Chapter Text
“Hey Nick, ya think this spray paint would stick to the plastic?”
Nick looked at the pastel pink spray can Luke was holding with disdain, “I mean I guess.”
Luke checked the can description and turned the stupid plastic heart he bought from the dollar store over in his hand. He contemplated for a few more minutes, before tossing the spray paint in the basket. They continued moving down the aisle, the section was lined with glitter.
“I’m really hoping she likes this,” Luke stared down pathetically into his basket of lovey dovey goods and crafts, “She said she likes artsy guys.”
Nick kinda figured she meant hipster guys when she said that, “Who?”
Luke stared at the hot pink glitter for a second before deciding against it, probably didn’t want it spilling in his brand new truck. He turned to look at Nick, “Who? Dude I’ve been talking about her for weeks. Are you serious?”
Nick had been sorta too preoccupied with his dad back in town to worry about Luke’s new girl, even if it bothered him a bit that she definitely wasn’t gonna appreciate all the effort he was putting into this…promposal? Is that what this was?
“Look dude, I’m sorry I don’t pay attention to every random bitch that looks your way.”
Luke grimaced at Nick’s choice of words but carried on down the aisle for glue.
“She’s not some random…girl…okay, I’ve been getting to know her and well…she’s got a lot going on with her is all.”
Nick rolled his eyes, “Oh, so she’s a charity case?”
Luke opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, “What? No it’s not like that Nick…what the fuck man…” He bent down to grab the cheaper glue on the bottom shelf. Nick watched him, tried not to watch his shirt ride up his back or the skin that just slightly poked out when it did.
“Then why’d you describe her like that dude.”
He apparently deemed everything in the basket sufficient enough for his little art project, as he clicked his tongue a few times before he looked Nick in the eyes again.
“I was just trying to explain what I like about her that’s all…” he placed his free hand not holding the basket on his hip, Luke thinks it emphasizes his points but Nick’s always thought it made him look like a frustrated mom, “I was hoping, maybe y’all could meet? Possibly before prom?”
Nick furrowed his eyebrows, “Why, I’m not even going to prom?”
Luke frowned a bit in response, “I thought we were gonna go to prom together?”
“You’re going with this girl.”
He let out a frustrated puff, “Well yeah but I was gonna go with both of ya.”
“And have me third wheel? Absolutely not.”
Luke fixed him with a pathetic set of puppy eyes, “But it’d be so fun dude, I mean it’s not like proms gotta be all that romantic, I don’t gotta spend it all with my tongue down her throat.”
Nick tried hard not to conjure that image to mind.
“She’s a girl going to her senior prom, Luke, she probably wants dinner before and sex after, simple as that.”
Luke’s face falls, “Yeah I guess so.”
He felt his phone buzzing in his back pocket and ignored it.
“Anyways, I can’t go to prom because my dad’s in town and I’ve been picking up extra shifts at the station so we can still pay rent next month.”
Luke watches him with a sympathetic stare, fuck him and his expressive ass face.
“Shit dude I’m sorry, do you need any extra cash for food or anything?”
Nick’s phone starts buzzing again, “Nah dude I’m fine, he’ll be outta here in a couple weeks anyways.”
Luke nods and stares back down at his basket, his eyes widen, “Shit I forgot to grab the posterboard, can I squeeze past ya real quick?”
Nick goes to move out of his way but the aisles are so skinny Luke’s back brushes against his chest while he’s shuffling to grab the posterboard. He curses the part of him that pushes forward a little bit more.
Luke is checking for different sizes, comparing his plastic heart against the size of the boards, completely unbothered, “You should pick that up.”
Nick groans, “I know…” he mumbles before reaching into his pocket. To no shock-- except probably the poor cashier who was waiting for them to leave--it was his uncle. He takes a deep breath, tries to compose his slightly shaky breath and picks up.
“Why didn’t you tell me your father was in town?” His voice, even garbled through the other end of a shitbox phone, sounds demanding and strict.
“Hello to you too…” Nick responded sarcastically, not exactly trying to start something but also not exactly wanting to deal with his bullshit.
“I went over to your place to drop off some groceries…the place reeks of beer and weed it’s disgusting…your mother was lying in her bed and..why aren’t you home? You know I’m busy during the season. I can't be here, you know this. I’m not trying to be an asshole but you need to take up some more responsibility around the house, especially when your mothers like this. Are ya hearing me son?” Nick wishes he could hang up rather than listening to the same repeated bullshit.
“I’ve been working at the gas station downtown for money, I haven’t had time to clean up but I will tonight, alright?” He hears his uncle sigh on the other side of the phone.
“That gas station isn’t gonna pay a whole lot, you’d be better suited doing one of those construction jobs down next to the railroad.” Nick can feel a migraine kicking in.
