Sugar and Spice / l.h ✔️

3

~Maeve's POV~

I walked down the hallway at lunchtime, heading towards the cafeteria to meet up with Priscilla at our table with the rest of our friends. As I was walking down the hall, I saw someone unfamiliar just sat by himself against the wall, right on the floor by the vending machine. I frowned a little and slowed down my pace just a bit, wondering what he was doing sitting out here on the floor by himself.

I looked at him for a moment and realized that I didn't recognize him at all, so I wondered if maybe he was the new student that Priscilla had told me about earlier this morning. I took a moment to really look at him, or at least look at him as best as I could with his head turned down while he read a book that was in his lap. And when I took that moment to do so, I realized that Priscilla was right. He was very handsome, more than should be possible for one person.

His dyed platinum blonde hair was a little messy atop his head, but in a way that looked cute on him, somehow. It looked...right, like he didn't need to try to style it much or do anything with it for it to look nice on him.

He had a sharp jawline that was littered with light stubble and plump pink lips that, even from where I was standing, looked softer than any set of lips I'd ever seen. His nose was straight and pointy and his eyes, though they were a little hard to see since his head was turned down a little while he read, looked light enough that I assumed they must've been green or blue, one of the two. They definitely weren't dark enough to be brown, that was for sure.

And I knew by the length of his long legs and the set of broad shoulders he had that if he stood up, he'd be tall. There weren't very many tall boys in my school, so I knew he'd stick out like a sore thumb in the crowd because he'd tower over everyone. He was a big guy.

As I was looking at him, I didn't even realize that I had just been standing there in the middle of the hallway for a while now, staring at him for an embarrassingly long time. However, I quickly realized this when his head lifted and he met my gaze from where he sat on the ground, making me freeze awkwardly. There was nobody else around except for him and I, either, so I couldn't even pretend like I hadn't been looking at him but at someone else. He'd caught me staring and it was embarrassing.

"Can I help you?" He asked me, raising a brow. His voice was low, a frown on his full lips as he eyed me up and down curiously.

"S-Sorry." I started to stutter a little. I wasn't normally a person who got anxious around others. I liked to make friends and I was quite a social butterfly, so talking to new people was pretty normal to me. The only reason I was stuttering was because it wasn't often that I got caught by an attractive guy as I was ogling him in the hallway. "I didn't mean to stare. I just didn't recognize you and was a little curious." I admitted, walking closer to him.

Now that I was closer and he was looking right up at me, I could see that his eyes were a pretty sky blue. "You're the new guy everyone's been talking about, right?" I assumed, peering down at him curiously. He narrowed his eyes at me, like he was perhaps unsure of why I was talking to him, and maybe he was. "I guess if everyone's been talking about me, then yeah." He muttered, closing his book before he stood up. And like I thought, he was surprisingly tall, towering over me. I had to take a step back because I didn't want to have to crane my neck all the way back.

"What's your name?" I asked him, curious. He was sitting out here by himself instead of eating lunch in the cafeteria, so I assumed maybe he hadn't made any friends yet, as this was his first day still.

"Luke." He answered in a mutter, shoving his book into his backpack before he swung his bag over his shoulder. I smiled up at him and he looked at me with narrowed eyes again. "I'm Maeve." I responded, and he simply hummed in acknowledgment. "Do you have anyone to sit with at lunch yet?" I asked, trying to weasle my way into conversation with him. However, he wasn't having it.

"Yeah, myself." He said flatly, pushing past me as he began to walk down the hallway, making it really rather obvious he had no further intentions of talking with me. I frowned and followed him, heading towards the cafeteria. "You're gonna sit alone?" I asked, walking up beside him.

He looked down at me, looking a little put off. I wondered if I was annoying him and almost wanted to shy away, because I didn't want to be that type of person that just bothers you and can't take a hint. "Yes." He mumbled, looking away. "Am I not allowed to or something?" He asked dryly. I frowned and shook my head, eyeing the side of his face and noticing that he even had a pretty side profile. "No, you are. I just..I was just wondering." I said softly, playing with the straps on my bag.

I wanted to invite him to come and sit at the table with Priscilla and I and the rest of our friends, but something told me that I shouldn't. We had literally just met not even five minutes ago, and he didn't seem like he wanted to talk to me very much, so I had a feeling that the answer would be no.

So instead of asking him anymore questions, which would probably just annoy him even further, I decided to just stay quiet. It was in my nature to try to befriend everyone, especially when it was someone who didn't seem to have friends. This time, though, seemed to be different. A lot of the time, people would respond rather easily and weren't difficult to talk to, but Luke was quiet and didn't really want to talk. Even I could get that sense and we'd just met.

We walked the rest of the way to the cafeteria together and then he went to a random table in the corner, where he sat alone by himself. I stood there for a minute, frowning slightly as I eyed him from where he'd left me standing. He just took out the book he'd been reading in the hallway and began reading again, his backpack sat on the top of the table. He already really seemed like an outcast and it was only his first day.

As I walked over to my table and sat down beside Priscilla, I snuck another glance at Luke, wondering if maybe he and I could become friends.