James/Luke's Apt: Beginning of a New Me [Lucas]

Luke stared at him, horrified. "Oh God." He punched James' shoulder as he walked past to the subway stop. "Shut up. You're lying." He shuddered.

James was biting the inside of his cheek trying so hard to keep from laughing in Luke's face but he straightened, "Seriously dude she like legit stared hardcore at you. I'm surprised you didn't like feel someones eyes on you. Its like she was gazing into your soul."

Luke threw him an extremely dirty look. "Wait til you get on the subway and some old hag is ogling you two seats down. You know it's happened." He walked down the stairs and toward their platform that would take them toward Central Park because he didn't feel like walking and getting all sweaty and out of breath when he arrived.

James smirked smugly, "Knowing my luck they'll be hot looking cougars. Hey don't worry Luke not all of us can be blessed with such dashing good lucks. Its a curse really." He said flashing a smile at a group of girls that came up the stairs as they descended down, all of them chattering and giggling after meeting James' blue eye gaze.

Luke snorted, watching a train hurtle in. He stepped on it when it slowed to a stop. "Didn't you learn your lesson, Darko?" he said mockingly, taking a seat.

James took his seat next to Luke and just snorted, "Dude I'm kidding its just fun. I probably made those girls night. It was no harm, plus I can't deny I look good tonight."

Luke heaved a breath. "You know, I think that big head of yours is taking up all the air in this train." The train began to move.

James chuckled, "Don't worry I know CPR."

Luke glanced over James' shoulder, where a pair of girls was watching them with interest. "Yeah, I know some people who'd love that," he said dryly. "But let's keep it down. You need to be humble if you're going to talk to Lyn. You know she hated it when you went all smug jerk on her."

James nodded remembering that Evelyn did really hate when he was like that, and he was happy for Luke to point that out so he decided to tone it down a bit, he sighed easing a bit and slouching in his chair, he glanced at Luke, "So this place we're going to have you heard anything about it?"

"Rockefeller?" Luke asked. "Yeah, it's only one of the biggest landmarks!"

The place wasn't so far from them either. "I wanna go to the skating rink when it opens next month. Only a few weeks."

"I know that it has the ice skating rink, I was asking about where we were going to eat. Also I suck at ice skating, but I will admit I've always wanted to skate there." James said looking out the window of the subway.

Luke shrugged. "Carrie just said to show up there at the entrance. I dunno where to go from there."

The train began to slow and they got up, heading off it onto the platform. "This way." Luke headed up the street to where Rockefeller Plaza lay.

[[To Rockefeller Center]]

[[Next day]]

Luke had fallen asleep by the time James returned. So the first chance he got to ask James how his tete-a-tete with Evelyn had gone came only after they both returned from class.

Luke, who had sort of nodded at Alexis in greeting in class and felt like this was sufficient, unlocked the apartment door and threw his backpack onto the couch, taking off his jacket. "Darko, you alive in here?"

James was sitting on his bed with his books open actually attempting to do homework, a first since he had someone else do his homework since the sixth grade, "Barely!" He shouted back to Luke as he waltzed into the apartment.

Luke walked into the bedroom and sat down on his own bed, stretching. "Are you actually working?! What, no nerdy homework buddy?"

"Actually I haven't been in class enough to threaten a nerd to do my homework yet, so nope." James chuckled looking at the sprawled out Luke, "So how was your day dear?"

Luke pulled a face and stretched out his leg, kicking James in the shin. "Um....usual awkward greeting to Alexis in class. I talked to a few people and they seem interested in playing with us for the song, by the way. You thought of what you wanna do or are we going for um...whatever you suggested?"

"Well I'm not coming out from underneath the stage, I doubt we have that kind of budget anyway since you waste all of it on frozen pizza, but, I was thinking I don't know do some pop song I guess, I still don't know what though." James said turning to face Luke and tossing his books aside, he figured he had enough learning for today.

"Hurry up and decide, though. We need to get cracking," Luke said. He paused. "Um, moving on from that, how was your chat with Evelyn? She didn't look too cooperative last night. Kinda looked like she wanted to run."

"Yeah right, I noticed that and at first when I talked to her at first about how she wanted to talk to me about whatever, she kind of seemed like she wanted to discuss it another time but she said she could talk for a little and we both went back to the dorms and hung out outside." James said remembering the previous night how they both sat on the bench.

James sighed, "Um she pretty much told me that I never really treated her like a person so much, that I put her up on this pedestal you know? Which is kind of what girls do to me and I never realized I did that. Then we both apologized for all that mean crap we said to each other and I don't know we said that we both kind of knew we couldn't be together and that we would try at least... to be friends again."

He sat back against the wall on his bed and looked across him to Luke, "But for real this time though I guess, since the couple of times we tried that obviously didn't go over too well."

Luke thought for a moment, trying to work it out in his head. "I think...I think both of your problems with this friends thing are the same. Can you see her like you do Ashlee? Honestly."

James bit his lip and drew out a long breath,"Honestly, I want to be able to. Its gonna be hard you know? But I really want to see her as a friend and just have us hang out, she even suggested that we hang out with you and Ash to kind of make things easier on us. Luke really I just want all of this to be over." James wiped the screen of his phone and said, "I think after some time I will be able to see her like a friend, it just won't be right away"

"Be honest with yourself, you'll get there," Luke said, getting up. "I want something to eat. I skipped breakfast trying to get to class on time."

James followed Luke into the kitchen, "Making me some lunch?" He said patting Luke's shoulder, grinning.