Too Late? (5SOS)

Chapter 31

Tiana’s POV

Due to insistent public demand, Luke had performed around four more songs after wrapping up Hold On Til May. The people present were quite aware of his talent in singing and took advantage of this rare opportunity of seeing him perform live by forcing him to sing King For A Day and Bulletproof Love, and once he was done showing off, he tugged me by the hand, flashed me a smile and said, “Let’s go?”

I, for one, was too stunned to speak. I could still feel the butterflies fluttering in my stomach, and I felt a rush of electricity the moment he went near me. All I could do was nod and follow his lead, trying to subtly avoid attracting any other people in the area who could have recognized him. After what seemed like ages, we finally found the car that we abandoned in the middle of a crowded street. There were dents here and there, which served as proof that some people had carelessly driven past it in impatience, but Luke didn’t look the slightest bit pissed. He plopped down on the driver’s seat with a stupid smile on his face, started the engine and drove back to his house with me looking the same way.

The whole ride was eerily silent. I kept on sending telepathic messages to his brain like TALK TO ME YOU FOOL I AM FALLING IN LOVE WITH YOU, but he wasn’t picking up on them and continued to keep his eyes fixed on the road. We arrived a couple of minutes later, and we found ourselves on his doorstep.

“This is pretty weird,” I finally told him, breaking the silence.

“What?” He replied, trying to look serious but ending up laughing in the process.

“This is your house. Why the hell are we standing on the doorstep? Don’t you have a key?” The unreasonably mean tone in my voice had vanished, and even if I wanted to sound angsty and whiny, I ended up sounding like a purring cat.

“God, even after all I’ve done for you this afternoon, you still talk to me like that? Am I that much of a proper ass?” He facepalms himself and pretends to look pissed off by my attitude, but I know him too well and I’ve known him for too long to know that he’s not good at faking any other emotions than what he’s feeling at that moment.

I smile. “Well, thank you then, Luke. That’s the sweetest thing any boy has done for me. I mean it.”

“Hah, as far as I’m concerned, no other boy has done anything for you, in general.” He jokes, which makes me punch his arm and roll my eyes a full 360 degrees. Unexpectedly, he takes my hands in his, and I swear to God that that could have been our perfect moment. All the cliché shit present in just about every other teen romantic comedy movie was coming together for the two of us: the moonlight beaming on his face, his eyes flickering from my eyes to my lips and how his hands had shifted from on top of my palms to the small of my back. I wasn’t really good at reciprocating glances and body gestures, so I was trying my best to not screw up and look extremely awkward during that specific moment in time.

And when he was finally leaning forward to close the distance between us, the front door just obnoxiously bursts open to reveal a stunned Michael and a swooning Liz gawking over us. I immediately pull away, ashamed to have been caught in a merely intimate moment, and all the blood in my body flows to my face all at once. I catch Luke looking at his shoes, afraid to meet the eyes of the people in front of us. Goddamnit, we were so close.

“Oh my God, did we just interrupt a special moment of yours?” Michael asks in an annoying tone similar to that of a taunting eight year-old.

“Nah, buddy. I was just about to unlock the front door, thanks for asking,” Luke replies through grit teeth. Veins were showing on the side of his face, and I didn’t want to sound so boastful, but he looked just as frustrated as I was that our moment didn’t exactly push through and end the way we wanted it to.

Liz offered some consolation by saying, “Do you want Michael and I to close the door on you two so you can pick up where you left off?”. She had this huge smile plastered on her face, like she was just waiting the whole time for this event to happen and lead on to us producing her grandchildren, but Luke and I had pretty much lost our mood and came up with the unanimous decision to shrug and say no.

“Oh, that’s a shame. I’m sorry about that,” Liz replies. “But, Michael here just came by to say hello and fetch Tiana. He was just going to tour her around his home, didn’t you say that, Mike?”

Michael has this victorious smirk on his face, which obviously makes Luke snarl. “Yeah. Tiana and I have been friends for quite a long time as well, and my parents have been itching to see her ever since they heard that she was in town for the holidays. Would you mind if I steal her away from you, old pal?”

Luke rolls his eyes and mutters an insincere response. “No problem at all, buddy.” I catch myself forcing a few tears back as Luke pushes me towards Michael’s direction and rushes back into the house, dashing up a flight of stairs and banging the door to his room. Liz decides to leave the two of us to our business and attend to her pot roast, and I almost scream out in desperation for her to stay with me even for just a little while.

But unfortunately, all I have is Michael. Michael staring into my eyes, Michael reaching out for my hand, Michael asking me if I wanted to go right now, Michael opening the door to the passenger seat and Michael driving me miles away from the place I currently wanted to be.

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SHORT I KNOW BUT IT IS AN UPDATE I HAVE FULFILLED MY PROMISE I LOVE U ALL BYE