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Luke isn't thinking about it. If he doesn't think about it, it can't hurt him.
Michael coming out made a lot of things make sense. For as long as Luke has known Michael, there has been something different about him. He was never into a lot of the things most girls are, which was fine. Some girls don't like girl things, that's normal. But he never seemed to much enjoy any part of being a girl, which is strange because wearing dresses seems like so much fun.
Luke wishes he had realised sooner why Michael was always so sad, but he didn't have the words. He had never encountered a transgender person before, never had a reason to think about it. If he had known, maybe he could have saved them both a lot of heartache.
And he isn't thinking about it. Michael is Michael now, and he's so much happier. That's all that matters.
The word transgender is new to Luke. He's sure he has heard it somewhere before but has never put a real meaning to it. The night that Michael comes out to him, Luke looks it up on his phone. Michael is asleep beside him in Luke's bed, deciding to stay the night since his roommate probably isn't coming back. He very rarely does, and Luke only starts to worry once it has been several days with no contact.
Luke stares at his phone. He hasn't even done that much research, just reading the first line of the Wikipedia article over and over again.
A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.
That makes sense for Michael. He was born a girl but now he wants to be a guy, which is fine. That's awesome, in fact. It's also kind of insane to Luke, because why would anyone want to be a man? Most of the time he doesn't feel like one but when he does, he hates it. All the expectations of him, the shape of his body, his voice…
But, like, that's a different thing to what Michael is doing. Luke is just shit at being a man. He'll figure it out when he grows up, maybe. Or he'll die first, that works too.
Luke stops thinking about it. He runs his fingers through Michael's bright red hair, brushing it out of his face.
"I'm proud of you." Luke whispers, even though Michael is fast asleep and can't hear him. "I'll always be proud of you."
Luke doesn't want to be a girl. He just thinks it would be neat if he was born one.
He asked his mum once what she would have named him if he was a girl. She didn't know, said she had never thought about it, but it would have had a similar vibe to his brother's names. Single syllable or able to be shortened to one, beginning with a consonant, easy to yell across the house. Something like… Lucy. Sure it's just changing the last two letters of his name but he likes it. It stirs a long forgotten joy in his chest.
The thought of being Lucy lingers in the back of his head at all times. She's there with long curly hair, eyeliner and painted nails, high heels and a blouse. And she laughs a lot, and she's beautiful, and she's happy being herself.
But Luke isn't her, so, whatever. It doesn't matter.
"Are you good, dude?" Luke's roommate asks.
Luke realises he has been staring at the ceiling above his bed, chewing his fingernails to stubs. "Yeah, I'm fine, sorry."
It's rare that Luke's roommate is actually home. He's always at his friend's house - some upperclassman who has a big place off of campus. Luke met him once but he's fucked if he remembers his name. Geoff, maybe?
"Don't go mental on me, man." His roommate jokes. "My last roommate tried to launch himself out the window."
"I'm not gonna do that." Luke insists, even though he can understand why someone would. To just be gone and not have to deal with any of this anymore.
Ergh, dark. Luke tries not to have thoughts like that but it's hard when being him sucks so bad. His brain is wired wrong and his body will never be small enough and he will never be a person that can be loved the way he wants to be. Oh well, there isn't much he can do about that. He'll just have to live with it. Or not, as it may be. He leaves that up to the universe.
"Good." His roommate turns back to his laptop, working on an assignment probably. His major is… music? With a minor in fashion design or something like that.
"Can I ask you something?" Luke asks. His roommate hums in ascent. "Do you know any transgender people?"
"Loads, why?"
"Really?"
"Sure. I collect them like Pokémon. They flock to me." His roommate shrugs like that's something that should be expected of him. "Why?"
"Just curious." Luke says, then adds, "My best friend, he came out recently."
"Good for him."
"Yeah, but I've never met a trans person before so I'm scared I'll mess it up and hurt him."
"You just gotta do your best, man." His roommate says. "That's all he can ask of you."
"I guess." Luke mumbles, then goes quiet again. Thinking about Michael. Thinking about Lucy.
"I'm gonna get rid of most of this." Michael says, rummaging through his old makeup bag. "Half of it's expired and I don't really wear most of it anyway."
"Is any of still good?" Luke asks.
