Fall.

Chapter 3.

I was minding my own business, watching late night TV by myself when I heard a knock on the front door. Mom was asleep and I knew that Eric was going to be out with his friends until much later, so I was a bit confused about who would be coming over at this time.

I quickly slid across the floor in my fuzzy slipper socks to answer the door, careful not to make too much noise and wake Mom. I opened the door, not bothering to look through the peep hole first. I rarely ever did that anyway. I assumed that if anyone it would be Michael at the door, there had been more than a few times where Michael had shown up in the middle of the night for almost no reason.

The last person I expected to show up at my door at 3 in the morning was Luke Hemmings.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered. I had seen Luke just a few hours before, when he was over for tutoring. Luke leaned against the frame of the door, looking down at the floor.

"Nice socks." He laughed. Laughed.

"Are you okay?" I asked. I had only been standing here talking to Luke for a few seconds and he was already acting strange.

"I'm drunk." Luke looked up at me and smiled. It still wasn't a full smile, I guess I hadn't cracked him open that much yet.

"So, why are you here?" Luke could have come anywhere else but my apartment.

"My mom is going to kill me." Luke whined. Part of me kind of liked him better drunk, he acted like a normal teenager. He was actually a lot funnier this way compared to how he normally acted.

Luke collapsed against the door frame again and leaned up against it, letting his head hit the wall. He muttered an ow and kicked at the floor. I wonder how he even got drunk in the first place, Luke wasn't the type to go to parties, and he didn't even have friends to get drunk with in the first place.

"Do you want to come inside?" I finally asked. I didn't want to stay out in the hallway for the rest of the night. Luke pushed past me and walked inside without saying anything. I followed Luke into the living room where he threw himself down on the couch.

"What happened to you?" I tried to push Luke's legs off to the side so I could sit down, but he didn't let me move them. I could see that even when Luke was drunk he was still very persistent about this type of stuff.

"I went to a party." Luke mumbled with his face in a pillow.

"With who?" I don't know why I was asking so many questions, I wasn't even sure if Luke was going to understand me. I had never talked to a drunk person before, so I didn't know how Luke would react to all these questions.

"Erm, I can't remember." Luke rolled over. He sat up and let out a big sigh.

"Why can't you just go home?" I continued to shoot out questions at him. I was a little uncomfortable with the fact that Luke chose to crash here because he was drunk.

"I said already," Luke groaned, his words slightly slurred. "My mom."

"So why did you go get drunk?" I had never drank alcohol myself, so I wondered what made Luke decide that he wanted to do so.

"You ask so many questions. My head hurts." Luke made a whimpering noise in the back of his throat and held either side of his head in his hands.

"Answer me first and then I'll go get you some Advil." I ordered. I hoped this wasn't a regular thing, Luke making me take care of him like this. I was happy that I was becoming closer to Luke but I didn't want him showing up at my apartment in the middle of the night whenever he got drunk.

"I don't know, I felt like it." Luke whined.

"That's not a good enough answer." I said, sighing.

"I just get so much shit from everyone. Even my mom." Luke brought his knees up and held them close to his chest.

"You went out and got drunk because of her?" Despite not getting the answer that I wanted from Luke, I got up and searched around for some Advil, leaving Luke to think about the new answer he wanted to give me.

When I returned Luke was still in the same position on the couch, staring off into space like he didn't even know where he was. I waved a hand in front of his face and dropped the Advil in his palm. After that, I walked off into the kitchen and filled a glass of water up for him, before coming back and placing it in his other hand. He held on to both things, still not moving.

"Who's party was it?" I asked a different question once I realized Luke wasn't answering me original one.

"I don't know." Luke said slowly. He sounded like he was trying to remember, but couldn't.

"I hope that you don't expect this to happen all the time. I can't have you coming here every time you get drunk." I sat down next to Luke.

"Why not?" He turned his head to the side in question. He looked like a little kid that had just been scolded.

"Well," I paused. "It's just weird. You act like you hate me and then you show up here expecting me to take care of you."

