Now | Luke Hemmings

Chapter 10

I was afraid it would become awkward again when Darcy would go to bed, but it didn’t.

My mom went to pick up my dad from work, as he always working till late in the evenings, and Luke and I sat on the couch watching TV.

We bickered a bit about what we should watch, but finally settled on How I Met Your Mother, which was his favourite TV show and something I hadn’t really watched before. 

We didn’t speak, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. He was one of the few people I felt comfortable in silence with, probably because in the beginning, we’d never really spoken at all. 

He wasn’t like back then, though, now. Back then, we didn’t speak because I felt like he didn’t want to talk to me. There was all this distance between us.

But now, I knew that if I started talking he would respond. Now, he laughed at things that happened on TV. Now, I actually felt like he was close to me, even though technically, there was the same amount of space between us. 

I wasn’t sure what had changed, maybe it was because I now knew about him living with Calum. But I liked that it changed. 

The episode ended, and I yawned. 

“You want to sleep?” Luke asked immediately. “You don’t have to stay up for me.” 

“No, it’s fine,” I said, even though I was definitely tired. But somehow, I was afraid if I went to sleep and woke up tomorrow, everything would be different. He would go home, talk to Calum and go back to his old, non-talkative self again. 

I couldn’t let that happen now, now that I felt like we were close to becoming something that actually resembled friends. 

I didn’t even know why I wanted to be friends with him. Maybe it was because of my old crush on him, or maybe I just saw how nice he could be, and that was the Luke I wanted to be friends with. That was the Luke everyone would want to be friends with, really. 

Or maybe I just enjoyed his presence. I enjoyed the simple thing we had, where I didn’t have to talk, where we could just be silent and not be awkward. At first, I hated it, and I hated him for it, but now, I liked the lack of pressure. 

“I didn’t know you play guitar.” 

I looked up to see him looking at the instrument in the corner. The thought crossed my mind that this must be the first time he started the conversation and not me. 

“I don’t,” I admitted. “I want to, but I’ve never really taken the time to learn.” 

It’s true that I write songs, although not often, but I don’t actually know how to read or play music. When I write a song, I just write down the lyrics. I can hear the melody in my head, and I remember the melody, but I don’t have a way of bringing it to life.

When I was 15, my parents gave me a guitar for my birthday. I’d loved that thing from the moment it lay in my hands, but I’d never actually played it. 

My parents wanted to find someone to give me guitar lessons, but I always said I was too busy with school right now, and I would do it later. Needless to say, that never happened. 

Luke stood up, picking up the instrument before sitting back down. His fingers curled around the neck of the guitar and I could tell immediately that he knew what he was doing.

“You play guitar?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he started playing a song, very softly, probably because he remembered Darcy was asleep. 

I didn’t say anything else, I just watched him. He played so effortlessly, as if he did this every day, and there was something mesmerizing about watching him play.