They're de-girling Michael's apartment - his words, not Luke's. Throwing out things that make him feel dysphoric while they wait for him to get an appointment at the endocrinologist's office. Luke didn't think there would be that much femininity in here, but there's a lot already that they've decided to get rid of. Things with Michael's old name on, dresses and skirts he hasn't worn in years, make up, anything else that Michael decides doesn't fit his new vibe. There was much debate about whether the fairy lights above Michael's bed could stay (they decided fairy lights are gay and therefore allowed).
"I mean, all the nail polish is probably still fine. I might keep an eyeliner pen too 'cause why not." Michael sorts through tubes and bottles and brushes, setting aside a couple of things as Luke watches.
Luke has never really understood makeup. He grew up with two older brothers so it wasn't something that was very present in his childhood, except with his mother. She didn't wear a lot of makeup because they couldn't afford it, but she would sit at her vanity every morning and spend half an hour making herself look different. Luke never thought she looked prettier with makeup on, necessarily, because that was his mum and she was beautiful no matter what, but she seemed happier that way.
Sometimes Luke wanted to ask her to teach him how to do it. How to change his face until it brought him joy. He never did because he was - is - a boy and boys don't wear makeup. Boys don't cry in front of the bathroom mirror and wonder what they'd look like if their tears were tinted with mascara.
Boys don't think that Lucy would wear glittery eyeshadow every day.
"Can I- have that?" Luke points to a bottle of black nail polish. He thinks he picked it at random but in the back of his mind he knows Lucy would want it. "For, um… me."
He doesn't have a good excuse, and Michael has never been one to judge him anyway. "Sure. I can paint your nails for you if you want."
"No, that's fine. I don't wanna paint them right now." Luke insists.
Michael side eyes him a little, then says, "Let me know when you do, then."
Lucy is everywhere. The cute plaid skirts in the window at the mall. The bottle of nail varnish on his desk. The mirror, staring back at Luke if he looks too close for too long.
He had started growing his hair out a little. Ashton tugs at a ringlet and says it looks nice. Luke can't think straight for the rest of the day.
Luke has had a thing for Ashton for a while, and he's brave enough to admit that to himself. There's something about him - the cocky little smile, the shit jokes that are somehow still hilarious, the strong arm slung over the back of his chair in the cafeteria. He's just the right side of infuriating that makes Luke want him. Unfortunately he's also straight, so Luke has no chance.
He wonders if Ashton would like Lucy. With her carefree attitude and her long blonde hair and her eyes like diamonds. Of course he would, he'd love Lucy, but Luke isn't her. He's a mess, a pathetic excuse for a man who needs to get a fucking grip.
"Are you ever gonna paint your nails with that, or are you just gonna stare at it forever?" His roommate asks.
Luke is sitting on his bed, spinning the bottle of nail varnish between two fingers as he thinks about it. Thinks about Lucy. He shouldn't let himself think about her but he can't help it. She's everything he secretly wants to be.
That's all it is. A secret, a fantasy, something that will never be real. Like the band making it or Ashton actually liking him back.
"I don't really know how. I've never done it before." Luke admits.
Despite his fascination with makeup, he knows nothing about it. He's bisexual but his luck with girls is minimal, and he isn't about to ask any of them to do his makeup for him. Even Michael wasn't that interested in it outside of the basics when he was a girl.
His roommate sighs, then climbs down from his bed. He pulls both their desk chairs up to his desk and gestures to them. "Come here, then, I'll teach you."
"You know how?" Luke asks as he sits down in one of the chairs.
"I've got a little sister." His roommate explains. He shakes the nail varnish bottle a few times before he unscrews the cap. "Gracie, she's fifteen."
"I've got two older brothers. Ben and Jack." Luke puts both of his hands down on the desk so his roommate can take his pick of which one to paint first. He doesn't actually know very much about his roommate because they don't ever hang out. "My parents weren't very creative with our names."
"Neither were mine. That's why I changed it."
"You changed your name?"
"Do you think my parents named me Awsten with a W?" His roommate - Awsten - laughs. "Nah, when I was in, like, the sixth grade I decided I wanted to be Awsten and my mom let me. She'd let me get away with murder, to be honest."
"That's pretty cool." Luke says quietly. He had never considered he could just change his name whenever he wanted. It seemed like such a big deal but if Michael and Awsten can do it, then surely so can he. Not that he's going to, obviously, because he's not- thinking about it. He's not thinking about it.