"I can't- I can't do it on my own right now." Luke said, taking another big sip of water.

"That's not really my fault, Luke." I sighed.

"You don't know that." He curled up in a little ball with his knees tucked into his chest and rolled over.

"You said you went out tonight because of your mom, not me." I had no idea what Luke was talking about now, and I'm not sure he even knew.

"I never said it was my mom." Luke giggled, acting like a little kid again. I was beginning to get tired of Luke, it was too out of the ordinary - and tiring- to have him act like this.

"Okay, fine. I'm not going to argue with you about this right now." I threw my hands in the air, giving up.

"Don't get mad at me over this. I'm drunk." Luke sat upright again, putting his head in his hands.

"That's not an excuse." I snapped.

"Can I sleep here tonight?" Luke asked, quickly changing the subject.

I thought for a minute before answering him. I wasn't sure how Mom would react to find Luke sleeping on our couch in the morning, but I'd rather have her get mad at me for that than Luke getting in even more trouble for coming home drunk. It would be worse for her to catch us in the same bed, and that obviously wasn't going to happen.

"Fine. Just hang out on the couch." I turned away from Luke and began to walk down the hallway into my own room.

"Okay." Luke mumbled quietly. "Stel?"

By this point I had completely given up on trying to get him to call me Stella. Even when he was drunk, he continued to call me Stel. I didn't think it was going to be so hard for him to just say one extra syllable, but I guess for Luke it was.

"Yeah?" I turned around to face him again.

"I'm sorry, really. This won't happen again." Luke said. He looked down at his feet. I just couldn't get over the way he was acting, it was as if he was a total opposite of how he normally was.

"It's... It's fine, Luke. Goodnight." I slowly backed my way down the hall, waiting to see if Luke had anything else to say.

"Goodnight, Stel."


~


"Stella! Stella! Stella get up!" I was woken up the next morning by someone yelling in my ear and jumping on my bed.

"What?" I groaned, rolling over to find the source of the voice. The bright flash of pink flying throughout the air immediately gave it away. "Why are you here?"

"I was bored. It's almost 11:00." Michael shrugged, doing one final jump and landing next to me on the bed.

"Is it really?" I sat up straight. I hardly ever slept in late like this. I was only up until around 3:30 last night, I could usually wake myself up at around 8:00.

"Yeah. And Luke is in your living room." Michael laughed, as he jabbed me in the stomach with his finger. "You should have told me he was sleeping over! I could have come to, I stayed up all night trying to watch movies on my laptop-"

"He's still here?" I shouted. This time I physically rolled out of the bed. I feared that Mom had already gotten to Luke. I was planning on getting him out early enough so she wouldn't question him.

"He's just chillin' on the couch. I walked in and he told me that he crashed here last night. Are you guys, like, you know.." Michael's voice trailed off as he began to laugh even harder.

"No, he showed up late last night and asked if he could stay the night because he was drunk and didn't want to go home." I explained. I didn't know that Luke was planning on spending his whole day here.

Michael shifted his weight in the bed and propped himself up in his elbows. He shook his head back and forth, like he didn't believe what I was telling him, even though that was stupid of him. He should know about the type of relationship Luke and I have, we wouldn't do anything that involved actually touching each other.

"How is Ashton going to feel about this?" Michael asked, raising an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" I took a step closer to the bed at the mention of Ashton's name. Clearly, I wanted to know about anything that had to do with him.

"Come on, Stella. We all know he likes you." The thought of Ashton liking me put butterflies in my stomach, but I tried to make sure that Michael wouldn't know I was feeling that way.

"I didn't know that!" I defended myself.

"Even I knew that." Another voice appeared in the doorway.

"Luke! How long have you been standing there?" I jumped back, startled.

"I saw you roll out of bed." He stood against the frame of my bedroom door, obviously wearing the same clothes that he had on last night, which I hadn't been able to see in the dark. He wore just a plain black button up shirt and those black skinny jeans with a hole in the knee. Even though he would look a lot better if he wore some color, he still looked nice.

