Chapter Text
“I’m sorry, are you actually primping right now?”
Luke freezes in the back seat, his neck craning to catch his reflection in the rearview mirror as he ruffles his hair into better shape. He was banking on it being subtle, but Alex’s eyes have found his with a withering stare. “Uhhh, no?”
An eyebrow raises skeptically. “Why are you being so weird?”
“I’m not being-look, light’s green!”
Alex’s suspicious look doesn’t fade as he slips his eyes back to the road and turns left onto Sunset. But he’s mostly distracted by the drive, so Luke ducks down one last time and smooths the locks over his forehead.
Today’s a big day.
Possibly life ruining.
Cause today is the first day he’s seeing Julie in person in five months. The first time since they started hooking up. He’s seen her almost every single day over Zoom—usually naked, with her hand or a sex toy between her legs—but not in the real world, where no image or sound can lag, and where no pixelation and bad lighting can ruin the view. But maybe the real world will find other ways to ruin things.
For the most part, he knows that it’s Julie on his screen, rehearsing with him, writing with him, doing weekly streaming gigs with him, getting off with him for hours. But there’s something surreal about their relationship changing so much online, almost like it’s happening with a different Julie.
The Julie on his screen tells him she’s wanted to hook up with him for ages. Looks at him with so much fondness that he wants to cry sometimes. Offers up pieces of herself without hesitation. And he knows it’s not just about sex—they’ve been doing their nightly phone calls for months and those never turn sexual. And while they’ve never talked about the Zoom sex or what the calls mean, he and Julie have always been good at nonverbal communication when they’re on the same page. He knows the calls are romantic just by the fact that they exist, even if neither of them says anything they wouldn’t otherwise.
But that’s Julie on his screen.
What if she’s not the same as the Julie in real life? Or what if she only wants him in the weird spaces online where public and private get all smooshed together? What if, in person, those boundaries hold strong? What if she looks at him the same as she always has, pretending that nothing’s changed? Or what if seeing him in person resets them, and things go back to normal?
He doesn’t let himself consider positive outcomes. Doesn’t let himself hope. Cause Luke knows that hoping for something makes it not happen. Learned that lesson early on, when Carrie Wilson had insisted on playing spin the bottle at her sixth grade birthday party as if it was the fucking ‘80s. He’d never kissed anyone before, and he knew Julie hadn’t either, and even though sixth grade Luke would have sworn under oath that he didn’t have a crush on Julie, when they squeezed into the circle with all the kids in their class and Julie bravely reached for the bottle first, he’d been overwhelmed by the sudden hope that it would land on him. That they would be each other’s first kisses. It was the first time he could remember really hoping for something that had to do with another person—a deep longing that made his stomach tremble and his mind flood with a montage of Julie spinning the bottle to him, smiling when it landed on him, swooping over to grant him that perfect first kiss. So he hoped, he hoped, he hoped… and Julie’s bottle landed on Reggie, who leaned across the circle and brushed his Cheeto-dusted lips against hers for a split second that made Luke’s chest ache. Julie and Reggie instantly yanked apart and wriggled their faces at each other in open disgust, their sibling dynamic already well-established, but it hadn’t changed the fact that Julie’s first kiss was Reggie, and an unfortunate spin of Luke’s bottle made Carrie Wilson his. Her lip gloss felt slimy, and her thin lips pressed too firmly against his at an awkward angle, and the whole experience was so wildly uncomfortable that he decided he never wanted to kiss anyone ever again.
So on Julie’s next round, he hoped the bottle wouldn’t land on him. Kissing Julie would be terrible, actually. He didn’t want her lips to be slimy or hard, or to feel awkward whenever he looked at them. That might make their friendship weird, and their friendship was one of his favorite things in the world. So he hoped, he hoped, he hoped, and naturally Julie’s spin landed on him. Her eyes went wide, but not upset, and she’d squared her shoulders bravely and leaned in to kiss him. She didn’t have lip gloss on, just a light chapstick that made her lips silky and smooth and taste like apples. Their lips slotted together easily, and her mouth was soft and pillowy, and he suddenly understood why some people cared about kissing. This felt nice, really nice. When she pulled back, she didn’t wrinkle her face at him. In fact, she looked a bit... dazed, wearing a crooked smile that he wanted to explore with his mouth.
It was a big enough moment that he wondered if something was going to change between them afterwards. He had no specific idea of what he wanted to change—he was twelve, and had much clearer ideas about what he wanted to do with his band than he did with girls—but still, he hoped, he hoped, he hoped…
They never mentioned it again and nothing changed.
Hope is a fucking curse.
In seventh grade, he hoped Sunset Curve would go big, and instead Bobby turned out to be an absolute dickhead who Adult Luke still can’t think about without shaking.
In tenth grade, he hoped Rose Molina would recover from the flu, and instead…
In tenth grade, he hoped the band would start to get serious, and instead Julie was silenced for six months in a storm of grief so big and heavy that all Luke could do was sit helplessly next to her.
In twelfth grade, he hoped he might finally get the courage to tell Julie how he felt, and instead she’d gone to prom with Nick and Luke had sex for the first time at a graduation party with a girl whose name he didn’t even remember.
After graduation, he hoped his parents would accept and support his dreams, and instead they’d kicked him out of the house and he’d moved into the Molinas’ studio until he got a job and could rent an apartment.
Don’t hope for things. That bone deep kind of hope is deadly, especially when it comes to Julie. If he hopes, he ends up with dashed dreams, an aching heart, and secondhand Cheeto dust on his lips.
He squeezes the handle of the door so tightly that his knuckles turn white. It’s so tempting to leap out of the car and flee back home. Better to not see Julie at all than to break their friendship or learn that this thing between them will only exist on Zoom. Better to-
“I think I see them!”
Luke blinks, barely registering that they’ve apparently parked when Reggie grabs his hand and tugs him eagerly out of the car.
Apparently he doesn’t have a choice anymore.
The three guys pull on their masks as they stumble onto the sidewalk. Alex speed walks ahead, calling out a joyful, “Willie!” as they head up the hill toward Runyon Canyon.
But Luke only has eyes for the women standing six feet away from Willie. Julie’s back is to him, and for a moment, all he can see is skin before he actually registers her clothes. She’s wearing shorts he’s never seen before—a black, skintight, high waisted pair that ends right under the curve of her ass, only just covering her. Her purple crop top is held up by a halter bow that leaves half of her back exposed, lean muscles rippling under what looks like incredibly soft skin. He’s overwhelmed with the urge to tug on that tie with his teeth and let it come unfurled. To pull her into his lap and wriggle his hands under her shorts and palm her ass and suck her neck until she’s writhing against-
His gaze slips past Julie to Flynn, who watches him with a smug crinkle around her eyes, her bright orange, sequin-covered mask shielding him from the full force of her smirk. In fact, she’s so smug that she’s gotta be responsible for Julie’s outfit and therefore for the way his brain has immediately derailed. Flynn silently snaps her finger, a nonverbal “You’re welcome” gesture that he knows too well, before nudging Julie with her elbow.
Julie spins around and her eyes land on Reggie, who immediately squeals, “Julie!!” He skips forward, but before he can get too close, Flynn calls out, “Six feet!” with the confident snap of someone who has been working in a supermarket for the past few months and knows exactly what a six-foot radius should look like. Reggie squeaks to an instant halt, his knees bending cartoonishly to stop himself, and then he cheerfully waves at the two women. Their eyes grin as they wave back.
“Look at you,” Julie says through a giggle. “You’re a real person.” Her voice is slightly deeper than Luke remembered it, fuller somehow when it’s not on Zoom. Fuck, has he already forgotten things about Real Life Julie? Or has she changed?
Luke swoops forward with a deep, bouncing slide. “He’s not just a pretty face on a virtual background.” He pats Reggie’s back without taking his gaze off of Julie.
She turns her eyes to him with the same friendly enthusiasm she showed Reggie. No pause. No special recognition in her eyes. Not even a wave. His heart dips unpleasantly. “Now he’s a pretty pair of real eyeballs,” she quips.
What is he supposed to say to that? How does he talk to people who aren’t Alex and Reggie? Fuck. He’s never felt awkward around Julie before. What is this?
Luke lets his gaze dip to where her mouth would normally be visible, nodding at the purple mask with a row of embroidered butterflies. It’s weird to think that such a vital part of her every day is so foreign to him, that he’s not already intimately familiar with every single thread. “I like the mask,” he offers.
She runs a surprised finger over the embroidery like she forgot she was wearing the thing. “I made it myself.”
“Yeah, you mentioned.”
“Oh, right.” She tucks her hands awkwardly behind her back and leans back on her heels. “Uh, I like yours too.”