"We have a limited run on this bitch of an Earth." Awsten says, brow furrowed and tongue between his teeth as he concentrates on painting Luke's nails. "Might as well customise ourselves how we like."
Awsten gives Luke a crash course on painting his nails, boiling down to if it looks like shit you can clean it up with acetone. Luke spends a while staring at his nails after they're done, admiring them. They look good, pretty like a girl's. If Luke lets himself think about it, he could let them be a girl's hands. Lucy's hands, with perfect nail varnish and rings on her fingers.
"Sometimes," Luke says quietly when he realises Awsten is waiting for him to say something, "I wish I was someone else entirely."
"Then be someone else entirely." Awsten replies.
Luke thinks he might try.
Ashton is so fucking hot. They're at a party and Luke is beyond tipsy and Ashton is right fucking there, wearing a tank top and too-tight jeans and sweating a little in the over-warm kitchen. It's obscene, quite frankly, and it's making it impossible to think straight. He's the only person Luke wants to be around right now, because Michael and Calum are making out in the corner of the living room like teenagers. But there's some girl chatting up Ashton instead, which sucks because that means he isn't paying attention to Luke. The girl isn't even - okay, she's pretty, but she isn't Lucy. She isn't who Ashton is supposed to have eyes for.
Not that Ashton has any idea who Lucy is, or ever will, probably.
Luke stumbles over to Ashton, taps him on the shoulder and says, "D'you wanna fag?" And he isn't sure if he means him or a cigarette, but Ashton says yes either way, immediately abandoning the girl for him. That makes him feel a little better.
"This party's lame." Ashton says, lighting two cigarettes in his mouth and giving one to Luke once they're outside.
"Totally." Luke agrees because if Ashton says so then it must be. He savours the taste of Ashton through the staleness of his cigarette. "We could just dip if you wanted."
Ashton shakes his head. "I'd rather be at a shitty party than no party."
"Right, yeah." Luke ducks his head, staring at his shoes because he doesn't know what else to say.
He never really knows what to say to Ashton - he's his best friend's boyfriend's best friend, which is a weird relationship to have to someone. And he's attractive, and Luke has never been good at talking to people he finds alluring. Sometimes he can stumble through a conversation with a girl long enough to get them to kiss him, but he always finds himself distracted by jealousy. Stupid girls with their long hair and soft lips and perfect makeup. What does Luke have? What does he have that Ashton might want him for?
Ashton reaches out and tugs on a curl hanging below Luke's ear. "You really do look good with your hair long."
"Oh, um, thank you." Luke blushes. He's worse with compliments than he is with girls. "I just thought I'd try it."
"It's good to try things." Ashton agrees. "You know what I've always wanted to try?"
"What's that?"
"Kissing a guy." Ashton says. Luke almost chokes on a mouthful of smoke. "I mean, how can you be sure that you're straight if you've never tried it?"
"You can kiss me if you want." Luke says, then considers walking into the nearest ocean. What is fucking wrong with him, could he sound any more desperate? "Uh, I mean-"
"Alright."
"What?"
"I'll kiss you." Ashton says with an exaggerated shrug like he's trying too hard to be nonchalant. "Don't make it weird, I'm just experimenting."
"That's fine." Luke has been plenty of people's experiment before, to mixed reviews. His partners always seem to think he's compensating for something - probably the emptiness of his soul.
Neither of them bothers to put their cigarettes before they kiss. It's a simple thing, soft and cautious like it's their first ever. Of course it isn't, they both get around, but they have never been this intimate with each other before. They don't even hug. This is completely left field for them.
It feels right, though, kissing tender under a street lamp with the bass of the party booming distantly. Luke could do this forever. He could live and breathe Ashton.
Ashton pulls away first, and frowns. Luke doesn't like that look on him - Ashton is someone who should always be smiling. He likes even less that it might be him that's making him frown.
"So?" Luke asks, "What's the verdict?"
After a moment of silence in which they both take long drags of their cigarettes, Ashton says, "I think I need a bigger sample size."
Don't you fucking dare, Luke thinks, I want you all to myself.
When Michael was a girl - pause, is Luke allowed to say that? Michael isn't a girl and never really was, he understands that, but there was a point where they all thought he was, when he presented as such, so it seems like a reasonable thing to say. Luke doesn't want to offend him, though, but he also doesn't want to badger Michael with questions about a topic that is already pretty hard for him to talk about. God these things are confusing, but never in the way you expect them to be.
