Weird, an OC tale by Glacis.
No copyright infringement intended.
Rated PG.
Spoilers for The Secret.
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Okay, so
it hadn’t been weird enough when Marissa had dumped him. Sure, a lot of it had been his fault, not
being there for her when she was all torn up about her dad, but they’d come
back together after he got shot – shot!
He still couldn’t believe that – and being stupid enough to get caught
making out with her friend in the middle of a bar in
What the
fuck did Ryan Atwood have that Luke Ward couldn’t offer?
But then
it got weirder. He couldn’t seem to get
away from Ryan. Every time he turned
around at school, looking for Marissa, there was Ryan. He couldn’t even escape out on the
field. Ryan was on the soccer team. Ryan was in the cafeteria, in the library, in
his classes, everywhere Luke turned, there was Ryan.
Luke
even asked Bendis a week before if he could team up with Marissa for their
history project, give him another chance to talk to her, maybe get her back if
he was really lucky. Instead they got
assigned partners, and who the hell did Bendis assign him?
Ryan.
Sometimes
life sucked.
But he
sucked it up, determined to get through this project (and wasn’t it ironic that
their assigned topic was the Spanish Inquisition? Sometimes he thought their history teacher
actually had a sense of humor, and a really twisted one, too). He invited Ryan over to his house, he got
books and a couple videos and pulled some stuff off the internet; anything to
make this go as fast as possible so he could get the hell away from Ryan Atwood
before Luke punched him again.
Or got punched. Not that Luke would
admit it to anyone, since Ryan was at least six inches shorter than he was, but
Ryan packed a hell of a punch. The last
time he’d taken one on the jaw from Ryan he hadn’t been able to eat right for a
week.
Besides,
he was trying to show Marissa that he wasn’t some kind of Neanderthal. So he’d work with Ryan and he’d get it over
with and then he could tell Marissa how restrained and temperate and noble he’d
been. Maybe she’d buy it. Maybe she’d stop looking at Ryan for three
seconds and look at Luke again.
Game
plan in mind, he suffered through his Mom and Dad being unbearably cute in the
foyer while his little brothers were their normal obnoxious selves, then
invited Ryan up into his room, sat down at the computer, and blurted, “So,
about this project. I’ve got some books,
and I pulled some stuff off the net.
Later we can go by my Dad’s office and use his scanner. I figured we could put it together in a
PowerPoint presentation using my PowerBook.”
Ryan looked at him, eyes huge, not saying a word. Damnit. Maybe Ryan wouldn’t work with him after
all. How was he supposed to impress
Marissa if Ryan went off and did his own thing?
“Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
Ryan’s
eyebrows went up, and so did the corner of his mouth. Luke found himself weirdly fascinated by the
expression; Ryan didn’t usually say much, just watched everybody. This was the most expression Luke had ever
seen on his face.
Well,
except for the way he snarled right before he threw a punch. Luke remembered that really well.
“Okay,”
Ryan finally said. His voice was softer
than Luke remembered. Of course, the
only time Ryan ever talked to him was to yell at him right before he hit him,
so maybe this would work out after all.
Two
hours later they had the framework laid out for the project. Luke didn’t say anything about it to Ryan,
but privately he was impressed. Ryan was
smart, a hell of a lot smarter than Luke expected, in some ways quicker than
Luke himself was. It was a little
intimidating, but in a way it was kind of comforting too. At least Marissa hadn’t dumped him for a
moron with a great body.
Luke
stopped thinking, blinked at the notes he was writing, and ran his thoughts
back again. No. He hadn’t just thought that Ryan had a great
body.
Then Ryan
stretched across the desk to pick up a book, and Luke’s eyes wandered from the
ends of surprisingly long fingers down bulky, muscled arms to a broad shoulder,
down well-defined abs under a thin tee shirt to the curve of Ryan’s hip, snug
up against the back of the seat, and Luke had to close his eyes.
Ryan
didn’t need to hit him. He’d hit
himself. Hard. Over the head. A lot. No way he could be a
queer. Really no way he could be a queer
over Ryan Atwood.
“So,
time to go to,” he said suddenly, and Ryan froze again. Dark eyes narrowed, staring at him, reminding
him of a wild animal, watching to see which way the hunter moved. It kind of freaked Luke
out. Probably
because he kind of liked it.