His is screen printed with the notations of some of his favorite guitar riffs, but he can’t say that cause she already knows that, so where the hell does that leave them?
Flynn rests her elbow on Julie’s shoulder and looks between them with a bemused eyebrow raise. “As thrilling as this conversation is, can we get in line?”
They stumble into the line stretching to the entrance of Runyon. Luke, Reggie, and Alex file into place six feet behind Willie and six feet ahead of Julie and Flynn, and Luke and Reggie try to focus on the women to give Alex some privacy. But looking at Flynn and Julie just makes Luke itchy. He wants to rest a casual elbow on Julie, the way he so often has in the past. Wants to see if she’d lean into his touch more, maybe tuck herself into his side. Wants to slip his hand into the back pocket of her shorts or play with the low back on her shirt, stroking the smooth skin as she sways back against him. Or maybe even slip his hand around her waist and fiddle innocently with the fabric cupping the outside of her breast, discretely dipping a finger under the shirt to caress-
“How many?” the gate attendant asks, looking bored.
Oh shit, they’ve moved up the whole line while he’s been lost in his fantasies.
Alex and Reggie hesitate, and it takes Luke a moment to realize that they’re waiting for him to take the lead the way he usually does. “Uh, three?”
The attendant clicks the counter in her hand and waves them in.
As they file into the park, Alex snorts. “Dude, where is your head today?”
Luke shrugs, hoping his cheeks don’t flush too much and give it away.
As soon as Flynn and Julie are waved in, the group starts their hike around the one-way loop, the three households keeping a six-foot distance from one another. At first no one speaks, all of them just taking in the park with wide, nervous eyes. It’s not like they’ve ever spent much time here—Runyon tends to be crowded and filled with people who are more interested in live-streaming themselves than taking in the nature, but even with his limited experience, Luke knows the whole park feels off. It’s not the usual lightheaded chatter and obnoxiously big crowds and yoga classes. There are definitely people breaking the rules—groups who can’t all be from the same households walking side-by-side—but there’s a caution in the air regardless. Like everyone in the park has been let out for recess in the middle of the apocalypse and no one knows quite what to do about it.
Luke makes eye contact with Julie and tries to nod her over. If they can talk six feet apart, maybe they can recover from whatever that disaster was outside. He can read the vibes, get a sense of where she stands, figure out what’s happening. Her eyes run slowly over him from head to foot, his skin wriggling in her wake. Fuck, now he’s rethinking the decision to wear his Landed in the USA cutoff, which Alex has always described as “the least shirt that’s ever tried to shirt.” Will Julie think he dressed with her in mind? He was mostly thinking that it was hot as balls, but yeah, maybe he wants her to remember that he has arms that Flynn has disparagingly called “distracting.”
As she takes him in, Julie’s eyes narrow, weighing and measuring every inch of him. When her gaze meets his again, she shakes her head urgently and skips ahead to walk near Reggie.
Uh.
Fuck.
Okay.
So that’s how it is?
Flynn falls in a wide line with Alex and Willie, and Luke trails behind, letting his feet slow so no one will pay too much attention to the tears knocking at the back of his eyes. He can barely feel the rocky ground under his feet—are they rocks? Is it his heart?
He should have stayed home.
It only gets worse as the hike goes on. Alex and Flynn are trying to fill the silence, but their bodies are stiff and their chatter stilted, both focusing on the uncharacteristically silent and sullen Willie who they can’t seem to lure into conversation. Every time anyone talks to him, he flinches, looking alarmed by the presence of people nearby. Five months of working from home and living alone have rendered him completely overwhelmed by the crowds of Runyon, even if they are socially distanced.
Normally Luke would try to help out, but if Alex can’t bring Willie out of his shell, what hope does Luke have? His best friend doesn’t even want to talk to him—why would Willie?
The only people who seem to be having a good time are Reggie and Julie, hiking far ahead of the group but laughing so loudly that Luke can hear their joy like they’re standing right next to him. And it’s not that Luke is jealous, but his heart is snarling angrily in his chest and his teeth are cutting up his lip and yeah, okay, he’s jealous as fuck. Like he’s back in that ridiculous circle at fucking Carrie’s birthday party watching Julie and Reggie’s mouths meet.
Only now it’s even worse now cause he thought… well, obviously he thought wrong, but he has enough images of Julie that he’s simultaneously simmering with angry hurt and turned on because those fucking shorts are displaying the full length of her legs and without anyone distracting him with conversation, all he can do is think about wrapping her lean thighs around his shoulders. Imagining that the sheen of sweat on her face is from being worked over by his tongue for hours, that the playful “oh my god!” she gushes at Reggie is longer and higher pitched and needier, that the fingers she’s combing through her curls are yanking through his hair as she drags his face tight against-
He squirts himself in the face with the lukewarm water from his bottle and sidles up next to Alex, forcing himself to focus on the conversation with Flynn for the rest of the hike. As long as he doesn’t look ahead, he won’t get distracted by Julie. Won’t have to watch her ignoring him. So what if he’s conscious of where she is for the rest of the hike? He doesn’t look at her once—that’s gotta count for something.
When they finally stumble out of the park with trembling legs, he keeps his eyes averted from Julie as he waves goodbye. Flynn shoots him an uncharacteristically sympathetic look as she waves back, and he stumbles back toward the car with his heart squishing beneath his feet.
Hope, as always, is a fucking curse.
When Julie calls that night, he’s sore enough about how weird and awkward things were that he almost doesn’t answer. But she’s Julie and he’s Luke, and he picks up on the third ring.
“Well, that was torture,” she groans without preamble.
“What was?” he asks as he sinks down onto the bed.
“Seeing you in person.” Her words smack into his ribs, a wrecking ball to the heart. Jesus, she’s really not sugarcoating it. “I thought it would make us feel closer, but it just felt further somehow? And apparently I have zero self-control. It’s a lot easier not touching you when you’re nine miles away.”
Oh.
“Yeah, those six feet really suck. And masks. I keep smiling at people and forgetting they can’t see it.”
He hopes she’ll say the same, that she was sending him smirks and longing grins behind her mask and forgetting that he couldn’t see them, but all she actually says is, “I miss your smile.”
“It’s right here.”
She chuckles sadly. Blankets rustle through the speaker, and she exhales heavily. He’s almost expecting her to hang up, but then she asks, “Were you okay? You didn’t talk much.”
He swallows the petty urge to ask how she would even know that given how thoroughly she ignored him. “I was just focusing on keeping myself PG.”
“Was there a reason you didn’t feel PG?” she asks, voice flirty in a way it hasn’t been on the phone before. The change doesn’t feel like a good sign.
“I think you know why.”
She giggles, the sound free and high and light in a way that makes his heart forget to be grumpy for a second. “You liked the outfit then?”
“Dunno if liked is the word. I fantasized about 50 ways to take it off of you.”
“Do you want to tell me about those?”
The sun and the heat and the exertion and the heartache hang heavy in his chest, and he can’t find the version of himself from earlier who was completely lost in horny thoughts. Today was shitty, and he’s so goddamn lonely and exhausted. “Honestly, I just wanna hold you,” he admits quietly.
The flirtation instantly vanishes from her voice. “Okay, you can tell me about that instea-”
“I don’t wanna tell you about it. I don’t wanna have to figure out words to pretend, or close my eyes to imagine shit. I just-” His voice cracks, buckling under him, and it’s only then that he realizes he’s started crying. Fuck, he’s more shattered than he realized—fault lines have been forming for months and today put too much pressure in all the weakest places, and now he’s falling to pieces faster than he can take a breath. “I just wanna roll over in bed and find you next to me and wrap my arms around you. I just want it to be real. I can’t-” His voice cracks again and he roughly wipes his tears off on his sleeve. “How long until I can just give you a fucking hug, cause I can’t do this much longer, Jules, I can’t, I can’t-” The words stop coming altogether, swallowed by the violent sobs wracking his body.
“Luke, can you breathe for me?” she asks quietly. He hiccups back and shakes his head, but obviously she can’t see him. She gets it anyways. “Put me on speaker?”
He fumbles with the tear-soaked screen, his fingers slipping around before he manages to click the speaker button.
“Put your hands behind your head and sit up straight.”
He follows without question.
“Now try to breathe on my count. One-”
He can picture what she’d be like in person so clearly—cuddling up next to him and putting a hand on his back to steady him. But she can’t do that cause she’s not here and she won’t be for god knows how long and what if he never touches her again and-
“Luke,” she cuts confidently into his spiral. “Just focus on my voice. Can you count backwards from a hundred in Spanish for me?”
That confuses him enough that he manages, “What?”
“Count backwards from a hundred. Just focus on getting your pronunciation as accurate as possible.”
He swallows sharply but tries a trembling, “Cien?”
She hums approvingly on the other end. “Next?”
