Betting on You

28

t w e n t y e i g h t

"Are you coming?"

I sighed through my nose, my closed eyes and relaxed state making me almost miss the words. Instead of opening my eyes and looking up at him, I chose to remain still, furrowing my brows despite the fact that he couldn't see my face.

"Coming to what?" I hummed softly, feeling sleepy. The rise and fall of Luke's chest that I had claimed as my pillow was like a lullaby, his heartbeat the subtle melody.

His fingers continued to play with my hair softly, his arm around me acting like a blanket as he held me cuddled into his side. I could tell that he had rolled his eyes by the sigh he let out, "The game," he drawled like it was obvious, "It's tonight."

"Well," I began, "When you start a sentence with 'are you coming?' and then don't follow it up with any context-"

"Simply a yes or no would suffice." He groaned, making me giggle lightly. I tucked my arms into his side and snuggled closer to him, his body blanketing mine in warmth. I smiled to myself at the way I could hear his heartbeat quicken.

"I don't think so."

At my answer, Luke stiffened underneath me, his fingers letting my hair fall through as they paused in their movement.

He waited for a second, "Why not?"

"I have an appointment."

After a couple of seconds, Luke picked up a strand of my hair again, weaving it through his fingers, "Oh."

We settled back into a comfortable silence then, which I liked. After that whole debacle with Harmony in his car last week, something between us shifted. We realized what had happened between us all those years ago; Harmony.

Harmony had intervened because of her crush on Luke. She knew that I liked him and that he liked me, and she didn't want us to realize what the other one had been feeling. She damaged us, using Luke's jealousy and our argument at the freshman party to fit her narrative.

With the air finally cleared, we had settled back into what used to feel like us. We fought significantly less. So much so, that the whole school had even noticed. Jaime kept asking me why Luke and I weren't bickering or throwing each other's things, or pushing each other around. Addison kept insinuating that he and I were hooking up — which I mean, we were — but Stephanie was pretending like she didn't care. Which made me nervous. A calm Stephanie was a scary Stephanie.

But behind closed doors, he and I were back into our old groove, even after all these years. Well, with the exception of kissing every now and then. We went from enemies with benefits to friends with benefits within almost a full three months. I was still trying to wrap my head around that fact.

We had finished our family's combined Thanksgiving dinner at my place. Usually, we alternated between houses for a combined one on Friday, and then Thanksgiving Monday is when my family did our own small thing. With Harmony and Aunt Marge here this year, I knew that Monday night's dinner was not going to be fun.

When the Hemmings' had gone home from our dinner around 11, Luke was climbing through my window within the hour. I had used my laptop to put on some shows for us but that was quickly forgotten about now. I don't even know what the show was, I was just happy to be back with my childhood best friend.