teeth → l.h

chapter nine;

"Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, we've only been together for a month and-"

"Stop, it's fine." Luke chuckles as he takes Sierra's hands in his, rubbing them gently with his thumbs. "They're gonna love you, okay?"

Sierra sighs. "You've just- you've known them for so long and I don't want them to feel like I'm intruding, or- or taking you away from them or-"

Luke laughs softly. "They're my best friends, and I'm happy. They-" Luke stops as he pulls Sierra into him, pressing their lips together. "Are going-" He pecks her lips again. "To love you." He kisses her once more, before pulling away and opening the car door for Sierra. "I promise."

Sierra smiles. "And Helena? I mean-"

Sierra mentioning Helena's name causes a twinge in Luke's heart, and he suddenly realizes that he hasn't spoken to her in two weeks. The thought hurts him more than it should. "Wh-" Luke pauses, tilting his head as he furrows his brows. "What about her?"

"You talk about her like y'all have a history." Sierra shrugs. "So I figured-"

"We don't." Luke reassures Sierra. "I've interrupted you so many times, I- I'm really sorry." He smiles. "Helena and I don't have a history though, you don't have anything to worry about."

"Okay." Sierra nods.

Luke is a good liar which in retrospect, is not a good thing, but he appreciates this ability momentarily when asked about his history with Helena. It's not like he wants to lie to Sierra, but he figures it's better if Sierra doesn't know that he'd been with Helena. It was over, so there was no point in bringing it up.

Denying his relationship with Helena hurt more than anything else, though. Helena was his greatest love, and ignoring the existence of this was, in Luke's opinion, worse than their actual breakup, if it can even be called that.

"Luke's on his way." Ashton leans against the doorway. "Put some pants on, at least." He sighs as he looks around Helena's room. Ashton is fairly certain none of the (many) articles of clothing on the floor are even Helena's. He at least recognizes four of Luke's shirts and three of the man's sweatshirts.

Luke and Helena are so bad at being inconspicuous that it's not even funny to Ashton anymore. He kind of just wants to tell Helena he knows so she'll stop moping around the house pretending she's fine.

"How do you know I'm not wearing pants?" Helena mumbles from her position, cocooned in multiple blankets on her bed with all the curtains closed. "I'm tired. Leave me alone."

"So you are?" Ashton raises an eyebrow, and Helena stays silent. "Get up, I'm tired of you two fighting." He walks further into the room, standing over Helena at the side of the bed.

Helena sighs. "We're not fighting." She's not lying, they aren't, they're just passive aggressively pretending that they'd never been together. Helena figured that none of it mattered anymore, since Luke had seemingly moved on to Sierra just fine (it's not fine).

"He hasn't been over in almost a month," Ashton plops down on the bed. "What happened?" He knows exactly what happened, but he figures it best that he waits until Helena's ready to tell him.

"Nothing," Helena huffs as she untangles herself from the blankets and sits up. "We're just busy."

Ashton scoffs. "You got like this when he was with Arzaylea, and now he's with Sierra."

"What the fuck are you saying?" Helena fires back.

She wishes she didn't get as defensive as she did every time Ashton mentions Helena being jealous of Luke's relationships, but it's something she's just given up on, and decided to live with. She'll probably always be jealous of Luke being with anyone but her.