“Yeah I tried, they said I’d have to wait another year till I’m 18.”
“Now that’s bullshit, they probably just didn’t wanna hire you cause you’re dumber than a bag of nails. I’ll talk to my buddy Mark, try and get you a gig down there.”
“I don’t need any free handouts, thanks.”
“Son, you’re gonna need to learn to rely on other people if you can’t do nothin’ yourself.”
“I’m perfectly fine on my own.”
Uncle Pete paused, shuffled around, let out a deep breath, “I heard proms coming up, I’ve got a suit you can borrow if ya like, we can get it sorted out when you get home tonight.”
“Yeah, alright.”
“Alright, 5 o’clock.” The other end of the line went quiet.
Nick grimaced at the phone in his hand. Luke looked back at him from where he was holding his, likely oversized, poster board with sympathetic eyes. Nick really hates when he looks at him that way.
He points at the phone, “Well I guess you got what you wanted, my uncles making me try on a suit when I get home.”
It doesn’t make Luke appear satisfied, rather he seems quite sad still. Nick always thought he had a sort of kicked puppy expressive quality to his face. Particularly in the eyes.
“I’m sorry about your uncle.”
“Nothing to be sorry about, he’s just an asshole and exists.”
“Well this don’t mean you have to go I suppose, it’s just a suit.”
He stares at the soon to be promposal in Luke's hand, “Yeah, it’s just a suit.”
---
5 O'clock arrived faster than he would’ve liked. Pete wasn’t lying about forcing the suit on, it fit, so perfectly in fact it felt wrong to refuse it. He stood in the shit bathroom mirror, still wearing his baseball cap and feeling like an imposter. At one point his mom meandered past in the hall and stood, like she paused in thought, but then she stumbled past in a fog and the moment was gone.
Pete actually did stop in the doorway for a minute, he complimented the coloring or some other shit detail of the suit he couldn’t attribute to Nick, then ran off before he could even get the suit off.
It was just about what he was expecting, what he was hoping to avoid by not going.
Luke must’ve had a truly perfect suit, something real special his dad helped pick out, maybe it matched that girl he wanted to take, Lizzie or Lucy or whatever her name was. Or maybe it was picked for himself, maybe he found one in those earth colors he loved so much. Nick regretted thinking about it.
Afterall, here he was, in his baseball cap and suit like a regular hick. Like everything Luke hoped to escape after high school. Like something Nick could never outrun if he tried.
He took the suit off a few minutes later and hung it deep in the closet, hoping Pete’d be back to pick it up later.
He got a call later that night from Luke.
“So first of all that spray paint was a no go, made a total sticky mess of the heart and the poster board idea was an absolute disaster-”
“Man get on with the fucking point.”
“I asked her though still, Lacy, and she said yes.”
“Man she must be stupid-”
“So you think you’ll go with us too? I mean if you’ve got a suit an’ all.”
He didn’t feel much like lying but he could feel Luke’s glow through the phone, “Uh yeah man sure.”
“Sweet, I’ll see what she wants to do first and I’ll uh I’ll let y'know.”
Nick hung up quickly after, staring at his cluttered closet with a buried suit.
--
Prom night was usually the easiest time to work, until the after prom rush came in and tore up through the gas station for caffeine and snacks. Nick lied and said his mom was sick, persuading his less than enthusiastic manager to let him leave just before the rush, narrowly avoiding the crash and burn of an easygoing shift. It wasn’t necessarily untrue anyways.
He got home right after midnight, he figured Luke’d be busy with Lainey, out somewhere in the woods fogging up his truck or some shit, so he ripped off his shoes right at the front door and tumbled onto his side on the couch. Throwing on some garbage tv and cracking open a can of beer he’d barely get halfway through before figuring it a waste. He always felt it’d be in his nature to drink his way through a case but he didn’t even have the energy for that.
He layed like that for a little over an hour, he could hear a patter of rain on the windows and the groans of his old house shuddering under the wind. He thought about Luke out in the woods with his prom date, the rain likely hadn’t caused any issues if Luke was involved, if anything it just muffled the pair of them. It left a sinking feeling in his stomach. He wondered if his dad was gonna be back later that night or if he was gonna stay gone. He wasn’t sure what he would prefer hearing his mom and dad argue back and forth night after night or have half a mother stripped down to a catatonic state every time his father left. Nick wondered truly if they had always been this way or if he had complicated things for them, maybe they’d always have found a complication.
