Chapter 14 Luke
FOURTEEN
LUKE
My head feels like a jackhammer set to dubstep.
I groan and bury my face in the pillow—only to inhale tequila sweat and peppermint gum and come nose-to-hair with Daniel’s unruly curls.
We’re both fully clothed—thank god. My jeans are wrinkled and twisted at the waist like I passed out mid-strip, and Daniel is star-fished across the mattress like he owns it. Typical.
“Move,” I grumble, nudging him with my foot.
He groans but doesn’t stir. Corpse in a crime scene reenactment. Mouth open. One sock on. The other MIA.
I squint at the room. It looks like we exploded a glitter bomb in the middle of a Taco Bell drive-thru.
There’s a trail of wrappers on the floor, one of my shirt’s hanging off the lamp like it’s trying out for a burlesque show, and my glitter eye makeup exploded across the rug. Mystery solved on the glitter.
My phone buzzes against my thigh, as persistent as a drunk hookup trying to score a round two. I roll over with a groan and fish it from my pocket, wincing at the assault of light. Notifications light up the lock screen.
7 Prism messages.
1 text.
Seven messages on Prism? Seriously? I haven’t hooked up with anyone since…Yeah. No. Not thinking about him. Not before coffee.
I swipe the notifications away without reading them. My thumb hesitates—just for a second—but I ignore that too.
Then I drop back down beside Daniel. If he’s gonna take up half my bed, he’s gonna get cuddled. I’m a cuddlier. Always have been. Just not the feelings part. Not the commitment or the part where someone gets close enough to hurt you.
I toss the phone onto the nightstand as if it’s offended me personally and roll into Daniel’s space, tossing an arm over his chest. If he’s going to claim my bed, he can deal with the consequences. He shifts under the weight of my arm, groaning like he’s being murdered in slow motion.
“Ugh. What time is it?” he rasps.
“Too early,” I mumble, already settling in as if we’re in a rom-com montage and not two exhausted queers with hangovers and no self-preservation skills.
He blinks one eye open and glares at me. “Why are you cuddling me like I’m your boyfriend?”
“Because you’re here, warm, and emotionally unavailable.”
Daniel snorts. “Slut.”
“Rude,” I say, burrowing closer. “This is strictly post-club trauma bonding. No feelings.”
“Well your trauma is poking into my side, and I think I’m hungover enough to cry.”
I laugh, muffled into his shirt. It smells like sweat and cheap cologne and something vaguely cinnamony—probably a fireball shot I don’t remember taking.
He grunts and shoves at me. “Get off. I need water and mouthwash and a new liver.”
“You’re such a drama queen,” I say, but I roll away anyway.
My body groans in protest as I sit up. Light stabs at my eyeballs, and my jeans try to take my dignity with them as they threaten to fall off my hips. The glitter on the rug somehow made it to my arms. I don’t even want to check my face.
Daniel stretches with a loud groan. “What time is it really?”
I glance at the clock and wince. “Almost noon.”
“Shit. Don’t you have that family dinner today?”
Unfortunately. “Yup.”
He gives me a look. “And you’re going like that?”
I squint at him, then down at myself. “What’s wrong with this?”
“Everything. You look like a rejected backup dancer from a drag brunch.”
I grab a pillow and launch it at his head. “Thanks, bestie. That’s a look my parents would love.”
He catches it, grinning. “Go shower, Cinderella. I’ll start coffee. Try not to cry in the bathroom again.”
“I didn’t cry in the bathroom.”
He arches a brow.
“I didn’t cry that much in the bathroom.”
Daniel throws up his hands like he’s surrendering to God himself. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, glitter boy. But if I’m being your pretend boyfriend tonight, you are not looking like you rolled directly out of a club and into their house.”
I snort. “Family dinner isn’t at the house. It’s at Chester’s.”
A nice family restaurant my parents love.
It’s perfect for the awkward conversations they like to have.
You know the ones, ‘Come back to church, God loves all his children.’ ‘We love you, son, we just don’t love the sin.
’ I’m sure the list could go on forever, just your standard judgmental parents trying to save their son from an eternity of burning in hell.
Daniel winces like I smacked him with a Bible.
“Christ. Chester’s? That place smells like overcooked meatloaf.”
“You say that as if it’s not the perfect backdrop for an intervention disguised as family dinner.”
He groans and hauls himself out of bed, heading toward the shared kitchenette. “I’ll make coffee. You shower before the holy water runs out.”
I salute him. “Yes, fake boyfriend.”
“Don’t forget to repent in there,” he calls over his shoulder. “We need you presentable for the judgment of the Lord and your parents.”
