Don't die this time
Devyn
Luis Pierce and I have been dating for three weeks. Again.
"You're insane, D," Evan tells me from my desk, not looking up while he rolls a spliff.
"I think she might be dickmatised," Aadyah also doesn't look up from her phone.
"Thanks guys," I press my lips together, twirling my necklace in my fingers. Luis bought it for me to replace the one that I angrily threw into the sea five years ago.
"Do you think I'm being stupid? For real?" My voice comes out small and I think it shocks my friends as much as it shocks me because they look up, even Evan. "It feels like I'm making a mistake trusting him again, but he never really broke my trust so..."
"It's so fucked up, what Maddy did," Aadyah rolls over so that she's facing me on the bed.
"For real," Evan adds. "I don't think you're stupid for trusting him again. It's just hard to fall out of the habit of hating him."
"Right. But Dev did. Because she's dickmatised," Aadyah adds, completely serious.
I glare at her. "We haven't evenâugh, shut up."
"You haven't?" Aadyah's jaw drops.
Evan smiles, shakes his head. "That five year fuck bouta go crazy."
I bolt upright, looking at Evan incredulously. "I'd prefer if you, like, never said that again."
Aadyah rolls onto her stomach beside me, picking up my phone and unlocking it. "What are you doing?" I ask her.
"Have you ever searched him up?" she says, doing just that.
I watch her scroll through Luis's search and I've never actually thought to do it. She scrolls through articles about his career and his first year playing for California Redwoods and some articles about Luis himself. She finds an article of the children's hospital charity event, a picture of the Redwoods appearance and them playing with the children.
And then one of me looking at Luis with a bunch of water bottles in my arms as he helps Phoebe throw a ball. Then another one of him and I stood side by side, him smiling at me while I look totally unamused. It's captioned, 'Star Boy Luis Pierce Smitten Over Pretty Nurse?'
Aadyah looks up at me and I roll my eyes.
Then she scrolls again and sees an article posted last night. A picture of Luis, smiling with a woman. She's gorgeous-long, platinum blonde hair, flawless skin. She's tall-almost as tall as Luis-and polished with an effortless aura of wealth.
Aads looks up at me, brows furrowed, waiting for a reaction that I don't have yet. I stare at the screen, and I don't feel anythingâat least, not right away. I'm not jumping to conclusions, not over a photo on the internet.
She clicks on the article, scrolling to find two more pictures. One shows the woman laughing, her hand resting on Luis's bicep like it belongs there. The other has them walking side by side down the street, their back to the camera. The headline reads: 'Isla Monroe and Luis Pierce: California's Newest IT Couple?'
My stomach twists, just a little. I don't know what to make of it. What I'm seeing with my eyes is one thing, but my heart is insisting that Luis wouldn't do that to me. I thought that once before, though. Turns out I wasn't wrong.
I like Luis, again. And I want to learn to trust him, again. I'm trying to open up to him, I swear I am. That's why I say,
"He'll be here in fifteen minutes," I look away from the article. "I'll just ask him about it."
Aadyah nods, locking my phone and pushing herself up to standing. "And we will not be here for that." She walks over to Ev, pulling at his hoodie. "Come on, Zhao."
"If he fucks you over again," Evan tucks both the spliffs he just rolled behind his ear, "I'll break his jaw."
I smile at that. "Love you guys."
"Love you too, angel face." Aadyah is pushing our friend, who has been faded out of his mind since the day we met, out of the door.
And then they're gone, and I'm picking up my phone and looking at the article again. I think it's nothing. But for some reason my mind won't let me discard it, won't let me stop staring at the photo and her hand on his arm and they way he's smiling at her and how they look so good together.
I don't realise how long I've been looking at it until my bedroom door pushes open and Luis is standing in my room.
He's holding a Sips smoothie in one hand, a glass container holding something that I can't quite see, and a brown gift wrapped package. Under his arm is a bouquet of ocean lilies.
I glance around the room at the three vases of flowers I've had to find homes for. The other four are in our living room and kitchen.
"Where am I supposed to put those, Pierce?" I sit up, my lips turning up involuntarily.
He grins, the way he always does when he sees me, and moves around the bed to my side. I take the flowers from him, then the smoothie. I take a sip, pointing to the glass container.
"What's this?" I tap the lid.
He runs a hand over the back of his neck. "I made youâwell, I tried to make your banana bread. I brought one slice because if it sucks you won't feel like you have to finish the whole loaf, but I have the rest of it in the fridge at the house."
It's such a thoughtful gesture, and it makes me feel a way that no one other than Luis has ever made me feel. He frowns, looking between my eyes.
"What's wrong, Dev?" he sits down on the bed in front of me and I place the flowers beside me while I un-cross my legs, pulling them up to my chest.
I rest my chin on my knees, unsure how to say it without shattering the moment he just created. But the words are stuck in my throat, and I can't let him sit there. Not when the article is burned into my eyelids.
"You went out last night?" I ask, my voice neutral.
Luis raises his brown, tilting his head as if to ask what I'm getting at. "Yeah, I told you, with my team and Josiah. Why?"
I don't know how to phrase what's going through my mind, so I take a moment, glancing down at my smoothie and swirling the straw to get a break from his kind eyes.
There's a beat of silence before he shifts closer, his hand brushing along the back of my calf. "Dev, talk to me."