“Noventa y nueve.”
He has no idea how long they sit there, him listing numbers, and sometimes repeating them if the pronunciation sounds wrong, and eventually he gets so focused on the sounds coming out of his mouth that he doesn’t realize his breathing has returned to normal until he says “cero” and realizes he’s done.
He tests out a couple of regular breaths, and her sigh of relief echoes over the phone. “How is your pronunciation better than mine? Unfair.”
Chuckling wetly, he wipes away his tears. Switching off the speaker phone, he brings it back up to his ear. “Sorry about-”
“Don’t you dare apologize.”
“I didn’t realize I was… Fuck.” He pinches his nose, keeping fresh tears at bay.
“I know it feels like this thing is forever. But it’s not, Luke. You are going to hug me. I’m going to hug you. And you’re going to take these clothes off of me.”
Well, shit.
They’ve never talked about what’ll happen after lockdown. He’s actively tried not to hope, but he’s been worried that some hope slipped through the cracks anyways. “Like, in person?”
“If you want to.”
“I do. You have no idea how much I do.”
He can hear her lips parting in a smile, but when her voice comes out, it’s serious. “Did anything in particular upset you today?”
Don’t make her feel guilty. Focus on the truth you can tell. “It’s shitty.”
“Knowing you, it’s not and you’re being too hard on yourself.”
He heaves out a heavy sigh and confesses in a rush, “Willie might be moving in. He’s not doing well alone, and Alex is really worried. And obviously it’s great—we’re lucky there’s space for him, and it’s this incredible, big step for their relationship, and I want Willie to be good, obviously I do, and-”
“Luke?” she prods, gently but firmly.
“I was jealous,” he spits out. “The instant Alex suggested it, I got so fucking jealous. I just-” Cold tears are sliding down his cheeks again, a hiccup temporarily kicking his voice out. “I just really wanna hug you.”
Fuck, it’s too much. It’s too big of a confession, and maybe she’ll get freaked-
“I’m jealous too,” she whispers.
“Really?”
“I’ve been feeling like an asshole all day because… I miss my dad and Carlos and Tía so much, right? But as soon as I saw you, I wished there was some kind of magical safe bubble I could hop into where I could touch one person in this city. And it didn’t occur to me to pick anyone else. No hesitation at all, no debate. Just you.”
Shit, that’s… not exactly a confession, but it knocks the wind out of him. The idea that she might think of him the way he thinks of her? That can’t be real, can it? Real Life Julie can’t feel that too, can she?
But she’s still going. “So yeah, if there was a magic bubble, I would hug you. And then I would fuck your brains out. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do as soon as it’s safe.”
“Hug me and fuck me?” It’s two parts of their relationship—the friendship and the sexual. But where’s the third? “What about a kiss?”
“The kissing was implied.” But in spite of her confident words, her voice comes out so warm and awed that he knows it’s slipping out around a huge grin.
“Kissing is its own event, Jules. Can’t just lump it in with sex.”
She’s silent for a long moment, and he worries he’s said something wrong. But then she mumbles, “I don’t think I’ve ever had a good kiss before. I’ve had decent sex—not amazing, but good. But I’ve never had a kiss that made me want to keep kissing instead of moving on to other things.”
Luke clicks his tongue angrily against the roof of his mouth. It’s not exactly surprising news given the snippets she’s shared with Alex and Reggie in front of him, but still. “Fuck all your exes.”
“Maybe it wasn’t their fault,” she mumbles. Something he doesn’t think she’d have confessed if they were on Zoom and could see each other.
“Nah, it definitely was.”
“What if I’m a shitty kisser? Will you still want to fuck me?” She says it with a teasing tone, but he recognizes the genuine question by the slight strain in her voice.
“You forgetting that I have kissed you and still want to fuck you?”
“A peck in sixth grade when we were grading on the curve of Reggie and Carrie really doesn’t count.”
He barks out a laugh. “You remember who my first kiss was?”
“Of course I remember. I was trying so hard to land on you and I messed it up.”
“You were aiming for me?” Delight floods his chest, but it feels too hopeful, and he quickly deflects it. “No offense, but your aim is shit.”
“You’re not making me feel better!”
“Jules, honestly, if you’re kissing me, it’s gonna be the best kiss of my life.” She inhales sharply. Was that too much? Eh, too late. “And I will absolutely still wanna fuck you, and when I do, you’re gonna be able to say you’ve had amazing sex, cause that’s what happens when we work together.”
“Fuck,” she groans. “Why would you say something so hot when I’m too tired to get myself off?”
He laughs hoarsely, his own body sinking into the mattress. “Sorry. You wanna go to sleep?”
“But I don’t want to hang up.”
“Then we won’t.”
He plugs in his phone and snuggles it under his cheek as he settles into bed. If he closes his eyes, the rustles on her end could almost sound like they’re in the room with him, like she’s getting ready to sleep in his bed. He turns off the lamp, letting the room descend into darkness. And now it’s easy to pretend that she’s there. That his fingers could find her if they just stretched far enough.
“Luke?” she asks through a yawn, and it’s one of the best sounds he’s ever heard. “Are you going to be offended if I say I don’t think I want to see you again?” His stomach plummets, but before it can drop too far, she adds, “In person. The social distancing? It’s too hard.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, nudging his mind to slowly follow his body toward sleep. “I get it. I’ve spent the past few months angry at people who don’t follow the rules. And then the instant I saw you, I didn’t give a shit about the rules.”
“Okay, so no in-person until we can touch,” she mumbles faintly.
He probably says something back, but his body slips away to dreamworld.
When he wakes up in the morning, the call’s been disconnected. Instead of an alarm, his wake up is from the chirp of a custom text tone near his ear.
Julie: Apparently calls disconnect after four hours?? I wanted to hear your voice in the morning 😞
Without hesitating, he calls her. She picks up almost instantly.
“Good morning,” he rasps, before coughing to clear his throat.
“Fuck, how do you even sound hot when you say good morning?” a sleepy voice grouses back. It’s familiar from tours when they’ve all been shoved in the same place to sleep, but it feels different when it’s just the two of them. When it’s on purpose.
“Do I?” he chuckles hoarsely.
“So hot. It’s rude.” He hears a shuffling sound, probably her slipping out of bed. “You feeling better?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” He glances down at the tented sheets bunched around his waist. A very different problem today.
“Are you really?”
“Yeah, cross my heart.”
“Okay. I’ll see you at rehearsal in an hour? Are you showering beforehand?”
He runs his hand through his sweat-greased hair. “Uh, yeah, I should.”
“Think of me?” she asks, voice caught somewhere between shy and seductive.
“A-anything in particular?”
“I kind of feel like blowing you this morning,” she offers casually, like she’s not melting his brain and giving him a hell of a hard-on. “See you at rehearsal.”
The line goes dead. But his hope starts to feel dangerously alive again.
To a certain extent, Luke’s gotten used to the liminal space they’re in. He doesn’t really need a label for them, especially because he’s not sure a label exists to capture what Julie is to him. She’s his Julie—her name encompasses more than some simplistic word like “girlfriend” ever could.
Not that he doesn’t want her to be his girlfriend.
Not that he’d disagree if she asked if she was.
But he hasn’t found the courage to start a conversation about those labels, and he hasn’t really regretted it because what could a label tell him that her soft, sleepy, joyful voice on the phone every morning can’t? It’s impossible that she feels the same way he does. But it kinda seems like it’s happening? If the universe hasn’t realized the giant mistake it’s made, he’s not about to point out the error by trying to clarify it with her. And there’s no way he’s going to risk getting his hopes up one way or the other.
Really, the only time he even thinks about bringing it up is, like, fifty times a day when he almost tells her he loves her. Because that feels like it’s breaking the rules somehow. He’s not sure why or how. Maybe it feels a touch too concrete, or it just doesn’t fit the vibes of what they’ve been doing. Zoom Luke can’t say “I love you” without becoming Real Life Luke, and he’s not sure how serious Julie is about Real Life Luke. Maybe the thing she said about them fucking in person was just a casual hook up offer. Like, “I caught most of this movie on a plane, might as well watch the ending at home so I can say I’ve seen it.” Or maybe she thinks she wants something serious with him, but when they get in person again, they’ll be the same awkward disasters they were at Runyon. Maybe they only work online. If they don’t have a conversation about it, then it’s never a real thing and they can just back out of it slowly when the time comes.
Sometimes he thinks about bringing it up, in the moments when it feels so sure and so safe, where hope rises so quickly that he can’t swallow it fast enough. But then he thinks about all the bad things that might come up in that conversation. Thinks about Runyon and Carrie and Fleetwood Mac, and it all spins so fast in his brain that it makes him feel sick. He longs to talk to Alex and Reggie about it, because he knows they would help slow down his brain and probably give some decent advice. But there’s no way to tell them that something might be happening romantically with Julie without talking about the sex—those things are too entwined at the moment, and Luke knows his face is apparently super transparent when it comes to her.