If Luke decided he was a girl - which he hasn't, and he isn't thinking about it either - he would probably say that he used to be a guy. It feels like an important part of his history, context as to why Lucy is like this. Not that he'll ever be Lucy, she doesn't exist. She's all in his head.
Anyway, when Michael was a girl, he used to drag Luke out to the mall with him all the time. Luke pretended he hated it, following Michael around for hours while he complained about how bad all the girl's clothes were. They weren't that bad - Luke was actually jealous of how pretty some of the blouses were, how freeing the skirts looked, the cute accessories and the shiny jewellery. Once or twice he actually bought something, convinced he could pass it off as menswear, Michael side-eyeing him the entire time. Luke always feels a little self-conscious wearing any of it, but no one has every brought it up to him. Maybe they can see the girl in him, not that there is one. He's normal, he's fine.
Since Michael came out, he has been dragging Luke to the men's departments instead. In theory this is fine or even better, but he misses getting to wander around looking at beautiful clothes and wondering what he would look like in them.
"Do you wanna go look over there?" Calum asks when he catches Luke staring wistfully at a mannequin over in the woman's section. He comes along on their shopping trips now too, because he likes buying things for Michael. Ashton doesn't come because he would rather die than spend a day shopping.
"Huh?" Luke jumps, realising he has been thinking about dresses instead of listening to any conversation that might be happening. "Oh, no, it's fine."
"You can. Clothes are just fabric, you can wear whatever you want." Calum says gently. Michael is rummaging through a rack nearby, not listening. "I wear a skirt sometimes, you've seen it."
"That's a kilt, it's different." Luke snaps without really meaning to. "Sorry, I just… I don't wanna go over there."
"Alright." Calum shrugs, backing off. "If you ever do, let me know."
"Um, okay." Luke mumbles.
He doesn't like how fine Calum is being about this. It's like he already knows what Luke is and is waiting for him to say something. But Luke doesn't want to say anything, doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to think about it.
So he doesn't.
Lucy won't go away. She's always in the back of Luke's mind, beautiful, happy, taunting him. Why can't he be like that? Why does he have to suffer, feel wrong in his body and his clothes. His hair feels better now that it's longer, and he keeps his face shaved so when he looks in the fogged up bathroom mirror it isn't so bad. He swipes one of Michael's eyeliner pens just to try it, sitting on his dorm room floor one day when his roommate is out.
She looks cute with the dark rings around her eyes. He does, Luke, he's a man. He isn't Lucy, he doesn't want to be. Okay, maybe he does, maybe it would be nice. He isn't supposed to be thinking about this, but he's scared that if he doesn't then it will rot him from the inside out. That Lucy will find her way out either way, but what form she comes out on depends on how much he crushes her in.
"Lucy." He mumbles into the mirror. "I don't look like a Lucy."
Then make yourself look like her, he thinks.
He digs through his closet until he finds a white blouse he bought a year ago and then got too scared to wear. Then he finds a pair of jeans that he really likes on himself and pulls them on. He brushes out his hair so it looks a little longer, repaints his nails where they're chipped, touches up his eyeliner, then stares at himself in the floor length mirror on the front of his wardrobe. A different person is staring back at him. Someone he has never seen in real life before.
"Hello Lucy." She whispers, and smiles at her reflection.
Michael is a lot easier to sneak into their dorm now that he looks like a guy - he wears a binder, has cut his hair shorter, started taking testosterone. The RA's don't bat an eye at him wandering in and out, even though he doesn't live there. There's so many guys living in this dorm building that they can't be expected to keep track of all of them.
That means Michael can stay overnight at their dorm, sometimes in Luke's room if Awsten isn't there, usually with Calum. Tonight, for some reason, Luke hasn't gone back to his own room after movie night. Calum and Michael are fast asleep in Calum's bed, while Luke has somehow ended up in Ashton's.
They're laying in his bed, facing each other. Ashton looks so handsome, half asleep, sweat beading on his forehead because the air conditioner is still broken. His eyes keep flicking down to look at Luke's lips while they talk, so unsubtle that it's almost funny.
"You know I was looking at other guys," Ashton eventually whispers, "And I really don't wanna kiss any of them."
