Loving Luke | muke [c]

Three

Luke was good at many things. He knew how to make amazing guitars from scratch: polishing wood, painting the body and making the neck the smoothest thing I had ever touched. He knew how to sing and play guitar like no one I had ever seen. He knew how to make the most spectacular mac and cheese Perth had ever seen and he was a Physics genius. Anything that included numbers and formulae, it was Luke's thing. He wasn't, however, good in English, which was why it didn't come as much of a surprise to me when I saw Luke sitting by my doorstep on the afternoon before his English exam, patiently waiting for me as he scrolled through his phone.

I had locked my window that morning, which explained why Luke was sitting outside instead of in my room. It automatically made me feel bad: I knew it was going to rain, which was why I locked it in the first place, and there Luke sat, drenched in rain with his hair sticking to his forehead and fancy school uniform sticking to his lanky body. He was curled up, legs brought up to his chest and arms wrapped around himself with his phone in hands. His chin rested on his knees and seeing that made me smile. Luke always teased me as a kid for sitting like that, and now, it was almost like he had adopted all of my habits much like I had adopted his of twitching my nose whenever I was uncertain or biting my lip when I got uncomfortable.

He looked up as I approached, relief washing through his features as he saw it was actually me and not just some random person walking past. He quickly stood up, cringing at his soaked up uniform before his eyes met mine again. I knew I was wet too from the short walk from the bus stop to my house, but I was nowhere near as wet as Luke. Neither of us said anything as I took the house keys from the front pocket of my school shorts, unlocking the door and letting Luke in. I knew my mum was going to yell at me for dripping around the freshly polished wooden floors, but I didn't even bother telling Luke to watch out for anything. He was bound to get a tantrum from my mother too.

"What brings you here on this fine afternoon?" I asked with a smirk, knowing exactly what he needed as we walked into my room.

"ATAR Lit." Luke sighed as he began stripping out of his school uniform. He didn't even have to ask me if he could borrow some clothes, we were close enough for him to simply walk into my closet and get whatever he needed.

"I still don't understand why you chose to take Literature. You suck at English." I shook my head as I entered my ensuite bathroom, stripping out of my uniform before drying myself up. I knew I needed to shower, but that would have to wait until I was done with Luke. I wrapped the towel around my waist, taking the clean shirt I always left in my bathroom for situations like this before pulling it over my head. I didn't want Luke seeing my fat self and I didn't want to see it either.

"Because you chose Lit, duh." Luke rolled his eyes playfully, smiling widely at me over his shoulder as he stepped into a dry pair of boxers. I couldn't help but admire his body when he wasn't looking. If only I was enough for a person like Luke, if only Luke was my soulmate. "If I took English, who would help me out?"

"Calum." I shrugged nonchalantly, pulling my own boxers up my legs before dropping the towel and reaching for my joggers. By the time I was dressed, Luke was already sitting on my bed, brand new book in hand. "Did you only just buy the book you were supposed to be reading for the last three months?"

"Calum is useless." Luke snorted, flicking through the pages of the tragedy before giving me a shy smile. "I mean... you know me well enough to know I wouldn't read it until last minute, so, like, yeah. I've read it and stuff, but I honestly don't see it."

"Are you kidding?" I gasped, taking my own copy from my desk. Unlike Luke's, the corners of my book were all bent from being read over and over, the pages were filled with highlighted verses and little notes on the margin of the page, arrows pointing in every direction to link back to certain ideas. "Phaedra is one of the greatest tragedies of all time. It's pitiful and horrifying at the same time, it is obscure and complex and the whole play itself is one big pang in the heart."