"Oh." I said. I looked down at the floor for a second, heat creeping onto my cheeks.

"Your hair's a little messed up." Luke gave me a small smile, gesturing to his own hair.

"Yeah, it's...bed head." I looked back up at him. He ran his fingers through his own hair, subconsciously fixing it, like he always did.

"I took a shower, I hope that's alright. Your mom showed me where it was and everything." Luke spoke quickly and in a monotone voice, like he always did. Everything appeared to be back to normal.

"Oh, yeah that's fine." I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, like that would make me look somewhat presentable. I was still dressed in my big sweatpants and fuzzy socks.

"She went out, by the way. She didn't seem to care that I slept over either, in case you were worried." Luke said. That made me feel a lot better. I was honesty terrified that Mom would be upset with me for letting Luke spend the night.

"Good." I let out a sigh of relief.

"Anyway," Michael cleared his throat. "Ashton's probably gonna get upset about Luke sleeping over."

"Oh, bullshit." Luke groaned. "I slept on Stel's couch, not in her bed. Just because he likes her it doesn't mean he owns her."

"I'm still confused, when did he say he liked me?" I asked, my heart already racing. I caught a quick look at Luke to see him roll his eyes at me.

Ashton liking me back was almost like a dream come true. I'd had a crush on him for the last three years, but I had always assumed that he would never feel the same way about me. Ashton was cool and popular and I was, well, me. I didn't expect him to want to fall for someone like me, especially because I was a year younger than him.

"He didn't say anything. It's obvious, dumbass." Luke rolled his eyes at me again and Michael laughed, again.

I glared at Luke and he did it right back. I may have given myself some false hope last night when I told myself that Luke and I were becoming friends. At the moment I couldn't even stand him, I doubted that those feelings would change soon. It was impossible to get along with Luke, and that was no ones fault but his own.

"Can someone make waffles? I'm starving." Michael broke about our little staring contest.

"I have the waffle mix, but I don't have chocolate chips." I said. I remembered how Michael liked waffles with lots of chocolate in them.

"I have some! I'll go run down and grab them!" Michael jumped up from my bed and ran out the door, pushing past Luke. A few seconds later we heard the front door slam.

"Should I leave? I don't really want to intrude on Michael and your, um, waffle time." Luke awkwardly shifted his weight in the doorway.

"I don't care. Don't you have to go to work or something?" I asked. I was slightly annoyed with Luke right now, but part of me didn't want him to leave. He was different, and as much as I hated him at times I sort of liked having him around.

"I'm supposed to go over to a friends house at around 4:00, but.." Luke swayed his body from side to side.

"You have friends?" I gasped.

"Well, it's just Calum." Luke shrugged. I nodded, remembering the dark haired boy that I met a few weeks ago at the movie theater. "I'm just trying to stall for as long as I can so I don't have to go home before then."

"You still don't want to go home?" I asked. The way that Luke talked about his family always worried me. For as long as I remembered, I had hated the thought of a person not a actually enjoying their time at home.

"I know that my mom will be home, and I don't want to deal with that shit." Luke said, scratching the back of his neck.

"You'll have to go back eventually." I tried to reason with him.

"I wish I didn't." Luke scoffed. His expression hardly changed as he talked.

"Why do you hate being home so much?" I asked.

"You don't understand, Stel." Luke shook his head.

"You can hang out here for a little while, if you want. Michael and I won't really be doing anything." I shrugged. I pushed past Luke out of my room and made my way to the kitchen.

"Okay, thanks." Luke followed me as I paced back and forth my kitchen, gathering the supplies to make waffles.

I opened up a cabinet and got down on my knees, sticking my head in to search for a mixing bowl. "Feel free to look through the fridge for something to eat." I called behind me.

When I emerged out of the cabinet Luke was still standing in the exact same spot that I left him. He stood with his arms crossed firmly across his chest, resembling an adult that was upset with a child.

"I wonder where Michael is." I muttered to myself. I slid across the floor again in my socks to another cabinet to pull out the box of waffle mix.