So he stews by himself. And who knows how long he would have continued if it wasn’t for their friends.
It’s their first group watch party since Willie moved in and, while it’s been weird getting used to being close to another person again, and Willie sometimes flinches and swerves away when people get close to him, it has legitimately been really nice. Watching him and Alex basking in their love and joy at getting to touch makes Luke so happy that he can almost completely forget his jealousy most of the time.
In fact, he’s so focused on his own complete lack of jealousy that he hasn’t even noticed Reggie’s until Willie snuggles under Alex’s arm and Alex kisses his temple and Reggie announces loudly, “Okay, how can I find someone during the apocalypse?”
Julie snorts through the laptop. “You have every dating app ever invented—you really need us to talk you through this?”
“I hate the apps, though,” he pouts. “It’s harder to do a vibe check. I need in-person. Luke, back me up here?”
Luke blinks rapidly at Reggie. “Why me…?”
“Cause you date a lot, and you never use an app.”
Luke tries to hide a wince. He never uses apps because he never remembers to message people back. Out of sight, out of mind. If someone else isn’t in front of him, he thinks about Julie, and then he texts Julie, and he completely forgets that he’s trying (very unsuccessfully) to move on. “I wouldn’t say a lot.”
“I would,” Flynn cuts in, and her voice is mostly teasing, but there’s a jagged edge to it. The kind that makes Luke’s ribcage twist unpleasantly at the thought of Flynn and Julie talking about his dating life for the past few years. On the one hand, the thought of Julie being jealous over him makes his heart purr with a petty satisfaction; on the other, the thought of her being sad because of him makes him want to kick himself in the balls.
He ticks his eyes to Julie’s face on the screen, but her wry smile gives nothing away.
“There’s gotta be people doing, like, Zoom mixers for singles,” Willie suggests.
Reggie pulls a face. “That sounds so awkward though. Can someone do it with me?”
Flynn snorts into her tea. “You want your friends to come with you to an event where you’re supposed to meet people? Like, you want us to take up slots that should go to people you could be meeting?”
“Everything terrible is better with friends!” Reggie insists. “Luke, please?” He rests his elbows on his knees and his face between his palms, blinking large, pleading eyes.
Well, fuck. Luke wants to be a supportive friend but, regardless of what Julie thinks is going on with them, he feels taken. No way is he wasting his or anyone else’s time pretending his heart doesn’t belong to his frontwoman.
“Reg, I love you, but that sounds like an actual nightmare.”
“But you might meet someone!”
“I’m not looking.”
“Since when?” Alex blurts out, eyeing him sharply. “Why not?”
Shit. Luke doesn’t want to outright lie, because he hates lying and he doesn’t want to risk confusing Julie. But he can’t tell the truth, so he just nods at Skype. “Sounds more up Flynn’s alley.”
But Flynn is shaking her head before he even points to her. “Nope, this year has been enough of a disaster. I’m not adding dating to that.” Her smile lights up in a wicked grin, which she tries and fails to hide as she spins to Julie and asks innocently, “Jules?”
Julie’s face goes completely still, and if it wasn’t for Flynn’s hair swinging next to her, Luke would think Skype had frozen. But Julie finally giggles out nervously, “It’s not really my thing, sorry.”
Reggie turns the full force of his pleading to her. “Please, please, please. Help me, Julie-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”
Julie tucks a curl behind her ear in a big, exaggerated hand gesture, and Luke’s stomach flips nervously. Julie lying never goes well, and while Luke’s not sure exactly which kind of wrong this is about to go, he has a bad fucking feeling.
“Please please please please please please!” Reggie tries.
“It’s actually easier for her to say no if you’re being a pest,” Alex points out, but Reggie keeps his desperate eyes on Julie.
“Yeah, why are you abandoning him in his hour of need, Jules?” Flynn asks, with so much false innocence that Luke’s stomach churns more violently.
“I don’t really, um…”
“Yeah?” Reggie prompts.
“I’m just-”
“Just what?” Flynn pushes.
“I’m not-”
“Not…??”
“Oh my god, fine, I’m sort of seeing someone, okay?”
Luke’s stomach freezes mid-flop. She’s…? Who?
Wait, no. They spend all day together—how would she have time to date someone else? How would it not have come up? Why would they still be…? After all, just hours ago over Zoom they’d-
The hope unfurls in his body too fast, too dangerous. Luke searches her face for clues, but damn it, it’s so pixelated over Skype, and she’s letting her hair fall over her cheeks to shield herself.
Luke can feel warmth on the side of his face—the three guys on the couch blatantly staring at him, checking to see if he’s okay.
Reggie forces out a faux-enthusiastic, “Who is it??”
But Julie shuts it down immediately. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s pretty new. I don’t want to jinx it.”
“But-”
“Reggie, boundaries.”
Alex lets out a strangled, “How are you meeting people in a pandemic? I’m perpetually having a nervous breakdown—I can’t imagine trying to impress someone new.”
Julie laughs and shrugs. “Honestly, I’m as surprised as you are.” Before anyone can ask another question, she pops to her feet. “I’m going to the bathroom—pick a show before I come back.”
She slips off camera, and Luke cranes his neck to peer down his own hallway, as if he’ll somehow be able to follow her with his eyes. When he looks back at the couch, Alex, Reggie, and Willie are staring at each other, hands over their mouths as if barely containing themselves.
He sighs loudly. “You can talk about it while I’m here,” he murmurs. “I’m okay.”
Almost immediately, Reggie bursts into song. “She found love in a covid place!”
Yeah, Luke needs to talk to her right now. He hops to his feet. “Never mind, gossip without me.”
As he walks down the hallway toward his room, he’s conscious of how visible he is from the couch. He tries to keep his steps normal, not sprinting the way he’d like. Pulling out his phone, he fumbles for Julie’s contact—right at the top of his favorites list—and manages to hit the button on the third try, just as he’s slipping into his room and closing the door.
She picks up almost instantly, like she was waiting for it, but she doesn’t say anything.
He sinks back against the door for support. “You’re sorta seeing someone?” he asks, trying to keep his voice steady and chill.
A soft exhale on the other side of the speaker. A rustle of something. Then:
“Was I wrong?”
His body sags into the door with relief. Thank fuck. And also Jesus fuck. Cause if that means—then this means-
“We just haven’t talked about it, so I didn’t know for sure.” He exhales his smile loudly, the tension he didn’t realize he’s been carrying evaporating from his shoulders, leaving them light and airy. “We’re really doing this?” he whispers with awe.
Her voice comes through what sounds like a hell of a grin. “Too late to back out now.”
He only just manages to swallow the “I’m never backing out”—way too much, way too soon. Running his fingers through his hair and bouncing on his toes, he tries to expel some of the delighted energy rushing through him. “C-can we do, like, an official date? I don’t know how, but-”
“I’d love that.” God, she sounds so happy. Is this conversation making her anywhere near as giddy as he feels? Fuck, why can’t he see her? Why can’t he be kissing her right now?
“Okay, we’ll figure something out.”
“Great.” In the ensuing silence, her smile is somehow still audible over the phone. But then her voice becomes more business-like. “I do actually need to pee.”
“Fuck, sorry, I’ll, uh… yeah. See you out there?”
“Bye, Luke.” Her voice is so warm when she says it that it almost feels like a kiss. Almost.
“Bye, Jules,” he murmurs back in a daze, and slips out into the hallway.
“I’m not telling you anything,” Flynn is insisting when he gets back into the living room. He tries to swallow the massive grin on his face as he plops onto the couch, but he catches Willie’s shrewd gaze first. Luke blinks back innocently, but he’s not sure he succeeds.
Willie cocks an eyebrow. Whatever he’s thinking, he doesn’t voice. “Okay, enough gossip—what are we watching?”
And Luke is planning to be chill about this, but when Julie gets back on screen, she looks like all her dreams have just come true. Flynn raises a questioning eyebrow and Julie beams and nods, and Flynn grins back, wrapping a celebratory arm around her shoulder.
Her obvious joy—and Flynn’s clear approval—pin a probably ridiculous grin on Luke’s face that doesn’t slip for the entire call.
Before he heads to bed, Luke wanders into the kitchen for water, desperately needing to counteract some of the summer’s unrelenting heat. Through the door, he spots Willie at the dining room table, staring around the apartment with a peaceful smile.
“You okay?” Luke asks softly.
“Yeah,” Willie hums back, looking like he actually means it. “I really missed this place.”
