Partners // l.r.h

DAY THREE

After walking into Home Ec, I saw something on the board. It read, "CAREER CHOOSING". We must be choosing "careers" today. I walked towards my normal seat to see Luke sitting in it with his feet on the desk.

"Luke, you're sitting in my seat," I told him. He looked up at me and took his feet off of the desk.

"Yeah, so?" He looked up at me, shrugging and not moving from the seat, "you can sit anywhere in the room. You don't have to sit here. We don't have assigned seats."

"But I like sitting in this seat. I always do. Can you please just move to where you were yesterday and let me sit here?" I begged.

"You can't handle a little bit of change, sweetheart?" He smirked at me, turning away to talk to one of his friends. I sighed at sat down in the seat beside him, putting my books underneath the table.

Mrs. Miller got the class's attention, and she started to explain what we were doing in class today.

"Today, we're choosing careers for your marriage project. You'll have to pretend that you have this job in this class. Maybe you won't outside of class, but you will in class, okay?"

"Okay," the class answered.

Mrs. Miller grabbed a basket full of papers, sort of like she had done yesterday, and passed it around for people to choose a paper and see what their career was.

When the basket got to me, I picked one out and handed the basket to Luke. He chose one, then we both opened them at the same time.

"Mine is a marriage/family therapist," I told him. He smiled when he read his. He must've liked it.

"A guitarist/lead singer in a band," he told me, showing me the paper, "I already play guitar and sing, so it's not much different," he laughed.

"Actually, it's a lot different. If you were in a band, you'd be away and touring a lot. I would say that you touring would bring up a problem in the marriage, maybe because you're away too much. But I'd be able to work through that with you since I'm a marriage/family therapist," I told him.

"This is actually a great combination," he nodded, looking down at his paper before sticking it in his book, between the pages I had looked at yesterday that he had dog-eared.

Because we were doing a lot of writing with this project, I knew that we would write about how our careers would work. We wrote about how when I would be at work and when he would be at work, if that created problems, and if it did create a problem, we'd write how we would fix it. It was actually pretty good.

"I know I might take this back later," Luke sighed, "but working with you on this project and being fake-married to you isn't half-bad."

"Thanks. Same with you. You're okay," I sort-of joked. He laughed, and we continued with our writings for the day.

"You're sitting with me again at lunch today, right?" He smiled slightly at me when he asked the question.

"I guess.. If you want me to. Are we still 'discussing the project'?" I wondered, watching his facial expression change.

"I don't know. You could call it that. We might discuss the project, but we can talk about other things," he shrugged. I finished up the last sentence in my writing and handed it into Mrs. Miller, and I took Luke's finished paper up with me too.

"I have something I need to talk to you about, but the period is about to end, so I'll talk to you about it at lunch, okay?" Luke suggested.

"Okay," I agreed, grabbing all of my books and piling them on my desk, one on top of the other, neatly like I always do.

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Later at lunch, Luke called me over to a round table. He wasn't sitting with his friends, and I wondered why. We had sat with his friends the past two days. I didn't know why he wanted to change now.

"Why are we sitting alone?" I wondered as I sat down next to him.

"Well, my friends were being assholes, and I didn't like when they glared at you like that. I mean, you're a person too. You're no different than them. Well, you are different than them, but you know what I mean," he babbled.

"Yeah, I understand. Also, thank you. I was getting pretty annoyed with their stares while I was eating my lunch," I chuckled.

"You're welcome," he nodded, picking up his sandwich and bringing it towards his mouth, taking a bite.

"You told me you had something to talk to me about now while we were in Home Ec."

"Oh yeah, that!" He exclaimed, putting down his sandwich. He seemed to think a little bit before he spoke, "I have a basketball game on Friday night.. And that is when we're supposed to have the doll. I was wondering that maybe you could come to my game, then afterwards, you could come to my house and we could care for the baby?"

"Uh," I took in all of the information, trying to figure out what I could do. I didn't know if my mum would want me staying at Luke's house. I bet she would let me if it was for a project, though, so I agreed.

"Good. And you'll get to see me play basketball. I'm pretty amazing at it, as you'll see on Friday night," he smirked, bragging about his basketball abilities.

"I will. I'm excited too," I chuckled a little.

"That's good. Have you been to many basketball games? Do you know how basketball works?"

"Yeah, mainly. I've been to a few of my brother's games, when he was in high school. Now my third youngest brother is in middle school, so we sometimes go to the junior high games. My oldest younger brother plays football in varsity, so we go to those games, but he doesn't play basketball, so we don't go to the varsity basketball games," I explained.

"How many brothers do you have?" He asked me, surprised at how many brothers I was talking about, "and do you have any sisters?"

"No, I'm the only girl. I have five brothers. One is in his fourth year of college, and his name is Dane-"

"Wait.. THE Dane Murphy? I didn't know he was your brother!" Luke exclaimed. He must've heard of him because of his record in basketball.

"You know him?"

"No, but I'd love to! He's amazing at basketball. I used to go to the varsity games just to see him play."

"Well, yeah.. He's my amazing older brother. Then, one of my brothers, Dylan, is a sophomore in high school. Colton is in year eight in the junior high, Logan is in year four, and my youngest brother, Parker, is in kindergarten."

"Wow. I have two brothers, Ben and Jack. Jack is two years older than me, Ben is four years older than me," he shrugged. I nodded after actually learning a little about Luke's family.