"Are you going to make a move with Ashton?" Luke blurted out. I stopped sliding,

"I don't know, why does it matter?" I turned around to face Luke. The expression on his face hadn't changed at all.

"I was just wondering. I mean, you should, if you like him." Luke nervously scratched the back of his neck and looked down at the floor.

"Since when are you in the position to give relationship advice?" I scoffed. The thing that bothered me most about Luke was that one second he acted as if he didn't care and then next it felt like he wanted to be my best friend.

"I'm always in the position to give advice." Luke said, shrugging.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"I can't do whatever I want, don't test me Stel." Luke smirked at me from across the kitchen. Usually I wouldn't have felt so intimidated, but considering the fact that I was wearing a pair of fluffy pink socks I felt a little differently.

"I told you not to call me Stel." I snapped at him, even though it was no use.

"Oh, Stel, I can do whatever I want." Luke let out a small, quiet laugh while shaking his head at me.

"You're so annoying." I groaned. That's exactly what Luke was: annoying. Every little thing he did found some way to annoy me, no matter what it was. He just had that effect on me, and I hadn't been able to put my finger on it until now.

"Thanks. I think you're the only person who knows me well enough to know how annoying I actually am." Luke said. It sounded sarcastic, but I couldn't be sure. Almost everything that came out of that boys mouth was sarcastic.

"That's crazy, everyone knows you're annoying." I laughed.

"How so?" Luke cocked his head to the side, he was genuinely confused.

"Just.. The way you act is so annoying." I sighed, and Luke gave me another puzzled look.

I hated when he did that, scrunched his eyebrows together. He did it a lot when we were working on our math, and I was honestly the only time I'd ever found Luke cute. I guess I just had a soft spot for the way he looked while making that face, I couldn't resist it.

"How do I act?" He asked.

"Like you're too good for everyone else, just because you're so smart. It's annoying, Luke. You walk around school acting like you're so cool because you're Luke Hemmings and you don't have any other friends because you're just soo smart and you don't need any. You may think you look cool but you really don't, you just look stuck up and rude." I huffed. Luke continued to stare at me with that puzzled look of his.

"You think I asked for this, Stel?" Luke said after a minute. He took a step closer to me.

"You make it seem that way." I shrugged.

"Jesus, Stel. You really are stupid." Luke laughed again.

"I don't understand." I said slowly, leaving a lot of space between each word.

"You're so-" Luke was cut off by the front door slamming.

"I FOUND THE CHOCOLATE CHIPS!" Michael yelled as he ran into the kitchen. "What's happening here?" He asked, gesturing to Luke and I. In the midst of us yelling at each other I hadn't realized how close we'd gotten.

"Nothing's happening. I'm leaving, that's what's happening." Luke quickly stepped back from me and stormed out of the kitchen.

"Luke!" I chased after him. He had his hand on the doorknob and was ready to walk out of the apartment. I could feel Michael walking up behind me.

"What do you want?" Luke threw his head back and groaned.

"I didn't mean to make you mad." I sighed. It was true, I had assumed that Luke would agree with what I had to say, I didn't know that he would be offended.

"I- nevermind, you aren't worth it." Luke turned around again and began to turn the doorknob.

"Not worth what!?" I shouted. I grabbed Luke's shoulder and turned him back around.

"I said nevermind, Stel. I'm leaving. Goodbye." Luke spoke through gritted teeth.

"You don't have to leave." I said, slowly releasing my grip on Luke's shoulder.

"Yeah, I do. Bye." He turned around again and opened the door all the way. "Thanks, Stel."

"For what?" I asked, almost in a whisper.

"Jesus, Stel." Luke shook his head and me and slammed the door in my face.

"What just happened?" Michael asked, after a long few minutes of him watching me stare at the door. I had been trying to figure out myself what had just happened. It seemed like Luke just blew up out no where.

"I don't even know." I sighed, rubbing my hands over my face.

"Soo... How about those waffles?"



I feel like you all may think this chapter doesn't make sense but I promise it will okay I hope you enjoy it anyway and ily thank you for almost 15K reads!