the bucket list | lrh

23 - happy

It only took Valentine a few days to decide that she wanted to speak to Luke again. It had been a few speechless mornings with her father, and a few restless nights with Mary that urged her to make the decision rationally. She hadn't given it much thought when she spoke up to Mary, announcing that she was done contemplating her relations with Luke Hemmings.

"Can I invite Luke over?"

"Girl, it's your house." Mary had spent the last couple of days being endlessly scolded by her best friend, despite having thought she escaped the wrath of an annoyed Valentine. The brunette was getting tired of hiding things from Mary though, and she didn't think it would be all that strange to hang out together.

"Yeah, but you're here. I don't wanna invite him if you don't want to hang out with him," she shrugged, her instincts to be polite surfacing in a sweet manner. Mary smiled at the girl, shrugging a little before nodding her head to signify that she didn't mind.

"I'm gonna go ask my dad," she announced, climbing up from where she was seated on a chair by the window in her room. She sauntered out of her bedroom and into the living room, thinking of the different ways she could suggest the idea to her father who was still quite obviously wary of the blonde boy.

"Hey daddy," she spoke, making her presence clear to Scout who was fully emerged in a political debate running on channel two. The man never was one for the bickering of old men with enlarged vocabularies, but he decided to give it a try today just to see how he'd like it. He hadn't expected to be so engaged after just a little bit of time, but he found himself enjoying the debate more than he figured.

"Hey, baby. What's up?" He asked, not bothering to rip his eyes away from the outdated television.

"Is it alright if Luke comes over to hang out with us?" She asked, leaning her weight on her toes in an innocent way. She knew what she was doing, she just wanted her father to agree.

That was enough to break Scout's trance, and his eyes snapped to his daughter almost instantaneously. With furrowed eyebrows and conflicted thoughts, he tilted his head in contemplation. "Yeah, I suppose. I can make dinner," he smiled, deciding not to give the girl too much trouble about it.

"It's only three," Valentine pointed out, resisting the urge to jump up and down in glee that her father had said yes. "Early dinner," Scout chuckled, turning his attention back to the television in front of him.

Valentine took this as her cue to exit, rumbling through the hallway and back into her bedroom where Mary had made herself at home.

"He said yes," she informed her friend, sitting down at the foot of her bed so that her legs were hanging off of the edge. She grabbed her phone quickly, typing in Luke's name and hitting the call button as if she had no time to waste.

Two rings had sounded before Luke picked up his phone, confused by what the caller ID was telling him. He almost thought he was hallucinating it, but he still answered faster than he usually would under any other circumstances.

The man had been lounging around at Michael's apartment, and he had hoped something would come up so that he could excuse himself to the bathroom. Ashton was there as well, and his typical banter was starting to bother the blonde to all ends. There's only so many lovesick puppy jokes a man can handle, and Luke had already arrived at that point.

"Hey. Val?" The voice had Valentine suddenly out of breath. She wasn't sure why exactly she had so quickly lost her ability to speak coherently, but Mary had an idea.

"Yeah... hi. Do you wanna come over? Mary's here too, my dad said he was gonna make dinner—" Mary snapped her fingers at the girl, signaling for her to stop before she began rambling.