Author: Emily
Rating: PG 13
Pairing: Marissa/Luke
Timeline/Spoilers: Pre season one.
Summary: "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds played scratchily on the radio and Luke decided maybe he loved her."
"We could drive out to the dunes tonight 'cause summer's almost here
I've been up all night, I might sleep all day
Get your dreams just right and let them slip away"
- Up All Night, Counting Crows
A couple of strands of hair struck to her cheek and the thin cotton of her dress stuck to her hot skin. Little drops of sweat trickled down her throat to pool between her breasts. It wasn't the kind of thing Luke thought about, but if it had been, he would have thought that she was beautiful.
"Mariss..." Luke muttered, tugging her closer towards him. Her warm body pressed against his and she tasted of strawberries and diet coke. Sand scratched against his leg where it met hers. Luke's hands slid down past her neck. Her soft breathing and warm hands around his back encouraged him to continue, his fingers experimentally sliding against her smooth sticky skin. Marissa murmured softly against his throat. Sand scraped against his leg as he reached for the zip at the back of her dress.
"I'm getting all sandy," Marissa announced, pulling away.
She stood up and swept the sand off her dress.
Luke sighed, not that he wasn't used to this. "You wanna go?"
"Nah, let's just...hang out here a while." She said.
Her head pressed against Luke's chest and they lay there, the radio softly playing from Luke's truck.
She flicked through the radio stations on the way home, her long fingers tapping impatiently against the radio as she complained about how the suckass music they played had no soul. Luke changed over to a station that played classic songs and sung along to the Rolling Stones and Beatles because duh, they had soul. She called him a dork but he swore he heard her humming along too.
The next night one of the guys had a party. Marissa didn't go because she was having some big dinner with her family. Luke kissed Holly in a game of Spin the Bottle. He doesn't think anybody ever told Marissa. Something about that fact made him feel worse.
The next time he saw her Marissa looked surprisingly fragile in tight jeans and a thin yellow top that blew in the breeze. Holly was pretty, Luke thought. But Marissa was beautiful. And it wasn't the kind of thing Luke thought about, but if it had been, then he would have thought he loved her. The way he casually told her that now didn't mean anything of course, it wasn't something he had thought about and meant. Most of the time it was an attempt to get her into the sack that she saw right through. If he had thought about it though, he might have thought he meant it. That was why Luke didn't think about these kinds of things.
Yet the thought crossed his mind a few times on those nights on the dunes, before school started up again. They lay there watching the sky turn red and yellow and blue and black above them until eventually the stars came out. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds played scratchily on the radio and Luke decided maybe he loved her. Marissa was too busy trying to please her mother and live up to who she thought she should be to think about these things but he figured that one day she was gonna look at him, and decide that she loved him, because that's what happened to him. It wasn't like, love at first sight, or anything but it was love in some definable form. So he rejected Holly's further advances, and Callie's, and Jessica's, because it was only a matter of time after all.
"This is too much Luke," Marissa told him on the sand dunes as she pulled away and signed, sliding the strap of her top up. Luke agreed, it was too much when it was not reciprocated. That or not enough. And Luke never used to think about these things, but whenever they go to the dunes and fool around until she tells him to stop, it's all that he can think about.
Marissa was his girlfriend and he was supposed to feel this way. But so was she and all she was was distant. Luke had tried to close the distance between them in the only way he knew how, but Marissa had told him no and held him at arms length - literally and metaphorically. The distance grew and it wasn't his fault.
It wasn't the kind of thing he thought about but if it was he would have thought that he was going to lose her - or, depending on your point of view that she was going to lose him. Luke never really thought about that part because it was even stranger still than being in love with her.
If he had considered it then maybe he would have imagined ending up with Holly or Callie or Jessica in some sleazy bar or bedroom with Marissa just staring.
But he never did and when it eventually happened it came as a shock to both of them.