her cheeks ever so slightly.

"Why is that?" I say turning to face the ceiling.

"She suspected you were dangerous. She was partially correct but you aren't dangerous all the time. Only when you have those attacks." She says and I sigh.

"Like last night." She sits up slightly and looks down at my face.

"Yes but you stopped because I was here." She says and I shrug. "Luke, I know you would never intentionally or accidentally hurt anyone."

"But I have before, Dylan." I look away from her.

"Hey," She grabs my chin so I look right at her. I move a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear as she looks down into my eyes with her beautiful green ones. She's beautiful, too beautiful to be with someone as broken as me. "I understand that you've hurt people but you were angry-"

"I still get angry." I say through gritted teeth.

"You're just broken." She says. "I told you something last night similar to what I'm about to say. I want to be the one to pick up the pieces even if the going gets tough every now and then I'm still going to be picking them up and piecing them together."

"You make me sound like a puzzle." I say.

"Everyone is a puzzle to me." She shrugs her shoulders.

"Why?" I ask her.

"Because when I was a small child my father and I used to do these really hard, complex, and beautiful puzzles and from that I thought that people were just like puzzles." She tells me.

"What happened to him? Your dad?" I ask her realizing I've never seen the man around, only in the pictures I had seen in Dylan's room awhile ago.

"When I was thirteen he passed away." She tells me. "He was on duty and a person shot him. He didn't die right away but the bullet hit him in just the right place."

"What was his job?" I ask her.

"He was a police officer, part of the K-9 unit. Our dog died as well because the perp decided to shoot the dog too. He was a German Shepard named Axel and we had him from when I was six to then. They had been coming out of the building to come home and the guy just shot him and the dog." She explains.

"Why didn't you tell me that when I told you about Julie?" I ask her.

"Because that conversation wasn't about me." She says.

"How can you just be so selfless and see the good in everyone and everything?" I ask her disbelievingly.

"My father always taught me to be selfless and put others before myself when it needs to be done. Him being a cop also taught me things, not every criminal is innocent but it doesn't mean that deep down to the core they are a bad person and you have to see that or else people will hate you." She explains laying back down,

"You're so unreal." I say and she glances up at me.

"What do you mean?" She asks me.

"You're just a dream right? You're too perfect to not be." I say pulling her into me so theres no space between our bodies.

"No one is perfect, Luke." She mumbles into my chest.

"Except you, you're the exception. You Dylan Victoria Peters are perfect, and there is nothing anyone can say to me to make me think otherwise." I say and she giggles.

"Well," she begins after she seizes her laughing and presses a kiss briefly to my lips. "Breakfast?"

~

"Luke!" She groans as I wipes batter across her cheek. I laugh picking up the measuring cup and pouring more of it into the pan. When we got downstairs we decided to make pancakes, I was feeling like a child today.

I hear my phone start to ring from the living room and groan.

"Want me to get it?" Dylan asks.

"Yeah, you can answer it too." I say and she nods going off to the living room.

"Luke I can't answer this." She says walking back in with my ringing phone.

"Why?" I ask her.

"It's Bridget's dad." She says. "He's probably that guy, you know the one you hang out with after meetings."

"Oh, shit." I say grabbing my phone from her. "I missed the meeting today." I answer the phone and put it up to my ear. "Hey John." I walk out of the room and pointing at the pan. Dylan nods and walks over to take care of the pancake.

"Hey you missed the meeting today. Something wrong?" He asks me.

"Just wasn't feeling well and up to it. I'm okay though thanks for asking." I say. We talk for about 5 minutes before he says he has to go for work and I bid him goodbye. I walk back into the kitchen to find Dylan bouncing on the balls of her feet in front of the stove. I lean against the frame of the entrance staring at her, taking in her presence.

"I can feel you looking at me." She says suddenly. I chuckle and walk closer to her pressing a kiss to the fabric of my shirt covering her shoulder.

And slowly and slowly...

I feel myself starting to fall for my spunky next door neighbor.

※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※

Thank you for 4K reads <3 *wipes tear*

~Dani.xx