Luella

20 | bad puns

H A R R Y

"So, yeah, this is my room."

Luella steps in warily with wide eyes as if waiting for bombs to explode from under my bed or zombies to come out of my closet. I leave the door open for the sole reason that I'd be able to hear my aunt for when she calls for us from downstairs.

"It's..."

"What, you speechless?" I taunt, following her into the room to collapse on my neat, mango-scented bed sheets.

My room has always been neat, since I barely spend time in it because I have a dorm room at the college. And even when I do, Josie finds something to do and cleans up the whole thing like it might have been infected with a disease.

The occupants of my room are the essentials: my king-sized bed, a walk-in closet, my old electric guitar long forgotten in a corner with its massive speakers, and the old posters of some music bands and classic cars I used to obsess over littering the blank wall. Everything is almost black, white and red.

"Well, yes. I would've expected your room to be more boyish and messier than this piece of heaven."

I chuckle at her words and sit up. "Yeah, that would be the definition of my college dorm room, since I do practically live there now."

"Oh, yeah, right. Guess it makes sense."

I narrow my eyes at her figure and the air goes back to dense again as it was when I've seen her earlier in that outfit. She looked way younger, cuter, adorable-er, than she always looks and it gobsmacked me in the face. The air has been awkward between us since then, or rather since our almost-kiss and Luella almost dropping out of the bet. Thank God she fell for my excuse.

It's pretty clear and obvious that she can decide anytime and anywhere that she doesn't wanna go on anymore and no one will even give her shit about it because she's simply right. All I do is pretend there's this magical mystery girl that I'm crushing on so she has to help me. The plan kind of backfired since that's the only thing on her mind when I try to compliment her or make an innocent move, and it's seriously getting annoying.

"Are we, like, okay?" I blurt, nibbling on my lips as I watch a frown crown her forehead.

"What do you mean?" Luella asks.

I sigh and scratch my head before I start making random gestures with my hands. "Like, I dunno. There's this high density in the air and I just wanna make sure that everything's okay between us."

I physically cringe at how that sounded and fold my hands in my lap, pursing my lips as I watch her tilt her head in that adorable way only she can sport. "Oh. We're fine, I don't see why not. Well, you're actually a massive jerk, but I'm on my way to getting used to that."

I let out an amused, surprised chortle and shake my head as her eyes wrinkle and mouth widen in a grin that instantly lights up the room and all awkwardness is long gone. "Why, thank you very much, m'lady."

Luella rolls her eyes and put a hand to her heart in exasperation. "Oh, God, she makes me so embarrassed that the words get stuck in my throat."

"Yup, she does that," I laugh and totally-in-a-friendly-way pat the space on the bed next to me so she can have a seat. She hides her blush and smiles in thanks before she sits at the farthest space on the bed away from me as possible that I have to chuckle.

"I have to say, though, I honestly feel kind of bad about lying to her. I mean, let's just tell her we're good friends, Harry." Luella suggests.

I raise my eyebrows at her and watch her round blue pools of eyes. "Are we good friends?"