This Love~... Jack Hughes

anxiety

"we were driving, the getaway car"
——taylor swift

i sat on the couch in the living room with luke and his brothers as we watched friends and family trickle in and say their 'hi's' to the hughes family. luke kept getting whisped away by everyone to take pictures and say greetings so i was left on the couch with his brothers in awkward silence.

"so... delilah, what do you do at university?" quinn asked making conversation.

"i'm studying to be a lawyer."
"wow, so you'll be in college for a while then huh?"
"no, actually i took this thing called a dual credit system back where i'm from which basically means after my sophmore year in high school i can go to my community college and cancel out the rest of high school. i still graduated with my class but i was two years ahead so i already had an associates degree. so i'll be at university for the normal four years."
"smartie pants, hm?" jack chuckled.

"i guess." i laughed back.

"what made you choose michigan?"
"i'm also a competitive cheerleader so this was one of the only schools with a good law school and athletics program."
"ok right, luke said something about that. you went to worlds?"
"yeah. we got second but honestly that's pretty good. i'll take being the second best cheer team out of multiple countries."
"yeah, that is really impressive."
"thank you." i smiled shyly at jack.

i felt arms wrap around me and a head on top of mine so i assumed it was luke.

"what you guys talkin' about?"
"school."
"ugh, boring." he groaned.

"fine, want me to tell them about your college stories?"
"no, you better not."
"what stories?"
"luke called me crying on the phone once cause he asked a girl on a date and didn't know what to do, so he called me and was like 'i just asked a girl on a date and i don't know what to do, i-i've never been on a date before'." i said laughing.

"come on, really, deli?"
"please tell more." both of his brothers leaned in and sat at the edge of their seats.

"i ended up planning the whole date, but he screwed it all up cause he told her they were good friends, and it was nice to hang out, so she told my friend she was upset cause she thought it was a date, which it was, but he told her they were only friends."
"well i didn't want to say she was my girlfriend."
"yeah but you completely friend zoned her."
"ok, be quiet, you're acting like you haven't messed up on dates before. she went on a date with some dude that was so weird he did the whole 'let's count shoulders' arm thing and she went to the bathroom to facetime me so my friends and i all picked her up."
"it was so embarrassing cause he walked me out and tried to kiss me but i pushed him away and then luke pulled up with my getaway car and all our guy friends so i looked like a whore." i whispered the last part so his family didn't hear me using foul language.

"yeah, and then he tried to serenade her in the hallway so she hid behind me and walked away as fast as she could."
"and he skipped a class to interrupt mine and try to talk to me."
"she got a restraining order against him on school grounds."
"you can do that?"
"yeah. my teacher was very helpful. he was a stalker if i've ever seen one."

everyone went quiet as the doorbell rang to the hughes household.

"it's probably the camera people."

luke got up from beside me and greeted the camera people and they got set up by the couch where the hughes family would sit.

"the draft starts in about twenty minutes so get everything ready and situated and then we'll be live." they informed the family.