The Art Of Love / l.h ✔️

24

~Fae's POV~

It had been two days and I still got wet every time I thought about the incident Luke and I had had in the kitchen. I still couldn't forget the way he felt, how hard he had been and the way he held me up against the wall.

While I sat at the lunch table, lost in the memory of that moment, I felt a hard kick to my ankle that snapped me out of my thoughts. I flinched in pain and looked at Maria with a frown on my face, knowing that she was the one who had kicked me. She raised a brow at me and leaned into the table, curiously looking at me. "What?" I asked, cocking my head to the side. She glanced over at the empty seat beside me, which was Luke's seat. Josh had learned his lesson on taking that seat, even if it had been his in the first place. It had been taken by Luke and he wasn't getting it back, which Josh realized after Luke had literally pulled him by his hair to remove him from his seat yesterday. Right now, though, Luke's chair was completely empty because he hadn't arrived yet.

"You and Luke are friends, right?" She asked, not sounding skeptic or jealous, but curious. I hadn't told her that he was living with me for a month, and I sure as hell hadn't told anyone that he and I were dating. She also still didn't know that it was me who she'd caught him kissing in the hall, which is why it was so awkward when she had ranted at me about the "dumb bitch" she'd seen him kissing. "Yeah, we are." I nodded, furrowing my brows in confusion. I wasn't really sure why she was asking that or where she was going with that question. "Why?" I asked, frowning slightly. She looked back over at me, sparkles of hope in her eyes.

"I was wondering if you could tell me the things he likes. I really like him, Fae, and I don't want to scare him away. Nothing I've been doing has worked even a little." She sighed, frowning sadly.

Guilt washed over me in large, suffocating waves. It was times like these that I started to wonder if I was doing the right thing by dating Luke and, therefore, betraying Maria. They both meant so much to me, but there was only so much that I could do for Maria short of telling her to leave him alone. Honestly, Luke had done that so many times that I was pretty sure I didn't need to. He was being blunt and open with her about how much he was uninterested in her, but I was trying to be a good friend here and let her down easy. She never seemed to take our answers as answers, though. It was like she just refused to believe that he didn't want to be with her. Even though Luke was dating me and I knew this, I still didn't have the heart to tell her that she should just give up on him. I'd done that before and it was hard enough. She wouldn't listen to me if I said that, anyways.

That was why I just gave her a small smile and shrugged my shoulders hopelessly. "Well, we're friends, Maria, but we don't really talk outside of school." I lied, sending her an apologetic look. Her face fell and she let out a huff, rolling her eyes. "Of course you're useless." She grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.

Her words offended me a bit, but I just frowned at her and turned back to my food, hesitantly chewing on a fruit snack. Right as I began to drift into my thoughts, Luke pulled his chair out and plopped down, sitting so close to me that our knees touched. My body warmed and I quickly shoved another fruit snack into my mouth, feeling flustered and hot just from that little brush of his knee against mine. Ever since what we'd done, it took so little contact for me to practically flood my panties. It was so embarrassing.

Luke set his tray of food onto the table and sent me a smile, seemingly oblivious to the affect he had on me. "Hey." He grinned, his eyes glancing down to my lips. I could tell he wanted to give me a kiss, but we both knew that Maria would've flipped out, so he didn't. "Hi." I greeted back, biting my cheek. He subtly placed a hand on my thigh and I blushed as he squeezed it, sending shivers through my body even though he was just touching my thigh a little. It wasn't even like it had been skin on skin contact, either, because I hadn't worn a skirt or shorts today.