Luke leans in the kitchen doorway, taking in the combination dining room/kitchen at night. The guys have lived here for four years—the best four years of his life—and every inch of it feels like home in a way his actual home never did. There’s nowhere on earth he’d rather be in lockdown.
Maybe Julie’s bedroom.
But he loves this place. If he could pick and choose, he’d want Julie here, surrounded by the rest of their family. The image of her stuff mingling with theirs makes his chest ache.
“So, Julie,” Willie starts, eyes cutting to Luke in a way that’s simultaneously casual and shrewd. Luke tries to figure out what to do with his face. He can sense what’s coming—what would the plausible reaction be? Should he pretend to be sad? How much lying does he need to do for her? “She’s sorta seeing someone?”
Willie’s voice is too knowing, and Luke can’t even pretend to fake being upset because a huge smile breaks out over his face at the thought that Julie’s dating him. “Yeah, she is.”
The beam Willie shoots him might actually rival the one on Luke’s face. “Fuck yeah, dude, about time.”
“It’s not-we’re not keeping it secret secret, just… it’s new and the timing is weird and with the band and everything-”
“Hey, I’m not gonna tell Alex,” Willie assures him. Then his face splits into a grin. “Fuck, I’m so happy for you guys. Needed some good news for a change.”
Trying to get his grin under control, Luke bites at his lip, but it doesn’t stick. Maybe he should just write off being casual about this as a lost cause. “Didn’t know I was gonna get something this good in 2020. Kinda feels like I’m jinxing myself.” Hope is dangerous. Hope is-
Pulling himself out of his chair, Willie slides over and pats him gently on the back. “Nah, embrace the happiness where you find it. There’s not enough of it going around to take it for granted, man.”
As Willie leaves him behind in the dark, Luke tries to hold the hope in his heart for a few seconds. Just to see what it feels like when he doesn’t immediately chase it away. It itches and aches with a volatile tremble, but it also floats and soars, the optimism cradling his heart with joy.
It’s scary, but it’s definitely not terrible.
Maybe he could try this more often?
But what felt brave and celebratory in the night immediately feels like a very bad decision in the day, and he probably jinxed things because Julie doesn’t mention the date or act any differently. Sure, Luke could bring it up, but he brought it up the first time—isn’t it her turn? Hasn’t he exposed himself enough? Risked the hope curse already?
So a solid five days go by before he brings it up again, and even then it only comes up because of the gig. They’ve been doing weekly livestreams to remind their two hundred fans that they still exist, draw in new listeners, and bring some joy to the internet. The guys sometimes join in, but Luke and Julie are the most regular staples, performing some of their own songs and a shit ton of covers for anyone who requests something they happen to know. The link to their virtual tip jar never gets much action, but the money they do get is the most important thing in the world to Luke. He makes his living writing random jingles, sometimes actual songs if he’s lucky, and he doesn’t mind the work, but it doesn’t feel like the scathing victory against his parent’s doubts that he wishes it was. The virtual tip jar, on the other hand, is money he gets for making music with Julie, connecting with people, making a difference in their day during a horrible time. Money earned the way he wants to earn every dollar he gets, and he treasures the hell out of every cent.
… but sometimes he feels like people in the livestream are fucking with him, like today, when someone requests “Watermelon Sugar?? 🥵 🥵”, and he spends the last three minutes of the gig singing about how much he likes to go down while the woman he desperately wants to go down on accompanies him on keys as if nothing unusual is happening. Frustrated and half-hard, he tries to offer the camera normal smiles as they wave off their virtual audience with the usual goodbyes.
As soon as the stream ends and they hop back onto Zoom for the post gig roundup, he bursts out, “Do you still wanna go on a date??” Shit, that was too much. He bites his lip nervously and softens his voice. “Cause, uh, obviously it’s fine if you changed your mind, I just wanna know either way.”
“Why would I have changed my mind?” Julie asks, completely baffled.
“You haven’t brought it up since.”
“Neither have you?”
“Cause I’m trying to play it cool.”
Her body sways with laughter and her eyes dance gleefully, her joy making him feel like a god. “Okay, new ground rule: don’t play it cool, just be honest.”
“Okay.”
“Okay. So, honestly, I didn’t bring it up because I’ve been researching something first.”
Researching? That sounds… kinda like she might be excited about this. “Researching what?”
She tucks a shy curl behind her ear. “Um. Do you know what teledildonics are?”
“Like, a telephone dildo? Or a phone for your dildo?” She rolls her eyes at him, which is when it finally clicks in his brain. “Oh. Fuck. Like, a long-distance dildo?”
“Not just dildos, but yeah.”
“So…” He shuffles forward on his chair, the strain against the zipper of his jeans painfully tight. “Like, what? Remote kinda thing? I could… control it?”
She bobs her head. “That’s part of it. But I was thinking of the synced ones.”
“Synced?”
The shyness dances out of her shoulders, and her confident eyes lock right on the camera as she says, “You’d have a toy and I’d have a toy. And what you do with yours changes how mine feels and vice versa. It’s supposed to feel like you’re actually having sex.”
Uh.
That’s…
“Holy shit.”
He hadn’t even known to hope for that. Clearly he needs to pay more attention to sex toys.
She smirks. “I’ve been looking at reviews to find the right ones. I thought maybe we could use them on our date.”
His smile feels downright wolfish right now, which he can only hope is seductive and not leering. “You think I’m gonna put out on the first date?”
Her smirk softens. “It’s not really a first date, is it?”
“Guess not.” Huh, without a clear first date, they won’t really have an anniversary, will they? They’ve simultaneously got too many dates that could count and not enough, the slow slide into whatever their relationship is now leaving them without most of the typical milestones.
… why is he thinking about anniversaries? That’s way too hopeful.
A couple links appear in the chat, and Julie’s tone is all business. “So help me pick one, and once they arrive, we’ll do our date.”
“You’re fucking incredible,” he murmurs.
“Cause I’m horny?”
He hovers over the link, but her words stop him. “In general, or right now?”
“Basically every time I talk to you. But especially after that fucking song.” God, the way she spits out the word “fucking” through that strained voice. He swipes the heel of his hand over his zipper to give himself some relief. And then she makes it even worse. “I swear, if it had, like, two more verses, I might have come in the middle of the stream.”
That’s, uh…
Luke stares at her, unable to find words. Basically unable to do anything but think about how fucking hard he is and how wet she might be.
Which only gets worse when she peers up at him through her eyelashes, a move that definitely shouldn’t be able to work over Zoom, and murmurs, “I told you what your voice does to me. Add that song? I’m a goner.”
“Want me to sing it for you now?” he asks, low and gravely.
Her eyes flutter shut and her chin tips up to the ceiling, as if his words have sent a jolt through her. Her teeth find her lips and she bites hard, shaking her head as if to clear it.
“First we order something. Then tell me more about your watermelon sugar high.”
“You’re the boss.”
Luke does have a minor heart attack a couple days later when Willie exuberantly tells them that the Watermelon Sugar video is going semi-viral. For a second, Luke panics that they somehow started streaming and there’s a video out there of Julie touching herself while he sings fucking Harry Styles to her. When he realizes that the performance from the actual gig is what’s going viral, he’s honestly more confused. It doesn’t seem any more special than any of the other songs they’ve done. An impatient Flynn tries to explain things like “growly voice,” “hooded eyes,” and “hot guy barely wearing a shirt while licking and biting his lips too much,” and maybe that’s part of it? Doesn’t really feel like Luke’s department to judge that kinda stuff.
But it doesn’t explain all the “big 2020 mood” and “good for her!!!” comments on the video.
Reggie’s the one who cracks the case. “Oh, they think Julie’s your girlfriend.”
The last word fires Luke’s heart into overdrive. “Uh, why?” he asks innocently, refusing to look at Willie.
Alex lets out a disgusted snort. “Because you’re staring at her like you want to eat her for literally the entire song.”
Willie almost busts a gut laughing. “This is what’s going viral in 2020? Hot dudes who really miss going down on their girlfriends? Maybe there’s hope for humanity.”
Alex doesn’t find it nearly as funny, angrily wheeling on Luke. “Do we need to have a conversation about sexual harassment? I don’t care how viral your ass gets—it’s out of the band in a second if-”
His misplaced protectiveness almost makes Luke smile, which would be super inappropriate right now. It’s harder to be worried about Fleetwood Mac when he knows Alex and Reggie would drop him in an instant if he ever made their work environment even slightly uncomfortable for Julie. “It’s a performance. We talk about that stuff over chat during the gig. You know I’d never do anything she isn’t comfortable with.”
But Alex doesn’t look fully placated. “Remember she’s seeing someone. And, sorry dude, but Flynn says she’s really happy. Don’t fuck with her relationship just because you didn’t get your shit together.”
