26. relationship?

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"Baby, let's face it. You can't crack eggs for shit."

I roll my eyes, choosing to ignore Luke's semi-offensive statement as he stares at me in exasperation.

"Sophie," he sighs, leaning over to snatch the bag of flour out of my hand. I manage to keep it out of his reach expertly, feeling pretty triumphant for getting it away in time, "That's not even the right measurement!"

"Will you let me work?" I ask sternly, though I'm unable to control my giggle as I try my hardest to weigh the correct amount.

"You're getting it all over the island," he groans, messing his hair up, "Have you never baked a cake before?"

"I thought we were baking cookies?"

"This just proves you don't listen. Hand me the bag," he instructs, and I shake my head.

"No. Let me work,"

"We won't get any work done if you don't stop messing about," he states in agitation, pinching the bridge of his nose.

I just ignore him, adding even more flour to the bowl despite it overflowing already. I'd stop, but I don't want to, because it's funny riling him up. "I think we need a bigger bowl,"

"No. I just need a bigger mouth so that you can actually listen to me for once," Luke sighs.

"Oh, I can hear you. I just choose to ignore you,"

"Charming."

"Very,"

I laugh once more at his agitated expression, amused at how little it takes for me to annoy him. Which says a lot, because Luke doesn't get irritated very easily.

"Will you lighten up?" I say, nudging him, "Here, we don't even need measurements,"

"What?!"

"They're too cliché," I scrap the cookbook positioned on the table, watching as Luke's mouth opens in slight shock, "We're trying not to be cliché."

"We are nowhere near cliché," he argues, "I doubt other people wake up at midnight just to bake cake at two A.M in the fucking morning," I open my mouth to contradict him, but he holds a finger up to stop me, "Naked."

"We're not naked," I narrow my eyes, "I'm wearing your shirt and you're wearing your boxers. That's not naked,"

"It might as well be,"

"Are you saying you'd rather me change into my pyjamas?" I ask, raising an eyebrow, "Because that covers everything-"

He's quick to shake his head, "Fuck no,"

"Then shut up, and watch your language," I mimick, in a deep voice meant to be him. He looks nowhere near amused as I make my way over to his fridge, humming under my breath.

I hear Luke groan, though I can tell he's not really annoyed, "You know, you get so sarcastic when you hang out with Ashley. I think she's starting to rub off on you,"

"She's my best friend. She rubbed off on me ages ago," I murmur subconsciously, rummaging through the endless protein shakes and whatever else he has in his fridge.

There's the odd chocolate bar, and a tomato or two at the side. The rest are literally just endless bottles of protein powder milkshakes; I think he has a problem.

"Is she your only friend?"

"Nope," I say, gently moving some of the bottles to the side, "There's Bailey, and Chloe-"

"Who are they?"

"My other friends," I respond. Then I look back at him, entertained, "Why are you asking?"

"No reason. I'm just curious," Luke shrugs, slipping onto the kitchen stool.

"Any reason for the sudden curiosity?"

"I don't know, to be honest. You've just never told me about your school life before," he replies, "I wanted to know,"

"Well, there's nothing much to tell," I say, shrugging too, "It's pretty boring."

"I bet it's not. I'm interested," he notes, nudging the spare stool next to him. I pause for a bit, before closing the fridge and taking a seat next to him.

"Exactly, that's how you know it's boring," I joke. Luke chuckles, rolling his eyes.

"Come on, I wanna know more,"

"There really isn't much to say. You know everything about me," I tell him, "And even if there were some things you didn't know, I probably would have told you by now,"

"I just want to know more about you," Luke says, reaching forward and taking my hand in his. What was supposed to be a midnight baking session has quickly spiralled into a calm talk, and I'm not sure how I feel about that; I still want cake.

I've never been good at talking about myself. There's never anything interesting to say.

I just go to school, learn my subjects, come home to my parents-but-not-parents, and obsess over a band that I love.

Only now, that obsession's been condensed; hanging out with Luke has somewhat surpressed my fangirling, though it's still there. It's like another personality that only comes out when I'm alone in my room with the laptop on.

"What do you wanna know?"

"I don't know. What do you want to tell me?"

"I can tell you about the one time I almost got arrested," I say, looking down at my nails. His eyes widen immediately, "But I didn't!"

"You almost got arrested?"

"Don't act like you've never done it,"

"I haven't, actually," Luke says, folding his arms, "How the fuck did you almost get arrested?"

"I was just an idiot,"

"How old were you?"

"Old enough,"

"Are you not going to tell me?"

"Maybe some other time," I smile, and Luke looks at me weirdly, "It's not necessarily something I want to relive at three in the morning,"

"Is it that bad?"

"No, I'm just lazy," I reply, with a slight laugh, "You can ask me some other things, though. I don't mind,"

"You don't?" Luke asks, suddenly looking a little bit more interested in the conversation.

I shake my head no. "I'll tell you anything you want."

"Okay," he gnaws on his bottom lip, scanning my face. I can tell that although we've known each other for quite some time now, he still probably has a lot of things to ask. "Okay. You ready?"

"I think so," I say.

"Have you always been a Luke girl?"

It takes a short brain rack for me to actually catch onto what he's talking about. The idea of Star Wars even pops into my head, for it completely slipped my mind what Luke meant by Luke.