I laugh—dry and humorless—as I grab clean clothes and head to the bathroom. “They should be honored I’m gracing Chester’s in anything besides leather and glitter.”
“That’s the spirit,” Daniel mutters, rattling around the cabinets. “But if I’m pretending to be your boyfriend, you better not come out looking like the after photo in a cautionary drug ad.”
I flip him off without looking back, shutting the bathroom door behind me.
The silence that settles after is deafening. Muffled sounds of coffee brewing. Daniel humming something off-key. And then—
“Is Luke alive or…?” Will’s voice drifts in from the other side of the door, dry and amused.
“He’s showering off his bad decisions,” Daniel replies. “Should take a while.”
I roll my eyes, stripping out of my clothes and stepping into the shower. The water hisses as I crank the heat high enough to fog up the mirror and scald away the scent of tequila and smoke and Silas-fucking-Gray.
Because if I think about him—about what almost happened in that hallway—I might start unraveling.
And I’m not walking into family dinner carrying that kind of baggage.
Not when I’ve got Daniel playing fake boyfriend, Will hovering with concern masked as sarcasm, and parents who think glitter is the gateway drug to eternal damnation.
I kill the water and step out, toweling off just enough to not drip all over the floor. No time for styling, so I run the towel through my hair, leaving it damp and curling at the edges.
When I step back into the room, steam trailing behind me, Daniel looks up from where he’s lounging on my bed, coffee in hand. His eyes scan me like he’s evaluating a wine label.
“You know,” he says, voice casual, “you’re sort of sexy. In a twink apocalypse sort of way.”
I snort. “Glad to know I still do it for you, Dan. Maybe after dinner I’ll let you braid my hair and feed me grapes.”
Have we hooked up? Yeah. Once. We are not compatible to say the least. It was fumbly and the opposite of sexy. I do not need a repeat. We are better as friends and not the kind with benefits, no matter how much we flirt.
“Only if you cry again,” he deadpans, taking a slow sip.
I toss the towel over his face and swipe my phone from the nightstand. The screen lights up with the notifications stacked like a to-do list I’m not ready to deal with.
A single text from my mom hovers at the top.
Mom: Just confirming dinner is still 4pm. See you there, sweetheart.
I roll my eyes. Sweetheart, my ass. Last time I was her sweetheart, I hadn’t come out yet and still thought I might marry someone named Brittany.
The seven messages from Prism sit there.
It doesn’t say who it’s from, just the little number 7 on the corner of the app now.
But my stomach knows. My whole fucking body knows.
There’s only one person it could be. Only one person I actually want it to be—and absolutely do not want it to be at the same time.
Silas.
I hover over it, thumb pausing mid-air. Nope. Not yet. I’m not in the mental space to see what Coach Gray has to say.
I shove the phone in my back pocket as if it might burn me if I continue to grip it like a lifeline. I’ve got enough fire to deal with tonight without adding to it.
Chester’s smells like overcooked green beans and yeah…overdone meatloaf.
It’s the kind of place with fake wood paneling on the walls, framed Bible verses next to seasonal decor for whatever holiday is next, and servers who call everyone “hon” no matter their age. My parents love it. They say it’s “wholesome.” I say it’s where joy goes to die.
Daniel walks in beside me, polished and presentable, wearing the button-down he pulled from my closet, and somehow still manages to look like he stepped out of a Gap commercial. His hair’s been smoothed down, not a trace of glitter on him. We make a hell of a convincing couple.
Too bad the act is for the people who birthed me.
“Luke!” My mom’s voice rises over the clatter of cutlery and hushed post-church conversations. She stands from the table to greet me, arms open as if she’s starring in a Hallmark reunion movie.
I let her hug me. She smells like lavender dryer sheets and judgment. You wouldn’t think judgment has a smell, but it does, and she wears it every time I see her.
“You look so thin,” she says, holding me at arm’s length. “Are you eating, sweetheart?”
“I eat plenty,” I say, and step aside so she’s forced to notice Daniel.
Her smile strains, but it holds. “And you must be Daniel. It’s so lovely to finally meet one of Luke’s… friends.”
Daniel, bless his petty soul, beams. “Boyfriend, actually.”
I hold back my smile. This is why I wanted to bring him.
“Oh,” my mother says, like someone just handed her a basket of snakes. “Well, how nice. You boys sit down. Your father’s already ordered appetizers.”
Dad doesn’t get up. He offers Daniel a firm handshake and a look that says I’ll tolerate you because Jesus told me to. He doesn’t offer the same to me—because I’m his son, and that means his disappointment can come in deeper cuts.