"No one is making you kiss boys." Luke reminds him.
"I know, but I still want to kiss you, and I don't really know what that means."
"It's probably because-" Luke starts, then realises what he's about to say. It's probably because I'm actually a girl.
He cannot say that to Ashton, or to anyone. No one knows that he wants to be a girl and he doesn't think he's ready to tell anyone. It only seems fair that he tells Michael first, but he doesn't know how. Doesn't know what order to put the words in, how to explain that he wants to be something that Michael abandoned. He hasn't figured Lucy out properly yet - what she looks like, how she dresses, her makeup, her voice. She's still more of a concept than a physical person.
But she's him. Or he's her, or she's just… Lucy.
"Because what?" Ashton asks.
Luke could tell him. He would be fine about it, the way he was with Michael. Even if Lucy isn't completely figured out, Ashton won't care. Maybe he can help get Lucy out of her head. It's terrifying, the thought of making any of this real. Luke's heart hammers and nausea stirs in his stomach.
"Do you promise not to tell anyone?" Luke asks, so quiet that he isn't sure Ashton has heard him until he nods. "Seriously, you can't say anything to anyone until I'm ready."
"I won't, I swear." Ashton leans up to check Michael and Calum are still asleep in the other bed, then shuffles a little closer. "I got you, mate."
Luke has no idea how to say it. His only experience with coming out was when Michael did it, and that was a little bit traumatic for both of them despite the ultimately good outcome. He doesn't know how to do this in a way that doesn't make him sound stupid.
Maybe he is stupid, but Lucy isn't.
"I… might be a- a- well, you know, I've been thinking about it since Michael came out. I kinda… wanna be a girl." Luke chokes out. "And I was thinking I could be called Lucy? I know it's dumb because it's just my name with different letters-"
"Lucy." Ashton says, and Luke stops talking. They both smile at each other. "Nice to meet you, Lucy."
"Hi." Lucy giggles, still so anxious. "But, um, maybe that's why you wanna kiss me. 'Cause I'm secretly a girl."
Ashton tucks a loose curl behind her ear. "Can I? Kiss you, I mean. Is this an appropriate time?"
"Please." She whispers, and he leans in to press their lips together. He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her into him, deepening the kiss as she wraps her hand around the back of his neck. They shift until Ashton is on top of Lucy, strong arms bracketing her head. She puts her hand on his chest to stop him for a moment. "This is not how I expected to come out to you."
"Sorry, sweetie." Ashton runs his fingers through her hair. "Do you wanna talk about it more?"
"Not really. Just- you understand what this means, right?"
"That despite everyone's best efforts, I'm still straight?" Ashton asks, making Lucy laugh. "I get it. You're a girl now, and I will beat up anyone who says otherwise."
"You still like me?" She asks. "Like, for real?"
Ashton chuckles self-consciously. "Yeah. You're real pretty."
Lucy blushes. "I don't know about that. I haven't got a lot of things figured out yet."
"Sure, we'll work on that if you want. But I like you no matter what." Ashton kisses her on the nose. "My Lucy, my girl."
She likes the sound of being Ashton's girl.
When they wake up the next morning, Luke asks Michael to walk to the store with him. Ashton makes some excuse that means he and Calum have to stay behind at the dorm so it's just the two of them. Luke can't think of what to say so they walk in silence until they get to the park, and they decide to sit down on a bench under a eucalyptus tree. Somehow, Michael is the one who speaks first.
"Whatever you wanna tell me, it's okay." He says. "I'm not gonna be mad at you."
"I know."
"I know you know. I just wanted to remind you that everything's gonna be okay even if you're scared right now. We can figure it out." Michael holds out his hand, and Luke takes it. "You're my best friend, remember?"
"I… I just-" He doesn't know how to say it. "It's like…" She has to spit it out or she will never speak again. "My name is Lucy."
Michael wraps his arm around her. He understands her, he always does. "Then I love you to death, Lucy."
Lucy leans her head on his shoulder. She's gonna be okay. "I love you too, Michael."
It's like breathing new air. She is Lucy, she's the pretty girl with the long hair and the painted nails. This is the way she wants to live now and she knows she has the support of Michael and Ashton. She can be herself now, it's okay. Life doesn't have to be so miserable.
Not everything is perfect, but it could be if she tries.