The show was switching over to a commercial break, some ad for allergy medication with happy dancing people and Nick’s half a beer and empty stomach was making him sick. He switched off the tv and rolled to his back, covering his face with a hand and breathing deep, trying to will away the nausea and sleep away the night. The pattering of rain was soothing enough, an easy droning noise to focus on and he began to relax slowly, thoughtless and calm. Until through the pattering of rain he could hear a rhythmic tapping noise, something against his window that was slowly pissing him off. He was expecting a tree branch, a broken gutter, hell even a monster from the forest would’ve been more likely, but as he groggily turned his head toward the window he saw the top half of a familiar face.
He rolled off the couch and walked toward the window, struggling to open it from the years of disuse.
“Luke, what the hell are you doing?” He was standing just outside the window, slightly damp with a high flush along his cheeks.
“Sorry, I would’ve just knocked on the door but I didn’t exactly want to announce my presence.”
Nick rolled his eyes, “Quite the way to not do that you idiot.”
Luke smiled softly, “Yeah I guess it was kinda a dumb idea.” He stared for a minute, the both of them sitting in an odd silence.
Nick watched Luke stare back, waiting for him to say something.
“So uh-”
“Prom went great,” Luke started, his eyes creasing with a smile, “Picked Lacy up, got dinner--I took her to Carls’ she’d never been there--and then the dance I mean, it was just a lotta fun dude.”
Nick tried to hide the grimace on his face, “Sounds great du-”
“And I mean the best part of the night--we left the dance around 9:30, hung out with some of her friends, and then her and I, we just got to chattin’. I swear we talked for 30 minutes it must’ve felt like, but I looked at the clock and phew,” He mimicked checking his watch, tapping on it like it was busted, “it was time to take her home.”
They hadn’t even done anything, Nick couldn’t shake the feeling that it would’ve been better if they had just fucked.
“So you thought the perfect end to the night was what? Come here?”
Luke’s smile didn’t falter, “Talking through the windows getting kinda annoyin’ can you come outside?”
“What the fuck, no, you come inside.”
Luke smirked, “Why would I do that, it’s so nice out here.”
Nick fixed him with an unblinking stare.
“Okay whatever, I’m going to bed.”
He began to walk off to Luke’s protests, “Wait, wait, wait, Nick, hold on,” he turned back to Luke watching through the window.
His dumb pathetic eyes, watching him walk away, “Please just come outside.”
“Fucking, fine.” He walked over and shoved on some shoes, not even bothering to grab a coat to cover the slight chill of the rain.
As he opened the door he could see Luke waiting for him in the lawn, he was staring up at the sky, contemplative and pretty, like the Greek statues he loved to talk about seeing one day. Nick joined him, standing beside him with his arms crossed uncomfortably.
“I love how easy you are to convince,” Nick elbowed him and Luke chuckled.
“Rain's awesome y’know, always feels like it gives me a fresh start on things, if that makes any sense.”
Nick didn’t get it really, “Sure, yeah.”
Luke turned to Nick, staring for a minute before looking back down at the ground and back forward again, he was thinking about something, Nick could tell, it wasn’t hard to guess with him.
“I was talking to Lacy about art and everything, sorta confessed I hadn’t actually made a single art piece in my life--though I think she figured that from my poster,” He grimaces while reminiscing, “I told her about those statues though, and my dad’s bible pieces he's got hanging in the dining room, and your mom’s art--” he looks toward Nick, “I uh I told her about how beautiful it all is.”
Nicks pissed for a second, gritting his teeth at the fact that some random girl knew something about Nick that very few had ever even known about, but before he can speak Luke continues.
“She told me that art isn’t all about those who create it, that there’s always gotta be someone that y’know that uh-” he snaps his fingers, “feels it, in a way.”
Luke's eyes are trained on Nicks now, alight with passion, “I think that’s maybe what I’m gonna study, like what I’m gonna do an’ all.”
Nick turns away from Luke’s eyes, the light in them burning right through him, he clears his throat, “Is that even a subject?”
Luke cracks a smile, “Y’know I’m not too sure I’d better figure that out.”
“Yeah, probably pretty important.” Luke smiles and Nick shivers with the encroaching cold.
“Thanks for coming out here, seriously.”
Nick shrugs, “It’s whatever.”
Luke bumps his shoulder, keeping them close together, touching all along Nick’s side, “It’s not whatever.”
Nick grumbles under his breath, slowly losing patience with the wet chill settling in his bones.
Luke curls an arm around his shoulder, chuckling a bit to himself, “Okay let's get ya inside before you kill me.”
Nick waits for the weight of Luke’s arm to drag him towards the house, but Lukes paused, staring at the side of Nick’s face.
He looks over at his friend, the intensity of his eyes never failing to stop him in his tracks, they’re soft and unending, sad and melancholic all at once,
“I wish you could’ve been there tonight,” is all he says, soft spoken like he had tried to stop himself from saying it.
Nick pulls himself away from Luke, beginning the trek back inside and replying simply,
“Yeah, me too.”