“Okay, tell me the best pickup line you got,” Luan demands, then bites into his burger, not caring a single bit about how everyone in this restaurant keeps staring at us.
Luan thinks they’re staring because I’m famous, but that’s not true because I’m notthatfamous. Hockey fans know me, normal people not so much. They’re definitely staring because he keeps on talking so loudly and wears the color of the sun while sitting next tome.
Generally speaking, we don’t fit together inanyway. While he’s the literal sun, I’m the moon. We all know the sun doesn’t show up during the night.
“Grey Davis.” He snaps his fingers to get my attention. I look at him, cocking my head. “Pickup line. Now.”
“So demanding.” I groan but since it’s his birthday, I give him what he wants. I’m not sure why he wants it, but I learned to not question Luan. Taking a deep breath and leaning back in my seat, I say, “I don’t use pickup lines because I don’t want to pick you up; I want to pin you down.”
“Oh, please do.” He mutters a little dreamy right before his jaw drops when he realizes what exactly just left my, and then his mouth. “Well, you can pin me down anytime you want, Grey Davis.” He winks. I didn’t expect anything else from him.
I hum, not wanting to sayI won’tin words because I don’t know what the future holds, but also not taking him for his offer. With Luan, I sometimes don’t know what he means and what’s a joke, I’m still trying to figure him out. That annoys me the most. Every other person, I would’ve been able to figure out in a few hours, a day max. But Luan… he still remains a mystery to me. And he’s an open book.
“You say one,” I say.
He grins, and from that grin alone I know whatever comes out of that pretty mouth of his next will not be any good. “I heard that the tongue is the strongest muscle, so… wanna fight?”
I’m considering it…
Still considering it…
Yes. “No.”
“Hm, okay let me try another one then.”
I nod for him to go ahead, it’s not like I can run away from it or him anyway. No matter how hard I try to stay away, I always end up right back in his proximity.
While taking a sip of water seems great at this moment, it turns out to be the worst thing I could do.
“My favorite color might be yellow, but I can make you yell-oh.”
I cover my mouth with my hand, but it’s too late. Water just spurts out of me, and in my state of shock I don’t even care that half of our table is now wet, or that my clothes, too, are wet now. Or that about the entire restaurant is staring at us more than they did before.
“What the—Luan!”
He hands me a paper towel, laughing. “Did it work?” he asks. “Are you going to kiss me now?”
I shake my head, wiping off the water from my face first, then my pants which doesn’t work, and then move over to the table. “If someone wants to kiss you, you shouldn’t have to ask them to do it.”
“Yeah, but I might have to wait another year until you do, so I’m speeding up the process here.”
“You’ve done nothing butspeed upthe processever since we met.” Is it a lie? He’s been dropping things like this since day one, god knows why. Even if he saw a spark in me that day at the beach, nobody else wouldeversay the things he does so early on.
Luan liking me was never a secret, and I believe it never will be. Quite frankly, I’m not sure if that scares me.
It took me ages to find friends that I’m comfortable around. Friends who don’t judge me foranything. I could tell them I murdered someone and all three of them would help me hide the body. No questions asked.
It took Miles four-and-a-half years to get some answers out of me, toreallyget to know me deeper than the surface stuff.
And then there’s Luan who somehow decided to like me in the first two minutes he met me. At the time I didn’t talk to him at all, or very little.
I don’t understand it.
Chapter 4
“and if my wishes came true / it would’ve been you”—the 1 by Taylor Swift
February 2024