Lucy doesn't see Calum when they get back to the dorm because she goes straight back to her own bed. She doesn't actually see him until the next day at the cafeteria, when he walks up behind her and squeezes her shoulder.
"Hey, Lucy." He says before he sits down across from her.
"Hey." She responds before she realises what he actually said. "How do you-"
"Mikey spoke to me last night. Sorry, if you wanted to tell me yourself."
"No, no, it's fine." She insists. If she never has to come out to anyone again, she will die happy. "You knew anyway, didn't you?"
"Something to do with you stealing Mike's makeup and staring wistfully at dresses I think." Calum smiles. Lucy laughs a little - yeah, that'll do it. She was never very discreet. "I think we all knew, but we didn't want to scare you by bringing it up."
"Thank you." She says, and means it. "I was really in my head about it, talking about it too soon would've made me push it either further down."
Ashton appears at the table then, sliding his arm around Lucy's shoulders and kissing her on the cheek. "Hey, lovely girl."
"Hi." Lucy giggles, pressing herself against him. Michael sits down beside Calum, opposite Luke. "How was class?"
"Weird. My professor went on a rant about pigeons for some reason." Ashton squeezes her in his big arms, then lets her go. When they look over at Michael and Calum, they're staring at them, slack-jawed. "What?"
"You two!" Michael exclaims, pointing at them. "Are you dating?"
"No!" Lucy insists right as Ashton says, "Sort of." They turn to look at each other, both surprised by the other's answer.
"Oh dear." Calum barely suppresses a smile. He's loving this, he lives for other people's drama.
"We've kissed twice, we're not dating." Lucy huffs. Ashton frowns at her. "You haven't asked me out."
"You kissed him and didn't tell me?" Michael smacks Lucy on the arm.
"You kissed her and didn't tell me?" Calum kicks Ashton under the table.
"Can we not?" Lucy begs. "I love you guys, I don't wanna fight about this."
Ashton leans his chin on her shoulder. "Do you wanna be my girlfriend, then?"
She smiles at him, loving the word girlfriend on his tongue. "Take me to dinner first."
They do go to dinner. Calum drives Lucy to the mall and helps her pick an outfit. They spend ages in the fitting rooms trying things on, and she starts to understand why so many women have breakdowns in these places. Nothing fits her the way she wants it to and it doesn't help that she's working with the frame of a particularly gangly man. She feels dysphoric - a new word she learned from Michael - and uncomfortable - something she has been familiar for years. She's fighting for her fucking life in here.
Eventually, she finds something she likes - black trousers with a deep purple blouse. Calum hypes her up the whole time, even offers to pay for it. Then Michael helps her do her makeup, lots of glitter and eyeliner that makes her eyes look bright and shiny. She looks good, she knows she does, but she's still so anxious. What if Ashton doesn't like her like this? He has only ever known Luke, not Lucy, and they're very different people.
Well, if he doesn't like her, fuck him. Michael likes her, and he's the only person she has ever cared about.
"Wow." Ashton says when he meets her outside the restaurant. "You look stunning, Lu."
"Thank you." She kisses him on the cheek. She's so nervous that she feels sick. "I feel like everyone is staring at me."
"Because you're hot." Ashton wraps her arm around her waist and escorts her into the restaurant. "If anyone gives you trouble, I'll kill them. You're my girl no matter what, okay?"
"Okay." Lucy kisses him and he grins.
The date goes great. She can't stop smiling the whole night, and Ashton corrects the waiter when he calls Lucy sir ("she's a woman, actually"). She can feel people staring at her, but she catches Ashton glaring at them all, daring them to say anything about her. About his girl.
Calum calls Ashton right as they're leaving, and tells him that he and Michael are going to a house party. They all decide to meet up there, because Lucy and Ashton are already dressed up and not ready to go home yet.
The party is a bit overcrowded, but that means Lucy gets to sit on Ashton's lap in the living room. She spots someone she knows across the room - Awsten, who hasn't actually been back to the dorm in a week - and waves to him.
Awsten walks over. "Hey, Lu-"
"Lucy." Ashton, Michael and Calum say in unison. Her heart swells.
"Luuuuucy." Awsten corrects, nodding to himself. "Congrats."
"Thank you." Lucy laughs. Ashton squeezes her hip, and she feels like the luckiest girl in the world.