“Okay,”
Ryan answered slowly. He watched Luke
out of the corner of his eye all the way to the car dealership. It was freaking Luke less out all the time,
which was weird in its own way.
Happily
by the time they got to the lot, Ryan seemed less tense. Luke relaxed in response. Once they were in the door, he showed Ryan a
jet ski his dad was giving away in some kind of promotion, then
made his way over to the newest model in the showroom. Hot red, convertible, black leather, a sound
system that was a wet dream – he sat in the driver’s seat and indulged in a
fantasy or two.
“Get in,
man,” he invited, and with another one of those funny little half smiles Ryan
sank into the passenger’s seat. Luke
cranked the stereo, then turned it down when he saw
his dad coming up toward the door.
Climbing out quickly he gestured for Ryan to follow him. “That’s my dad now, and his business
partner. Let’s go say hi.”
What he
saw next froze him in his tracks. It was
the weirdest thing. His dad and Gus
stopped just inside the door. Their
hands tangled up together then his dad lifted Gus’s hand up to his mouth and…
kissed it.
That
would have been weird enough, but it didn’t stop there. Luke felt his entire body
turn to ice as he stood there and watched his dad and Gus holding on to one
another… kissing each other.
Kissing each other.
The ice
broke, and Luke moved. Out, away, gone,
anywhere but there, but he tripped, dropped his books, notes fell everywhere,
his knee whacked against the car and the alarm went off, and his dad was
looking at him. He was saying something,
coming toward them, and Luke panicked.
He scrabbled for his stuff, hands colliding with Ryan who was scrabbling
just as wildly.
“I swear
to god if you say anything—“
“I
won’t.”
Ryan’s
face was a few inches away from Luke’s.
His face was blank but his eyes were shocked, and for some reason Luke
trusted him.
Seconds
later they had everything they could grab and Luke ran for the door, Ryan right
behind him. Luke could hear his dad’s
voice calling his name, but he didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. All he could think about was his dad. Kissing Gus.
The
drive back to the Cohens’ place was silent.
Ryan looked at Luke but didn’t say anything, and Luke was grateful in a
distant kind of way. He drove away
without looking back, but he could still feel Ryan’s eyes burning into him,
making his neck itch.
He
didn’t say anything to his mom when he got home. He powered up his computer and worked on the
project for an hour or so, like a robot, going through the motions, thinking
about anything except his dad. Finally
he gave it up as a bad deal before he completely screwed it up, and threw
himself on his bed.
Hours
later, the door at the end of the hall slammed, and Luke knew his dad was
home. He rolled over and looked at the
clock.
He only
realized he was crying into his pillow when his nose clogged. Damn it.
This was so… not good. His world
was cracking and falling to pieces all around him and the one person who knew
about it was the one person whose life he’d done his best to make miserable
ever since he came down from
He
didn’t know when he fell asleep. It
didn’t last for long, and it was mainly nightmares, about his mom and his dad
and Gus and people pointing at Luke at school and laughing. Then Ryan was there, and Ryan hit somebody
other than Luke, and Luke hid behind him; then they weren’t in school, but in
the front seat of the convertible, and he was naked and Ryan was naked. Ryan was straddling him, and kissing him, and
Luke couldn’t move. Didn’t
want to move.
For the
first time since he’d seen his dad kissing Gus that evening Luke wasn’t cold
anymore.
When he
woke up he had come on his sheets, and that scared him more than anything else
he’d seen in the weirdest two days of his life.
So he
was vicious when he saw Ryan the next morning.
“We have
to talk about—“
“We have
nothing to talk about!” Luke cut him
off. Calm dark eyes stared through him.
“The
presentation,” Ryan finished quietly.
Luke
felt like an idiot, out of control, totally freaked out and trying not to show
it. His friends were his friends, but
they were also pack animals, quick to turn on anyone who wasn’t one of their
own. Luke had never been anything but
one of the pack, and on top of everything else coming at him,
he couldn’t stand to lose them, too.
Ryan
walked off, Sean at his back, and Luke snarled at him, calling him a
queer. Cohen rolled his eyes and backed
off. Luke wanted to hit something.
By
second period, he knew that someone was Ryan.
He knew he shouldn’t have trusted Ryan.
Everyone knew. Everyone.
Between
classes, Ryan came up to him, Marissa following close behind. Luke wasn’t up to this. He’d heard the whispers starting already, and
he felt like he was going to explode.