Willie offers him an apologetic smile, but it does nothing to alleviate the knot in Luke’s gut. He wants to tell his brothers the good news—hates feeling like he’s lying to them, and just wants to bask in his joy with the people who have seen him suffering over this thing the most.
He just has to get to the date. Once they go on the date, he and Julie will finally have this thing figured out, and they can tell people.
He hopes.
The day after the toys arrive, Luke is absolutely useless. He can barely focus during rehearsal, can’t pay attention to anything Julie says in their songwriting session. Tonight could be everything, or it could be the end. He’s trying not to hope, but hope is pouring out of him like sand after a beach day: unwanted and relentless.
Fuck, he’s so damn hopeful. Hopeful that the toys will work, hopeful that he’ll finally get to hear how Julie feels about him, hopeful that he’ll get to say the I love you that’s clawing at his lips, hopeful that he’ll know for sure what they are.
He’s so so fucked.
He’s also horny beyond belief because Julie suggested they try out their toys separately last night in order to get used to them. He’s never used a fleshlight or whatever the hell this thing is before, and even before he turned the thing on, it felt a bit overwhelming. He had to set up the app on his phone and then tried to discretely smuggle hot water into his bedroom to heat up the internal sleeve like the enthusiastic r/Fleshlight redditors insisted he had to. Discrete has never been his thing though, and he got judgmental stares from Alex and knowing looks from Reggie and Willie that told Luke more than he’d really wanted to know. And then, just when he thought he was getting comfortable, he grabbed the water-based lube and, after using almond oil with himself for so long, the feel of lube on his skin was an instant sensory flashback to the last time he had sex. Suddenly, he was panicking about how long it had been since he’d had sex with another human being (technically less than a year, but in pandemic time, decades) and before he knew it, he was spiraling about being out of practice and being terrible at in-person sex with Julie, and it took a lot of mental effort to drag himself back to the present with the reminder that, right now, he was just trying to fuck a robotic tube.
So in the end, he was extremely relieved that Julie had suggested trying the toys alone, because he definitely didn’t feel sexy that first night.
But fuck, when he actually started using the thing and managed to ignore all the weird judgements and stress that came up, it felt really fucking good. The warm sleeve squeezed around him, vibrating and sucking powerfully around his cock as he pumped into the tight tube, and it wasn’t exactly like being inside someone, but it felt closer than his hand did. When he let himself remember that Julie was probably doing the same thing right now with that rabbit vibrator, which hadn’t looked sexy in a sterile product image but immediately became the hottest thing in the world when he pictured it humming between her legs making her moan his name, it was easy to lose himself in all the sensations running through his body, and he came harder than he had in years.
“How was it?” she’d asked on the phone afterwards.
“Annoying to clean, but worth it. You?”
“Yeah, really good,” she mumbled, her voice somehow sounding flushed and sending a spike of heat rocketing through him.
That pleasure in her voice has rung in his head all day, anticipation dancing under his skin so much that, two hours into their songwriting session, Julie raises a knowing eyebrow at him and asks, “Should we just call it early today?”
The blush that shoots up his cheeks is way too obvious, but yeah—he needs to go for a run to burn off this energy, and probably also needs a cold shower and maybe to scream nervously into a void. “See you at six?”
“Six.”
He goes for the longest run of his life, which is a dangerous mistake to make in the early afternoon in late LA summer, but at least his body has finally stopped jittering by the time he’s taken an ice-cold shower and inhaled a couple bottles of Gatorade. He throws himself down on the couch in the living room and sucks in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.
Flicking open Instagram, he’s immediately greeted with a picture of Julie and Flynn sitting on Flynn’s bed. They’re both wearing sheet masks and Julie’s hair is carefully tied up, setting her curls. Flynn’s holding the camera up with a sly smirk, and Julie’s grinning the way she does on the car ride down to Disneyland, when she practically vibrates the car with excited bounces.
Fuck. Because of tonight?
He instantly double taps the picture.
Within seconds, a banner notification for a text pops up on his screen.
Flynn: she’s changed her mind about what she’s going to wear fifteen times
not an exaggeration
thought you should know cause i assume you’re also a nervous wreck rn
Before he can even reply, another text pops up.
Julie: IGNORE ANYTHING FLYNN SAYS
He can’t keep the grin off his face as he shoots off a reply to her.
Luke: heard you got a big date tonight
Julie: Dork 💜
Yeah, I’ve got a really good feeling about it
Luke: you know you can just show up in pajamas
gonna blow my mind no matter what you wear
Julie: Maybe I want to blow it extra
What are you telling the guys?
Luke: what do you want me to tell them?
Julie: Could say we’re writing all night and not to disturb us
Luke: could tell them the truth?
Julie: Let’s see how tonight goes first, okay?
Luke swallows the lump in his throat, hope turning sour in his gut. Not exactly a confidence booster, or a prelude to them making things official. He types out kay, but it looks too much like what it is—a hurt, clipped sulk—so he throws in a 😊 at the end to soften it.
Flipping back to the conversation with Flynn, he rereads the changed her mind about what she’s going to wear fifteen times to try to re-convince himself that Julie is actually looking forward to this date. But it’s not enough, so:
Luke: she’s excited?
Flynn: happiest she’s been all year
i realize the bar is pretty low
but like
she’s seriously so fucking excited
it’s legit making me emotional
It’s not enough to override the nervous lead in his stomach, but it does fan the flames of his enthusiasm.
And for a single dangerous moment, he hopes, he hopes, he hopes.
Julie plops down at her desk in front of the camera and wrestles with the plastic bag the delivery guy just gave her. “Okay, let’s see how you did.”
They’d spent a lot of time trying to figure out a cool date activity, but honestly, everything cute seems like a lot of effort when all he really wants to do is talk to her for hours without having to hide his feelings. They’d settled on a single date-like thing—ordering each other dinner from a takeout place near them—which had seemed simple at the time, but suddenly feels like a relationship test.
But Luke’s nerves don’t have time to rise, because Julie pops open the box and immediately lights up. “Umami Burger? With truffle fries? Look at you, big spender. Now I feel like I half-assed this.”
He opens up his bag to reveal a pot of miso tonkotsu ramen from his favorite place in Little Tokyo. “Nah, this is perfect.”
“Almost like we know each other.”
“Almost, yeah.”
He flashes a grin before turning to his ramen. As she starts eating her burger, an itchy silence descends between them, filled only with chewing. He fishes through his head for something to say, but there are no words to be found. He’s used to conversation flowing easily between them, but it feels like it should be different now. How does he talk to Julie on a date?
He darts his eye up to camera, and she meets his gaze nervously. She doesn’t look like Zoom Julie right now; she looks like Real Life Julie from Runyon.
Fuck. How has the real world awkwardness found them here?
Cause he fucking hoped it wouldn’t, that’s how. He’s fucked this all up-
“Can I ask you something?” Julie asks suddenly, holding her hand in front of her mouth to hide her chewing.
He bobs his head as he slurps up a noodle. “Course.”
“Why didn’t you ask me to prom?”
His face flushes hot with the sting of the old rejection. “I did?”
“As friends.”
“Only cause I panicked when you took so long to respond.”
“Only cause I was trying to figure out if you meant it as a date or as friends!” Her forehead crinkle is so annoyed that he can’t help the bitter laugh that pours out of him. Another thing he’d fucked up, apparently. She shoots him a rueful grin, which turns thoughtful. “I was just wondering cause the day after prom, when I was telling you guys about…” Her voice trails off, embarrassed eyes turning down.
“The guy who’d never heard of a clit?” Luke supplies.
She rolls her eyes, but her smile is soft and fond. “Alex and Reggie looked mad at you, and I never-I felt like I was missing something.” Her eyes flick nervously up to his, wide and lost, the way they get sometimes when he and the guys mention something she wasn’t there for. Reggie calls it her FOMO Face, and no matter how hard the three guys try, they’ve never been able to get rid of it. Every time he sees it, he feels like the biggest asshole in the world.
Luke runs a hand up his face, ruffling his hair nervously. “Yeah, they, uh, they were on me at prom cause apparently I was moping or whatever.” Sulking like a literal baby, as Alex had put it. “And we’d all had some of that punch and didn’t realize how hardcore Kayla spiked it, so we got in this drunk fight and Alex said I should stop ruining prom for everyone and just tell you how I feel, and I got mad and said I’d do it just to show him what a mistake it was.”
Her eyebrows knit up. “But you… you didn’t say two words to me at prom.” Her voice is mostly baffled, but there’s a hint of an old bitterness to it that makes him cringe. God, he was such a jealous dickhead that night.