I sigh, pulling my phone out from the bed. The article is still up on the screen when I unlock it, Isla's perfectly polished laugh frozen mid-frame, her hand too familiar on Luis's arm. I turn the screen toward him, my stomach twisting when I say, "This. I..."
His eyes flicker over the photo, and then his shoulders slightly slump as he looks at me with something akin to defeat in his gaze. "That's what this is about?"
"I didn't want to jump to conclusions," I don't look at him, instead tracing Sips's leaf logo on the side of my cup. "I don't know, I just wanted to ask... I don't know."
When I chance a look at him, Luis is watching me, his face unreadable. Then he exhales, running a hand through his hair, his eyes locked on mine.
"I need you to hear me out Devyn, because I want you to understand. I want you to never feel like this again."
I nod, placing my cup down on my table and crossing my arms, keeping quiet.
"This," he points to the article, "this is nothing. Me and Isla ran into each other outside of the restaurant the guys and I were at. We've seen each other at a few Cal celeb events, and as the media does, they tried spinning it into something it isn't. They build these stories, but they're just that." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, his voice softening. "There's nothing between us. There never has been."
I study his face, every line and shadow, searching for cracks. I don't find any.
"I didn't think it mattered," he says honestly. "I didn't know the pictures were even out until now. But I understand why it isn't nice for you to see. I do." His voice drops lower, and his eyes hold mine, unwavering. "And I hate that what happened in the past makes you feel like you can't trust me entirely. I know I'm still earning it now... but I'm far from the guy I used to be, Devyn."
The sincerity in his voice pulls at something in my chest.
He shifts closer, taking my hand in his and bringing it up to his mouth. "I wasn't what you deserved in the past, but I'll spend every day for the rest of my life trying to be better for you. I've never felt for anyone else the way I do you, Dev. Always you."
The words hang heavy in the air, and I know that they're real. My heart races, and something inside me unravels. My lips part to say somethingâanythingâbut I don't have anything other than three words that I'm not ready to give him right now.
So instead, I slide my hand to the back of his neck, pulling his face to mine and pressing my mouth to his and hoping he can feel the words on my lips. Then his hands are on my waist, pulling me closer as he deepens the kiss and my world tilts.
His fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me impossibly closer. His other hand sliding up my arm slow and deliberate, and when he pulls away, his pupils are blown wide. He dips his head, his lips brushing the curve of my jaw.
"Dev," he murmurs, his breath against my throat and we've kissed and made out a few times in the past month, but this feels like something more. "Tell me to stop and I will."
I don't tell him to stop. Instead, I curl my fingers into the fabric of his shirt, needing to feel the weight of him on top of me. He positions himself between my legs and his hips press me into the mattress and he slides a hand around my waist, holding me close like he's scared I'll disappear. It sends a rush of heat through me.
"I'm not going anywhere," I say against the skin of his neck, the words more breath than sound.
Luis's lips crash into mine again and it's not the gentle, practiced way he's kissed me the times before. It's hungry, like he's been holding back for too long. His hands roam my body, finding the hem of my shirt, his fingers brushing the bare skin beneath it. I gasp at the contact, and his tongue slides deeper into my mouth, drawing a soft moan from my throat.
I reach my hand down between us, finding his waist band and slipping my fingers beneath it. Luis moans into my mouth, breaking our kiss to look at me beneath hooded eyes.
"Devyn," his voice is so whiny that I lift my hips up to find his. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, Luis," I nod almost frantically, moving my hand to pull his shirt over his head.
He groans against my lips and the sound sends a shiver down my spine. My shirt comes off too, then my shorts, and I'm beneath Luis in my underwear and his mouth is on the hollow of my throat. I can't think of anything other than how much I want him, how much I've only ever wanted him.
My name slips through his lips like a prayer as his hands trail lower, his lips finding mine again. The heat between us builds until it's near unbearable, every touch, every kiss adding to a fire that's been building for years.
And when he finally lowers himself down into me, it feels like the world narrows to just this. His warmth, the way he murmurs my name against my skin. Every thought slipping away, apart from the way he moves, the way he looks at me like I'm the only thing he's ever wanted.
His lips on mine, slow and tender, and I'm dizzy with how much I feel-how much I need him, like he's the only thing tethering me to the ground.
*
Luis's heart is a steady rhythm beneath my ear. I look up at him laying shirtless in my bed, his eyes finding mine immediately. He smiles at me like I'm the moon and the sun, and then presses a quick kiss against my lips.
"You never opened the gift I got you," he says as he shifts from beneath me, leaning over the edge of the bed to find the discarded package, giving me a perfect view of his ass in his boxer shorts.
I sit up once he retrieves it and places it on my lap. I feel around the soft package, wondering what it is. When I tear the packaging off, I'm met with the smooth, sleek material of a jersey. It's red, sized small, and on the back is PIERCE in bold white letters, the number seventeen printed beneath.
I look up at Luis and a grin takes over my face, before I take off his shirt that I was wearing and replace it with the jersey.
"If you don't wear it the morning of my games, it's bad luck," he tells me while pulling my hair from beneath the collar, seemingly just as superstitious as I am.
I place a kiss on the corner of his mouth. "I'll do that for the rest of my life." I tell him.
"Yeah?" his eyes light up with his smile and I'm obsessed with the way they do.
"Yeah."
And then he tackles me on the bed, attacking me with kisses all over as I laugh.