Ryan got close, too close, and said, “I didn’t tell anyone.”
Luke’s
hands bunched in Ryan’s shirt, throwing him up against the lockers and leaning
in close. Ryan was warm, so fucking
warm, and way too close. Luke started to
shake. “You are dead!” he yelled in
Ryan’s face, then pushed him away and took off before he did something really
stupid. Like hit him.
Or kiss
him.
The rest
of the day was hell. Pure
hell. People were looking at him,
whispering, laughing. His friends were
confused, at first, then suspicious, then they pulled away, and they whispered,
too. It hurt, it was weird, it was
wrong. It was all Ryan’s fault.
And his dad’s.
And Gus’s.
He
didn’t want to go home that night, but he did.
His mom was sitting in the kitchen, staring out the window. His dad wasn’t there. His little brothers sat silently in the
living room, staring at the TV.
“Hi,
mom,” he said quietly.
She
looked up at him. Her eyes were
red-rimmed. “Luke, honey, I have
something I have to tell you. About your father.”
Her voice was hoarse.
“I know,”
he told her, sitting down beside her, dropping his backpack on the floor.
Tears
welled up in her eyes. “Oh, honey, I’m
so sorry you had to find out that way!
Somebody at school told you…”
The
confusion was back, making Luke’s brain feel fuzzy. “How did you find out, mom?”
“He told
me,” she said bitterly. “This morning. He
told me… that he was… gay.”
“He came
out to you?” Luke was astonished, but
weirdly relieved. If his dad told his
mom himself, then maybe Ryan hadn’t said anything. He had no idea why this made him feel better,
but it did. Besides, if his mom didn’t
know that Luke had seen… what Luke had seen… Luke sure
as hell wasn’t going to tell her.
“Yes.” She dropped her face into her hands and
started to cry. “I had to talk to someone. I called Caryn, and Betsy was there, and now…”
So that
was how everyone found out. Betsy was a
worse gossip than Summer. Feeling helpless, and useless, Luke sat
there, patted her hair, and wondered what would happen next.
It was a
weird night, and a weirder next day.
Luke didn’t bother going to school.
Neither did his brothers. They
had Chinese take-out still in the cartons for dinner that night, something that
never happened; his mom always insisted that ‘dinner is a proper meal and will
be taken as such’ so they always had the table set and ate off plates, not out
of little paper boxes.
His mom
didn’t come down for dinner.
Neither
did his dad.
Luke had
never heard his mom yell so much. Never
seen his dad cry.
There were a lot of firsts in those two days. All of them bad.
After
dinner his dad came down the staircase with a suitcase in one hand and a suit
bag in the other. His eyes were red,
too, but Luke couldn’t look at him, past that first glance, because the need to
hit someone was back, and there was no way he wanted to hit his dad. He didn’t want to be in the same room with
his dad, or even the same house. He just
wanted it to all go away.
His dad
tried to say something, but his mom got up and walked away. Luke started to follow, then
changed course as the doorbell rang.
“Son,”
his dad said very softly, sounding choked.
Luke ignored him.
Marissa
was at the door. She looked so sad, and
so concerned. Luke wanted to wrap
himself around her and never let go.
Of course,
she wouldn’t go for that. But she did
give him a hug. They went into the
kitchen and sat down. From the other
side of the house, they heard the muffled sound of Luke’s mom, screaming. His dad answered so quietly they almost
didn’t hear him. Luke stared down at his
hands, knotted together on the table top, and tried to block everything out but
Marissa.
“Are you
okay?” she asked, then added, “Stupid question.
Sorry. Is there anything I can
do?”
Luke
nodded, then shook his head, then shrugged, before finally looking up at
her. “I suppose Summer
told you?”
She
looked a little guilty, then shook her head. “No.
Ryan didn’t call me after your study session like he said he would, so I
went over to wait for him. He was shaken
up, and didn’t want to tell me what happened, but I made him. He made me promise not to tell anyone else,
and I didn’t. He didn’t tell anyone
else, Luke, I know he didn’t.”
“Yeah,”
Luke agreed.
So Ryan
had told someone, but at least Luke trusted Marissa, too, and knew she wouldn’t
have said anything to anybody. He was
cold again. Marissa was too far away,
and he didn’t feel like he could reach out to her. He didn’t know what else to say. So he didn’t say anything.
He
didn’t know how long they sat there before the doorbell rang again.
