The Art Of Love / l.h ✔️

27

~Luke's POV~

I sat in my room on Wednesday afternoon, my bedroom door wide open so I could hear Axel and Fae while they worked together on their art project in her bedroom. Her bedroom door was shut and she had firmly denied me any access into the room while they were working, which I admittedly pouted over for quite a while.

Zayden, my partner for the project, and I had surprisingly already finished our project. Then again, neither of us had exactly put much work into actually working. Still, at least we had something to turn in to Mr. Thomason on Friday. However, because I had nothing to do, I was now stuck here just listening to the sound of their conversation as best as I could from my room. Everything sounded very muffled though. I could occasionally hear the sound of Fae's melodic giggle, which just made me jealous. I didn't want any other guy making her laugh except for me. She's mine. Maybe it was a little possessive of me, but I wanted to be the only guy to be able to make her laugh like that.

A sigh left my lips as I slid out of my bed, deciding that I should probably stop sitting around in bed and making myself jealous. It wasn't that I was jealous because I didn't trust Fae not to flirt with him. I knew she wouldn't and I trusted her. However, I didn't trust Axel. First of all, he clearly had feelings for Fae that I was pretty sure she was completely oblivious to, which was bad enough, but even worse is that nobody knew Fae and I were dating. In his eyes, she was fair game. There was no reason for him to not flirt with her. I'd have been mad at him, but realistically I knew I couldn't be because, again, nobody knew we were dating. I wasn't mad at him. Just jealous that he was more than likely flirting with her and that he was making her laugh.

I knew that there was obviously a very easy solution to that problem, that solution being that Fae and I make it known that we're together. For some reason, though, we hadn't. Because of Maria. Fae had told me plenty of times she didn't want Maria to know, all because she didn't want to possibly lose one of her friends. In my opinion, Maria was a friend that she needed to lose because she treated my girl like shit. She always put her down. I don't have any friends other than Fae, but even I'm more than aware that real friends don't do shit like that. But Fae is sweet, and a little naïve. I can tell she's holding on to the hope that Maria treating her the way she does is just some sort of bumpy road, one that they'll get off of soon, but I'm not seeing an end to it. Even so, I decided to respect her wishes to not tell people about our relationship because I didn't want to upset her.

I forced myself to push my thoughts away and left my room, heading down the hallway and into the kitchen. Thankfully, neither Fae's mom or her dad were in the kitchen and I didn't cross paths with them on the way there, either. They were nice and I appreciated them letting me stay here, but I could hardly handle myself when Fae was with me and they spoke to me. I'd probably make a fool of myself if I had to speak to either of them alone.

Feeling a little hungry, I opened the fridge and looked through it, trying to find something to eat. I was so focused on trying to find something that I didn't even hear the footsteps that entered the kitchen until I shut the fridge door. Fae and Axel both stood in the entrance of the kitchen, her big brown eyes on me with a smile on her full lips while Axel stood behind her, way too close for my liking. She didn't even seem to realize how close he was to her, though. "Oh, hi." Fae smiled, her brown gaze drifting down the length of my body.

I felt a twinge of satisfaction shoot through me at the feeling of her eyes on me, knowing she was checking me out. It just proved to me further that she was mine, especially with that little hickey she had on her neck, peeking out from the edge of her oversized sweater. The hickey was faint because it was a little old, but it was still there. I wondered briefly if Axel had noticed it and, if he had, if it had put him off of flirting with her. Judging by the way he was looking down at her, I would've guessed not.

"Hi." I answered, wondering what they were doing down here. I noticed as I scanned my eyes over her that she had purple, red and pink paint on her hands, knees, thighs, a little on her shins, and even on her sweater. She looked fucking adorable. "Were you hungry? I was actually about to put some pizza in the oven." She said, running a hand through her black hair. I paused and stared at her. She was going to make pizza? For her and...Axel? I wondered for a moment if she had planned to ask me if I wanted any, had I not been down here already. "Pizza?" I echoed, perking up at the thought of food.

Fae's full lips turned up into another smile and she nodded her head, making her way over to me. Or I thought she was coming to me, at least, but she skirted around me at the very last second and pulled open the freezer to get out a big pizza. I felt a wave of disappointment, having had the hope that maybe she was going to at least hug me, or something. I'd have even taken a little brush of her hand against mine. I watched her as she opened the pizza after she'd set the oven to the temperature it needed to be set to, letting it heat up while she opened the box. Both Axel and I just stupidly stared at her while she put the pizza onto a circle shaped baking sheet after she'd unwrapped it from the plastic that was around it, watching as if we'd never seen anything like it. Then, I remembered that she had paint on her hands and frowned.

"Is that dry?" I asked, pointing at the paint on her hands. She looked down at her hands and then up at me again, a little smile growing on her lips. "Yeah. I tried to get it all off, but it had dried a lot already and won't come off. I scrubbed for like, five minutes." She explained, shrugging her shoulders. I chuckled and relaxed against the counter, sensing Axel walk more into the kitchen and around the island counter to be closer to Fae. My stomach churned with jealousy as she smiled at him and slid the pizza into the oven. "It was Axel's fault that I got paint all over my hands. He kept putting dumb words in places that they shouldn't go." She said, sending him a scolding look. He just chuckled and leaned close to her, way too fucking close. "Maybe stupid to you, angel." He grinned, causing me to have to force myself not to scowl. I didn't like that he was calling her angel.

"Besides," He began to add, that stupid grin on his face still. "Nobody but you made you use your fingers to blend to cover the words up." He defended himself, causing her cheeks to fill with color. She had taken her makeup off by now, being that it was past six PM, so I could easily see how red her cheeks had become. I didn't like that she was blushing because of him. "You took my brushes!" She exclaimed in response. He just chuckled and shrugged. "Don't worry. I'm not making fun of you. I thought it was cute." He teased her.

By now, I was practically ready to toss him right out the front door for very openly flirting with her, unable to help myself from feeling jealous. I was openly glaring at him and, somehow, the moron didn't even notice.

However, Fae easily noticed, her brown eyes glancing over at me and then back over to Axel. She gave him a small smile that was laced with shyness, subtly stepping away from him a little to put some distance between the two of them, luckily for me. "I'm gonna look for the pizza cutter." She said softly, walking over to the drawer that was to the left of the fridge, pulling it open and grabbing the pizza cutter out. I quietly watched her as she placed the cutter onto the island counter, brushing a strand of her dark hair out of her face. "So what'd you guys end up painting?" I asked, raising a brow. Even though they were both there in front of me, I wasn't really directing the question towards both of them. I was asking Fae, my eyes locked on her and her only.

She seemed to understand that because she bit her lip and briefly spared Axel a glance, but her gaze returned to me quickly. Then, she gave me a tiny smile. "You'll just have to see on Friday." She smiled, a glint in her eyes. I pouted but I didn't protest against it.

After the pizza had finished cooking, Fae pulled it out of the oven and set the hot sheet on top of the stove. The kitchen smelled of delicious pepperoni pizza, my mouth practically watering at the scent. Fae sliced the pizza using the pizza cutter, placing the cutter into the kitchen sink after she was done. I watched her as she grabbed three plates and handed one to me and Axel, keeping the other for herself. Both Axel and I took three slices while Fae took the last two, the two of them leaving me alone in the kitchen as they left the room. I noticed Axel was following closely behind her, like he was scared she'd just disappear if he wasn't right up on her. I didn't like it.

Even after they had both gone back upstairs and I couldn't hear or see them, my jealousy still lingered.