“Cause when I found you, you were in the hallway talking to Flynn and she asked how the date was going, and you said, ‘It’s the first time in my life that anyone’s ever made me feel pretty.’” He bites his lip hard enough to draw a taste of blood that feels very deserved, and pokes his noodles with his chopsticks. “I’d spent the, what, seven years I’d known you thinking you were the most beautiful girl in the world, and I thought I’d made that clear, but Nick was the first person who made you feel like that? So I just went home.”
Slowly twirling his chopsticks, he watches them tangle in the noodles.
“Luke.”
Slowly, reluctantly, he drags his eyes up to the screen. Julie’s face is pinched up with exaggeration.
“That wasn’t-it didn’t…” She heaves out a sigh, pausing to collect her thoughts. “It was prom and I grew up on shitty romcoms where the girl walks down the stairs and everyone loses their shit cause she’s wearing a shiny dress. And even though I knew how bullshit that was, I’d always wanted to feel like that. And, yeah, Nick made me feel like that and you never have. Because he didn’t know anything else about me, so to him I was a trophy—pretty girl, good singer.”
“Good? You’re the fucking best. You’re a wrecking ball-”
Bursting into fond giggles, Julie rolls her eyes. “See, that’s exactly the point. You’ve always treated me like I’m this… creative powerhouse, this force of nature. You never made me feel pretty—you made me feel valuable and powerful. And literally any other day, that’s something I’m so grateful for. But it was prom, and the boy I’d been completely gone over for years didn’t ask me to prom-” Luke tries to squeak out a protest but she just talks louder, “and ignored me all night, and I just wanted to feel pretty.”
Luke takes his time slurping up a long noodle, buying himself time to sift through her words to check if he needs to change his behavior. But, aside from his prom night fuck ups, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything new he needs to beat himself up over, so he goes back to her original question. “Alex and Reg were really pissed. ‘If you’d just pulled up your big boy pants and talked about your feelings, she would have had decent sex at prom.’”
“Alex said that?”
“Reggie. He’s very invested in all of us having good sex.”
Sticking a fry in the corner of her mouth and sucking on it thoughtfully, she says, “He’s wrong though. If you’d been my date, I wouldn’t have had sex on prom night.”
Oh.
“No?” he asks lightly, trying not to let the hurt sink into his chest.
“Nick didn’t matter, so having sex with him wasn’t a big deal. It would have been a big deal with you.”
Luke braces his temple against his curled hand, studying her in the soft lighting of her room. At the time, all that stuff had seemed like the end of the world. Julie sleeping with Nick had somehow felt like it shut down the possibility of her ever having feelings for Luke. A bomb detonated in his chest that shredded his insides, took months to heal, and blasted him down a safe, winding path of casual dating that hadn’t ever felt comfortable or worthwhile. But now he’s an adult—fuck, he counts as an adult??—and he doesn’t care who she had sex with before him. As long as he’s the last person she has sex with. God, he hopes he’s the last. Hopes so hard that it squeezes up his heart and injects that deadly hope curse directly into those semi-healed wounds in his chest.
“Can I ask you something?” he asks gruffly.
She ticks up an eyebrow. There must be something on his face that gives it away, or maybe she just knows him, because she rolls her eyes. “Yes, Perfect Harmony was about you.”
“Really?”
“Obviously.”
“Can I see the original??”
“No! The lyrics are so painfully tenth grade. One of the lines was, like, ‘you and me is more than chemistry.’” He can’t hold back his snort, and Julie instantly untucks her curls from behind her ears, letting them fall over her cheeks to hide her embarrassed face. “Luke!”
“I still wanna see it! C’mon, you wrote me a love song.” Shit. She wrote him a love song. In tenth grade. Maybe that means she still…? Fuck, there’s that hope again.
She peers up at him through her curls. “Only if you show me a rough draft of a love song.”
“I have. Every song I’ve ever written with you has been a love song.”
Her lips part in wonder, eyes sliding over him in awe. An expression he’s very familiar with wearing, but completely shocked at receiving. She pops a foot up on her chair and slips her knee under her chin, and an arm comes around to squeeze the shin, hugging herself. “I can’t believe I can’t kiss you,” she breathes out finally. “Twelve years where we easily could have, and instead…”
Truth is, he doesn’t know if either of them would have gotten up the courage if it hadn’t been for the screens and miles between them. Maybe they’ve only done this because it feels safe and not quite real, and even now he’s not convinced they’ve fully gotten their act together. But he doesn’t want to bring down the mood, so he shrugs and offers, “Our timing kinda sucks. But when we can touch again, it’s gonna be epic.”
She smiles at him—happy, light, and fierce. Pure joyful Julie. Then she nods at the food in front of him. “Eat up. You need energy for tonight.”
As the evening wears on, anticipation rises in his skin again, sparking across every inch of him and setting his nerve endings ablaze. Their conversation keeps flowing normally and easily, but his itchiness just gets worse when they move to their respective beds. With her whole body on camera, he realizes that Julie’s wearing an old Sunset Curve shirt. Back in middle school, it was oversized and baggy, but now it’s a bit too small, pulling taut across her breasts with deep wrinkles in the fabric that he wants to dip his nose into. She’s trimmed the shirt to make it a crop top, which she’s paired with… fuck. Those shorts from Runyon. A small strip of skin peeks out at her waist, soft and inviting, and he can picture how he’d glide a hand around her waist and slip it up the back of her shirt as he presses her into the mattress and pulls her hips flush under the cradle of his-
“Luke?” she asks, eyes dancing mischievously.
“Uhhh.”
She tugs on the bottom of her shirt. “Is this distracting you? Should I take it off?”
He can’t find words—his throat is too dry, so he just shakes his head. Her fingers hop down onto the button of her shorts. “This?” He nods, watching enviously as she pops the button and slowly tugs the zipper. As she glides the shorts down her sleek, powerful legs, her hips rock back and forth, and the movement makes his cock knock insistently against his own zipper. But it’s not time for him yet. He wants things to play out the way they would if he was actually with her, so she needs to come at least once before he gets inside her.
When she rolls over to toss her shorts in her laundry hamper, he realizes she’s wearing a plain black thong. Which makes sense—it’s not like he could remember seeing a panty line interrupting the smooth expanse of the tight shorts at Runyon, and he was paying a lot of attention—but he hadn’t pieced it together. It’s not something he’s really thought of as super hot before, but everything Julie does is hot to him, and the fabric highlights the curves of her ass in way that makes him groan. When she turns her head back to him, twisting her torso to display the band logo, it’s…
Fuck.
It’s a lot.
He’s the one who’s supposed to be her biggest fan, who should be rolling around in her merch. But there she is, grinning over at him mischievously and making him feel like a rock god instead of a dude with a stalled, baby career.
Nope, they need to restore the balance here. Make it about her.
“Can we try the remote control setting first?” he begs.
Reaching one hand behind her back, she snaps her bra free and lets the straps fall down her arms, slipping out of the thing without removing the shirt. She rolls onto her side to face him and his heart straight up stops functioning, simultaneously beating too fast and not at all.
“Warm yourself up for me, boss?” he asks hoarsely.
Without pause, she slips her hand under her panties. After several months, he’s used to the sight, but there’s still part of him that expects to be told to look away. Surely he doesn’t get to see this rockstar like this, with her eyes rolling up and her face slack with pleasure. Surely it’s got to be someone other than his Julie on the other side of the camera. But then she beams at him, scrunching up her nose in joy, and yeah, that’s pure Julie.
He fumbles for his phone and flicks through the app, trying to get the thing set up correctly, and he only looks up in time to see her tossing her panties aside and slipping her toy into place.
It’s not the first time she’s used a dildo in front of him, so he’s seen the look on her face when something fills her up, but he can’t say he’s used to that one yet. The way her forehead furrows and her eyes flutter shut, whole body bracing as the toy eases into place, and then a soft, high-pitched sigh when it settles. Fuck, he can’t wait to see that expression in person when it’s caused by his fingers or cock.
He swipes his hand quickly over his dick, but Julie catches it and shakes her head. “Hey, not without me.”
Arching an eyebrow at her, he taps the button on the screen to start the vibration. There’s a quiet hum through the speakers, and Julie gasps, her hips jolting up. “Fuck, Luke.”
Shit. He did that. He actually did that.
“Is that good?”
She nods breathlessly.
He slides the vibration setting higher, and her breath catches, hips squirming under the onslaught. “Luke,” she moans out again, and her hands palm her breasts. Normally, her fingers stay between her legs to work the toy, but he’s in charge now, and he gets to bask in the image of her lying there wearing nothing but his old band merch and a blissful smile, roughly massaging her breasts as he works at her clit. Exactly the way she would be if she were fucking his face.
Shit, this is the best idea she’s ever had, and Julie Molina is made of good ideas.
“What do you want?” he asks, voice growling through him.
“Your fingers. Please,” she gasps out.