“I’ll
get it,” Marissa told him, sounding relieved and even more
guilty. Luke closed his eyes and
shook his head. This sucked. Unbelievably.
The
sound of Ryan’s voice at the front door brought Luke to his feet.
“What
are you doing here?” Ryan asked. He didn’t sound accusing, which was better
than Luke would have been able to do in his place.
“The
same thing you are, I imagine,” Marissa answered him.
Luke
looked around Marissa’s shoulder. Ryan
stared up at him.
“C’mon
in,” he invited. Ryan looked uncertain,
but walked in, closing the door behind him.
“I owe you an apology,” Luke continued, needing to get this out, for
once not even caring that Marissa was there to see it. “It was my mom. My dad… told her everything. She’s the one who talked.”
“Don’t
worry about it,” Ryan told him, making it look easy, this acceptance and
understanding that Luke always had to work at.
For the first time, it didn’t make Luke want to hit him.
Then Luke’s
mom came in the hall, barely holding back tears, and headed up the stairs. His dad came in right after her, calling,
“Honey!” He looked over at Marissa, then
at Ryan, and turned pale. Then he turned
to Luke. “Son…”
Luke
ran. Turned his back on his dad, and his
mom, and all the stuff he couldn’t handle, and slammed out the door.
He
wandered around for awhile, avoiding anywhere there
might be anyone who knew him. After a
stop at a liquor store he knew didn’t card, he had a liter of beer. The sun had set by the time he ended up at
the soccer field, staring up at the lights through the mesh fence, drinking and
trying not to think.
Halfway
through the bottle, not doing so well with the not thinking, Marissa showed up.
Ryan was
right behind her. Of
course.
“My
whole life is a lie,” Luke told them.
Ryan
settled on the bench, while Marissa hovered.
The night got darker, the lights got fuzzier, the beer didn’t do any
better a job at making him not think.
They
didn’t say much. Marissa tried to make
it better, telling him that going by her experience, it would be tough, but now
that the lies are out of the way maybe he could finally be close with his dad.
Luke
didn’t know whether to cry, yell, or throw the bottle at her. Clenching his fist around the neck to keep
from doing anything too stupid, he muttered, “I don’t want to hear anything my
dad has to say.” He could practically
feel her roll her eyes at him. She’d been
spending too much time around Seth. “I’m
going to get a jacket. I’m cold,” she
finally said, and walked away, leaving him there. With Ryan.
Weird, but not nearly as uncomfortable as Luke expected it
to be. Maybe it was because of the beer, or the fact
that Ryan kept his word, or the silence.
Then Ryan started to talk, and even weirder, it was even better than the
silence.
“Even if
your dad lied to you, he still cared about you.”
Ryan’s
voice fit the dark. It was still, and
quiet, and low. Luke shook his
head. All the times his dad hadn’t been
there, had missed a game or come in late at night, how much of it had been
lies? He asked Ryan, but Ryan didn’t
lie, so Ryan didn’t say anything. “It
doesn’t matter,” Luke told him, sounding bitter even to himself.
“At
least he came to some of them. It’d
matter, if you had a dad who didn’t care.
Didn’t go to your games. Didn’t even know what teams you were on.”
There
was sad experience in Ryan’s words, even if his voice was matter-of-fact. Luke glanced down at him and saw Ryan looking
up at him from the corner of his eye.
Yeah. Okay.
Maybe it did matter.
Before
he had a chance to say anything, even if he didn’t have a clue what it would
be, a couple assholes from their main rival school came up and called them butt
pirates.
Finally. A
chance to hit somebody.
Luke was
around the fence and on the field before the jerk stopped talking. A hard jolt, a couple more insults, then the asshole’s buddy came up and started in on
them. Luke looked at Ryan. Ryan looked back.
Oh,
yeah.
They
swung at the same time, a satisfying crack of fist against face, he and Ryan
moving like they were choreographed.
Both the jerks ended up on their knees, moaning like little girls. Luke smirked down at Ryan and got one of
those half-grins in return. It felt
good.
Then he
looked away and saw the rest of the varsity team coming at them, and Luke
gulped. Beside him, Ryan tensed.
The next
half hour was pretty fuzzy in Luke’s memory.