Regardless, I nod, heart fluttering at the way his face lights up, "Mhm,"

"What, always?"

"Always," I reply, "I think I got called a fake fan once because of it."

"Oh, damn," Luke chuckles, combing his hand through his hair, "Then I'm sorry for that. I guess,"

"Apology accepted," I say, giggling, "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Have you always been a Sophie boy?" I joke, hoping he won't do a me and think of something completely different, "Or were you in Chloe's lane for quite some time?"

"You know, come to think of it... I've always kind of been swerving between yours and Michael's..." Luke says thoughtfully, staring up into space. My grin widens at his surprisingly fluent use of the 'fangirl' related terms. "Nah, actually, scratch that. I've always been in your lane,"

"Now I can't tell whether you're joking or not," I note. He laughs lightly.

"I'm not joking, I swear."

"How long have you been in my lane, then?" I question, playing along. "Or did you only just swerve because the other lanes were full?"

"Actually, I've been on your side of the road for quite some time now. It's a little stuffy, you know,"

"Oh?" I laugh. "How long?"

"How long has your Instagram been up?"

"I don't know. A year?" I ask/answer.

"Then ten months,"

"Ten months?!"

"Yeah-"

"And you never told me." I frown. Luke bites his bottom lip.

"Well, seeing as you were this close to deleting your account the one time I actually did decide to message you, I'm kinda glad that I did it later instead of sooner," he tells me playfully.

"Right," I say, a little unconvinced despite knowing I won't dwell on it.

"But to be honest, I really don't like your lane,"

"You don't?" should I be offended, or..?

"I do, and I don't. I do because it's yours," Luke begins, "But I don't because there's these boys thinking they have the right to drive their toddler bikes within the lines,"

"So I'm guessing my lane is a vehicles only lane?"

"Your lane isn't even that," he says, pointing before pausing. "It's a Luke lane."

"A Luke lane," I repeat, lips taut to surpress my wide smile.

"Yeah. Like, only Lukes can drive on it," he smirks playfully at me, "And I'm a Luke. So I'm basically the only one allowed on it,"

"You're not the only Luke in the world, you know," I note.

He shrugs, "Then I'll shove the other Lukes out of the way,"

"You can't do that,"

"Why not?"

"...Traffic."

"Fuck traffic. I'll run it over with my amazing Luke-minibus."

"Why are you driving a minibus in my lane?" I ask, eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly, "That's a little rude. Nobody gave you permission,"

"I need permission?"

"Consent, more like,"

"Consent to drive a bus in your lane?"

"Uhm, yes. What the hell's a relationship without consent?" I scoff.

I almost clap a hand over my mouth. Almost.

'Relationship' slips out so easily, that I fail to pick up on it right away. My brain begins to make excuses I can blurt to make sure Luke doesn't freak out, words that clump together to help him understand why I accidentally said what I did- but he doesn't seem to mind.

No, he just carries on, playing with my fingers. Looking absentmindedly at the way our hands are interlocked, his head in a completely different place.

I'm thankful he didn't notice. I don't know what I would have done if he did; I'd probably just make the sudden move to jump out of his creepy glass terrace window.

"That's true," Luke says, nodding his head slowly, "Okay. Enough lane talk. Can we go back to the questions?"

"Sure," I shrug my shoulders, reaching for the cookbook I'd thrown to the side earlier. The pictures suddenly seem very interesting to me now.

"What other things do you do in school? I mean, I know you do English, but you've never told me about the others,"

"I'm learning RS. And English Language," I say, trying to make it obvious that there's a difference between the two English-based subjects.

Luke furrows his eyebrows, "What, no Math?"

"I'm awful with numbers," I practically shudder.

"Really? I used to love Math," Luke states.

I bite my lip, remembering all of the times I'd stay up late reading Tutor!Luke fanfiction.

Is that creepy? Yes. Did fifteen year old me know that at the time? Yes, she did, only she gave zero fucks because she never expected to actually meet the guy she had her hand shoved down her pants for.

"I know," I say, cracking a small smile.

Glancing over at the clock, I'm surprised to see how much time has passed already. If it was too late to bake a cake two hours ago, then it's certainly way too late to bake anything now.

I begin to clear up some of the things we laid out earlier on- the bowls, the flour, the mini weighing scale. I make a mental note to start doing something like this at a more appropriate time next time.

"Hey," Luke says, leaning against the table and reaching out to me, "What are you doing?"

"Cleaning," I say, the corner of my lip twitching upwards at how cute and clueless he looks.

"What? I thought we were gonna make a cake,"

"We can do that tomorrow," I say, and a yawn slips out alongside my words; validating why we can't go through with our plan today.

"Well, can we at least talk for a bit?"

"That's all we've been doing," I giggle- even so, I don't object as Luke snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me onto his lap.

"Yeah, but I wanna keep talking to you," he mumbles into my hair, "You're fun."

"Can we talk in a clean kitchen, at least?" I try to wriggle out of his grasp, but to no avail. "Come on, Luke,"

"Can I ask you one more question before we start cleaning, though?" he asks, voice barely audible.

I sigh, figuring that he might as well seeing as we won't be able to get anything productive done otherwise.

"Fine," I refrain from rolling my eyes, "What do you want to ask?"

His 'question' comes out as more of a statement than something to ask, and my cheeks slowly start to grow red as he smirks against my ear,

"We're in a relationship now?"

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