He taps the rotating button to make the head inside her twist, and she lets out a sharp keen. Surprised by a motion she didn’t control. Writhing under a touch that’s not hers. There’s something hypnotic about the whole thing. Watching her body glisten and dance in front of him as he figures out what pressure she likes, what movements draw the biggest reactions. Cataloguing all the ways she touches herself, from the firm kneading of her breasts to the gentle massage of her lower belly to the scrape of her nails over her hips. And every time he makes a move that surprises her, her face floods with delight at the proof that it’s him leading her pleasure.
She’s a panting, moaning mess—has been whimpering his name on endless loop for a solid minute—when her fingers grip in the sheets and she grits out, “There, right there.” His desperate fingers fumble to up the intensity, and suddenly her back pops off the mattress, head thrown back as she cries out his name, loud and long and breathless with gratitude.
Fuck.
Twisting her beaming face toward him, she offers him a gasping, “Shit. That was… fuck.”
He takes in her glowing body through hooded eyes. “I’ll be here all night.”
“Prove it. Get undressed.”
Her eyes roll over him as he tries to strip slowly enough to still be seductive. But his dick has been aching the whole time he’s been taking care of her, and it’s fucking longing for the artificial squeeze of her body. That need only gets more urgent as she lays there, running lazy fingers over herself like she’s relishing in the aftermath of a good fuck, and slipping out of the shirt to bare her breasts. Sure, he’s seen all of this before, but never when he could touch part of her. And never on a date. Never when it felt like she might, maybe, possibly, if he didn’t hope too hard, be on the way to being his.
“No oil—you must be suffering,” she teases him as he lubes up.
He sticks his tongue out at her as they both tap on their phones to switch to the long distance sex mode. As she fumbles around the app, Julie giggles nervously. “Okay, this part isn’t super hot.”
“I dunno—you’re naked and I just fucked you. That’s pretty hot.”
She grins at him—no heat, just joy—and a smile immediately perks at his lips in response. Then her smile turns mischievous, and she sits up, resting her ass on her feet. “Can I be on top?” she asks.
For a moment, he gets lost in the image of her in bed with him, asking that question as she gently pushes him on his back and slips eagerly into his lap. “Whatever you want,” he groans.
She tosses her hair over her shoulders, wild and free, and then gives him a nod, like they’ve finished setting up on stage and she’s letting him know they’re ready.
He slides inside, pumping his hips to get himself balls deep, and she instantly lets out a cry, her brow wrinkling up again like he’s pounding all the way up into her. She must clench around her toy, because the warm sleeve squeezes and pulses around him like a tight cunt welcoming him, and the wave of pleasure makes him dizzy.
He’d read about how the toys worked off each other and was intellectually prepared for it, but Jesus Christ. It’s really fucking happening. He stops feeling self-conscious about the unsexy plastic tube in his hand. Stops paying much attention to the toys at all. All he has eyes for is Julie. Her hands running all over her body, massaging her breasts and her ass. Her body breaking out in a slight sweat as she rises and falls, thighs trembling and mouth falling open. A delicious groan falls out of her every time he bucks into her just right, an answering grunt wringing out of him when she tightens around him. It’s so easy to imagine her riding him, body swaying over his as she glides up and down his cock, breasts bouncing, nipples hard, needy gasps of “right there” and “just like that” and “harder” spilling out of her like prayers.
“You’re a fucking goddess,” he growls.
“A goddess of fucking?” she laughs back breathlessly.
“No. Actually yeah, that too. Fuck, you’re the goddess of everything. How did I get so goddamn lucky?”
A long, deep squeeze around him takes his breath away, knocking out his voice for a second, and Julie pants back, “I think that’s my line.”
“Nah, definitely mine.” He traces the movement of her breasts, longing to worship them with his mouth, and without him having to say anything, Julie sucks her fingers and rolls her nipples.
“Let’s compromise,” she gasps, bouncing her hips faster like she’s starting to run toward the finish line. “We’re both amazing, and we’re both lucky.”
“I can live with that,” he rasps. “You almost there, boss?”
“Mhm,” she moans, high-pitched and dazed.
“What do you need?”
“You.”
Fuck. Ignoring the exhaustion of his body, he pumps faster and harder, needing her to feel him inside every inch of her. Needing to be surrounded by her, needing her scent and her sweat all over his skin, needing to feel those shakes and gasps against his body.
And it must be enough, because suddenly her brow puckers up and her jaw snaps open, almost like she’s shocked. Like the pleasure’s coming from so deep within her that she’s never felt it before. It’s a face he’s never seen her make before, and it’s not pretty exactly. Not a look of blissful relaxation, but of shock at how deep and intense the vibrations wracking her body are. It’s obscene and erotic and the hottest fucking thing in the goddamn universe, and she clenches around him so tight that he’s a goner, falling apart like a lighting bolt is shattering through him, the intense flutters of her cunt pulsing him through the pleasure until his eyes can’t stay open anymore.
He dimly hears her falling onto the mattress, and he rolls over toward her, pulling himself free of the toy and taking several deep breaths before his eyes remember how to open. His skin rings numbly with bliss, making him feel floaty and unreal. Her cheek rests on her hands and her whole body glows, completely spent and relaxed. The soft, naked affection in her dozy eyes sings through his heart, and he longs to reach out and scrape her hair out of her face and pull her into long languid kisses as he tucks her into his chest and never lets her go.
God, he loves her.
He loves her so fucking much.
“Jules,” he breathes out, his voice trembling, “I lo-”
“Wait, don’t say it.”
And just like that, he’s snapped out of the hazy bliss. “No?”
She shakes her head firmly. “We’ve already wasted so many firsts online. I want that to be in person.”
He bites back the “for fuck’s sake” that tugs on his lips. How many things does he have to kick down the road because of the pandemic? How fucking long is his life going to be on hold? Or maybe it’s not on hold at all, and she’s just preserving an escape hatch? Or trying to keep it casual?
“Okay,” he mumbles. He wants so desperately to be cool about this, but he knows he’s not pulling it off. Knows she can read it on his face. He doesn’t really have it in him right now to fake being okay. “I’m gonna go clean the thing.”
“Luke-” she starts, but he yanks on his pajamas pants and disappears into the ensuite bathroom he shares with Alex.
As he rinses out the toy, he studies himself in the mirror. He can see the remnants of the happy glow in his skin, his body shivering slightly under cooling sweat. But the joy and love he was drowning in just moments ago has evaporated, and he just looks tired and defeated.
To be fair, it’s not like she actually rejected him. Maybe I want that to be in person means that she wants to say it too, or at least that she’s okay with hearing him say it. Just not now.
A voice that sounds remarkably like Flynn’s snaps, “Shake it off, Patterson.”
He forces a smile for the mirror. Nope, too fake. Tries a smaller one, curling the side of his mouth. It looks a bit more realistic. Not fully, but better.
Retreating back to the room, he lays out the stuff to dry and pads back to bed before finally looking at the screen again. Julie’s perched on her bed almost like she didn’t move, but she’s in a Poison shirt that he thought he’d lost in high school, her hair’s in her night braids, and her lip is caught between her teeth.
“I’m sorry,” she bursts out the instant he’s looking at her.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” he insists as he slides under the covers.
“You’ve been my boyfriend for, like, five hours and I already feel like I fucked up. That can’t be a good sign.”
His brain stops after the fourth word.
“Boyfriend?”
Her teeth cut sharply into that lip. “Shit, I just assumed, I shouldn’t-”
“Yes, you should.” The grin that floods his face now isn’t the practiced one. He snuggles his head down onto his pillow, taking in her face with awe. “Come to bed.”
But she doesn’t let go of her lip. “I still don’t want to tell the guys,” she warns him, as if she needs to unload all the bad news before she’ll let them move on.
Another kick to the heart, but he’s not really surprised. He’s not sure if it’s the Carrie thing or a Fleetwood Mac thing or something else entirely, but she’s definitely carrying some kind of baggage about telling the guys, and their relationship doesn’t feel solid enough for him to press her on it. So he says a simple “Okay,” grabs a spare pillow, and tucks it in his arms, pretending the soft weight is her.
“I’m sorry-”
“Jules,” he groans. “I just wanna bask in the amazing date we just had, and pretend to hold my girlfriend and watch her sleep. I’m not trying to be dismissive here, but if you’ve got more caveats, I’d really rather hear about them tomorrow, okay?”
She releases her lip, and the worry in her brow soothes somewhat. “Girlfriend?” she asks quietly.
“I’m just assuming.”
The soft grin she unleashes is so happy that it hurts his eyes to look at. And as she slips under the blanket and grabs her own pillow to cuddle, he tries to stay focused on this moment. The hope curse, and the indefinitely paused I love you, and the lying to the guys can all wait.
Right now, he’s letting himself enjoy his girlfriend.