There must have been a dozen of them, and they were really pissed off,
but Luke was a fighter, and (no surprise there) Ryan kicked ass. The last thing Luke remembered of the fight,
two guys had him pinned while a third one punched him
in the head. Then the guys went flying
off, he heard a couple screams, some thuds, and Ryan was helping him to his
feet. Marissa was there, and in the
distance he could hear cars coming, and the guys who’d attacked them were
running and limping away.
He
didn’t want to go home. So Ryan took him
back to the Cohens’. Mr. Cohen wanted to
call his parents but Luke asked him not to. Mrs. Cohen brought over a first aid kit, and
he bit his lip so he didn’t yelp when she washed out the cuts. Ryan sat next to him, Marissa hovering over
them again, as Mrs. Cohen cleaned them both up.
“Do I
want to know what happened?” she asked as she pressed a bandage gently against
his skin. He looked over at Ryan, who
was looking fixedly at his shoes.
Shit. He’d gotten Ryan in trouble. That bothered him.
“My
fault,” Luke said abruptly. Ryan glanced
over at him, then back down to his shoes.
“Some guys from
“There
were a bunch of them. Came looking for
Luke, looking for a fight.” He sighed.
So did
Mr. Cohen, who’d come back from the kitchen.
“Self defense, right?” He didn’t
sound mad, more resigned than anything.
Luke looked between Mr. Cohen and Ryan.
Ryan’s shoulders were hunched.
“They’d’ve
really hurt me badly if Ryan hadn’t helped me out,” Luke forced out. “It was their whole team, looked like, and
they were out for blood.”
“Looks
like they got what they were looking for, then,” Mrs. Cohen grumbled, but her hands
were gentle as she put a bandage above Ryan’s eye.
“I’m
sorry,” Ryan practically whispered.
“I’m
not,” Luke told him directly. “You saved
my ass back there!” A cleared throat
reminded him there were parents in the room.
“Um, sorry, Mrs. Cohen, Mr. Cohen,” he mumbled, blushing.
Mr.
Cohen grinned at him. Before he could
say anything, Luke recognized the sound of his dad’s car in the driveway. Instantly, he panicked, jumping up and
slipping past Mrs. Cohen, racing for the stairs.
“He’s
been doing that a lot lately,” Marissa said behind him.
Yeah,
maybe he had, but he just wasn’t up to facing his dad. Not now.
Maybe not ever.
Not when everything the man ever told him was a lie.
Luke
took refuge in the guest bedroom. He
kicked off his shoes and tried to settle on the bed, but he was too wired, even
bruised up as he was. He got back up and
wandered over to the window, staring out blindly.
Down in
the living room they were still talking, then the door opened and light spilled
out on the front porch. Luke watched
from the window as Marissa led Ryan out to the front walk, watched as they
talked, standing close together. Marissa
moved first, reaching out to Ryan, pulling his head down. Kissing him.
It was
disturbing. Partly because, for a second,
the way they touched each other reminded Luke disconcertingly of the way his
dad and Gus touched each other. Partly
because it shouldn’t be anybody kissing Marissa but Luke.
But
mainly because he couldn’t figure out who he was more
jealous of – Ryan… or Marissa.
A knock
on the door made him turn away from the window.
Mr. Cohen stuck his head in the door.
“Luke,
your dad’s here.”
“I
can’t…” His voice dried up and he
coughed before he could talk again. Mr.
Cohen waited patiently. His eyes were very
kind. Luke felt tears sting again and
shook his head violently. “I don’t want
to talk to him. Please.”
Mr.
Cohen nodded, then closed the door behind him. Luke waited until he heard the footsteps
leave the stairs, then snuck out after him, not quite sure why. Sneaking up to the doorway, he kept out of
sight and listened. His dad was
talking. He sounded rough, like he’d
been crying. A lot.
“I love
my wife. I always have.” He sounded like he meant it. Sounded defeated, totally
unlike his dad. “I love my
family, too, and I didn’t want to hurt anyone.
I think the best thing for me to do is… go away. Disappear.”
“No, it
isn’t!” Mr. Cohen sounded upset, but not
at his dad. For his
dad. Luke inched closer. “That’s what you’ve been doing all along! Coming out in this town is the bravest thing
you could have done.”
There
was a silence, and Luke chanced a quick glance around the corner. His dad looked the way he’d sounded,
exhausted and defeated. Luke thought
about what his dad had said, and what Ryan said earlier, and came to a
decision.
“I think
I should go,” his dad said.
