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The rumors are flying. It’s not the first time Luke’s name has been whispered about in the halls of Los Feliz High School for the Performing Arts and Julie isn’t exactly a stranger to it either. It’s high school. Gossip is an art form and whatever story gets out first is believed as the gospel truth, no matter how ridiculous. But her and Luke?
The gossips are…well, they’re right, for once.
No one really noticed their connection for the last couple of weeks, except maybe a few girls in her dance class, but once she performed her midterm assignment with the guys making a guest appearance as her backing band, word spread like wildfire.
Julie Molina and Luke Patterson are a thing.
Or actually, she’s his newest thing and he’s her first thing and everyone seems to have a lot to say about it.
And she can’t stand what it’s doing to Luke.
Because Julie doesn’t care that she’s been whispered about. She’s dealt with way worse in the last year, but Luke, while he was able to brush off the shit the school was saying about him when he came back, every time he hears something about her , his jaw clenches and color rises in his cheeks and his eyebrows scrunch together while arms cross over his chest.
There’s been a lot to fall for when it comes to Luke, his compassion, his drive, his sweetness, his talent. But his protective streak, his righteous indignation on her behalf whenever anyone is talking shit about her is…well, it’s just really, incredibly and unfairly hot.
“But they were talking shit,” Luke protests, her hand wrapped firmly around his while she marches down the hallway away from the gym where a bunch of Carrie’s friends and their lacrosse playing counterparts giggled and scoffed behind their hands, pretending to not be talking about them for the entirety of dance class and yeah maybe she’s going to be late for Chemistry, but she doesn’t care. At all. She just needs to get him somewhere private. Right now. Mostly to keep him from calling those girls out in front of Mrs. Kelly and Coach Barron, landing himself in detention, but also because…what she wants to do isn’t for anyone else’s eyes.
She makes a sharp right into the music wing and stands on the tips of her toes to see inside the door to the first practice room, Luke right behind her, his hands falling naturally to her hips as she pushes up so high to see that she loses her balance a little.
The room is empty.
Thank God.
Biting back a soft groan with her teeth against her bottom lip, she falls down onto her heels, her shoulders pressing into his chest. Broad and warm and there to catch her if she falls. He’s just so….so Luke.
Even as his arms slide further around her, she remembers to twist the door knob and stumbles forward into the room with him right at her back.
Spinning around to face him, Julie steps forward and he immediately follows her lead, bracing himself against the door and pulling her in.
“Julie, not that I’m complaining…” Luke says, as he bends to trace his nose against her temple when she hesitates and then down over her cheek, his breath ghosting over her skin, “but what’s going on right now?”
She was about to turn her head to catch his mouth with hers, but his confusion stops her and she needs to make this very, very clear, as much as she loves this side of him and his instincts to protect her, what they have, their connection, is more important than any of that. Especially because sooner or later, it’ll get him in trouble and that’s the last thing he needs, even though he says things with his parents are slowly getting better.
Reaching up, she cups his face with her hands and meets his eyes with hers. That gray green gaze is warm and soft and everything everyone else says he isn’t.
“I need you to know that I don’t care what everyone else is saying about me, okay?”
“Jules,” he protests softly. Hiis hands at her hips flex and tighten against her, so she strokes the tips of her fingers gently down the curve of his jaw before letting it drift to his neck to rub soothing circles there.
“Let them talk.” She moves in closer, her forehead against his. “We have better things to do.”
The urgency she felt before is mostly gone, replaced by the need to take her time, to let him feel with every press of her lips and flick of her tongue that she wants this, to be with him, no matter what anyone else says about her or him or them, he’s the boy who helped her find music again, the boy who looks at her like she brought him back to life, instead of the other way around and she needs him to believe that, to know it deep in his soul. So if she’s ten minutes late for chem—while Luke stumbles down the hallway in the other direction toward lunch—with her hair kind of a wreck, skin still flushed and her mouth so swollen that she has to press her lips together to at least try and look presentable while Flynn shoots her a knowing look from the other side of the classroom, then it’s more than worth it.