Luke
stepped out into the living room. His
dad froze, staring at him.
“I’ll go
with you. Just let me get my shoes.”
They
didn’t talk much on the way home. When
they pulled up in the driveway, his dad said, “I’m sorry.”
Luke
looked over at him. “It’s going to be
hard.”
“I
know.” He started to say he was sorry
again, but Luke cut him off.
“It’s
going to be okay.” He didn’t know if it
was or not, but his dad needed to hear somebody say that. Luke wanted his dad to hear it from him. His dad’s mouth trembled, but he didn’t cry.
“I hope
so,” his dad said, and reached out to touch Luke’s shoulder. He stopped before it actually landed,
though. Luke went with instinct, too
tired, too hurt and too confused to do anything else, and hugged his dad.
His dad
was still sitting there, looking shocked, when Luke got out of the car and went
into the house.
His mom
was already asleep, probably with the help of pills, and his brothers were in
bed. Luke went to his room as quietly as
he could, and settled in for another round of nightmares.
It
didn’t quite work out that way. Or maybe
they were nightmares, and his life had gotten so weird he didn’t know the
difference between a nightmare and a wet dream.
Because once again, he was at school. People were whispering. Pointing. Laughing at him. He was naked, this time, and there were words
written all over his body. Words he’d
used as insults, words he’d thrown at other guys to cut them down. Words that applied to his
dad.
Words that applied to him.
But
there, again, was Ryan. Not saying
anything. Just watching, eyes following
him, mouth curled up in that little half smile.
And the words didn’t hurt, when Ryan looked at him.
Hurt
even less when suddenly, they weren’t at school anymore, but in the Cohen’s
pool house lying on the bed, and he was underneath Ryan, and Ryan was tracing
the words with his fingers. Then with his tongue.
And the words disappeared.
Sank into him. Became
part of him. Until they didn’t
cut, didn’t burn. Didn’t
show.
On the outside, anyway.
It got
really confused then, images and sounds and feelings tangled up, memories and
fantasies all wound up together. The
look in Ryan’s eyes when he apologized for tackling Luke during soccer practice
melted into the way he looked in the shadows under the lights telling Luke he
was lucky to have a dad who cared about him, then faded into an intense look as
Ryan licked the last of the hateful words from Luke’s skin.
The
strength in Ryan’s hand and the gentleness of his voice as he clamped down on
Luke’s arm after he was shot, telling him it was going to be all right, staying
with him all the way through to the hospital, shifted to the rumble of Ryan’s
voice low in his ear as Ryan nuzzled the side of his neck and the strength of
Ryan’s arms around him, holding him together when he otherwise would have
fallen apart. It didn’t feel weird at
all. It felt right.
Then
Ryan kissed him, and Luke kissed him back, and he woke up.
The
sheets were wet. Again.
He
barely had time to shove them in the hamper and dress for school. He met Marissa, and Ryan of course, and Seth,
at the front steps. Without saying
anything, they fell into step. Ryan
stood next to him, a lot like he had in Luke’s dreams, and it should have
bothered him, but it made him feel better, instead, which was so weird he
refused to think about it.
The walk
through the quad was as bad as Luke expected.
People looked, and pointed, and whispered. Friends turned their backs on him. Luke stopped, and the other three stopped
beside him, staring back at those who were staring at them.
“This is
weird,” he said. “Maybe I should just
blow it off for today. Wait until the
talk dies down.”
“It
doesn’t work like that,” Marissa told him glumly.
“It’s
been months,” Ryan said, his stare turning into a glare as he watched half the
soccer team turn around and walk the other way. “And I’m still the kid from
“I’m
still the girl who tried to kill herself in
“And I’m
still…” Seth sighed. “I’m still Seth Cohen.” That said it all, really.
“This is
going to suck,” Luke said gloomily.
“Welcome
to my world,” Seth told him, then dropped his skateboard and took off.
Summer
came up, watching Seth until he disappeared into the crowd. “Hey,” she said to Luke and Ryan, looking
uncertain.
“Hey,”
Ryan answered. Luke didn’t know what to
say.
“C’mon, Coop,”
Summer said, tugging Marissa’s wrist. Marissa gave Luke a sympathetic smile,
warming to something sweeter when she looked at Ryan. The way she used to smile at Luke.
As he
walked to the science building, Ryan pacing him silently, Luke decided that,
weird as it was, he really didn’t mind.
END
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