Chapter 8: Music

Luke listened at the door to make sure Rob wasn't home before he shuffled out to the kitchen to make breakfast. He brought a can of coffee with him from a stash in his room; The Faith members weren't supposed to drink anything caffeinated, and the last thing he needed was another reason for Rob to ream him.

After a couple of days of unintentionally dodging Whitney, exhausted from working late and his body still forcing him to wake up at sunrise, they had plans for her to come over later. Being with Whitney alone was nerve-wracking, but not painfully so. He got the impression that she was as blasé about their Pairing as he was, having made it to age twenty-one without pressuring him into getting married yet like most of their peers had, but he was too much of a coward to ask her outright.

Time passed quickly after Luke ate his eggs and toast and drank his coffee. He showered, got dressed in comfortable sweatpants and a t-shirt, and lay back in his bed.

He scrolled through his phone, browsing social media posts that The Faith would consider unsavory, reading articles about current events that would make their faces go white as sheets. It felt more rebellious than anything else, sitting alone with his eyes glued to his screen, taking in information and snippets of others' lives that he knew the Doyens wouldn't approve of.

Every photo of a stranger on his feed, every article about news outside of The Faith's world, provided a welcome distraction from the buzzed head that cemented itself in Luke's head.

When he heard a knock at the door, Luke jumped in surprise. He got out of bed and threw on a nicer shirt—no time to change out of his sweatpants—and jogged to open the door for Whitney.

"Hey, how are you?" she asked, pulling him in for a hug.

"Good, you?" he asked, arm slung around her waist, her fuzzy sweater soft under his hand.

"Good, ready for some peace and quiet," she joked, making a beeline for Luke's room. "Is Rob here?"

"No, I think he's at work," Luke said.

Whitney nodded, and Luke imagined it was with relief. No matter how many times Luke or Whitney had asked him to stop, Rob always found a way to hit on her when she was around—even in front of his own Pair, Jennifer, and her pained, complacent expression always made Luke's stomach drop through the floor.

"I have some new music to show you," she said, sitting on his unmade bed, plain baby-blue bedsheets and comforter crumpled up around her.

"Yeah?" he asked, brightening. Whitney had always been a connoisseur of a wide range of music, but she kept it quiet from the other members for fear of their judgment. It was something that only Luke knew about her.

She nodded happily, and then brushed her blonde bangs away from her face. "Just don't tell anyone because there are—" She looked playfully in both directions and whispered, "Curse words in some of the songs."

"Whitney," he said, mock-admonishing.

She laughed and navigated through the music app on her phone. She pressed play on the first song, laid the phone on Luke's pillow, and beckoned him to join her on the bed.

Luke lay down next to her, leaving enough space between their shoulders as the small bed would allow. He looked at the weird seventies-style swirl pattern plastered in the ceiling and sank into the comfort of listening to the new song: a calm melody played amongst a guitar and a piano, distorted drums, and a raspy voice singing lyrics that Luke's brain didn't hold onto.

"Like it?" Whitney asked after the first song ended.

He turned to look at her next to him, her blue eyes shining with anticipation. "Yeah, I like it," he said with an honest nod. "You always find the best stuff."

She smiled, and as Luke looked back at the ceiling, she propped herself up on her elbow to face him.

Unsurely, he met her eye.

Whitney leaned in, the ends of her hair tickling Luke's neck as she pressed a tentative kiss to his lips.

Luke's gut filled with cold dread, but he kissed her back. It'd only been a few times in their life that she'd kissed him—once on a dare at a group sleepover as teenagers, again on the day they were assigned as Pairs, and a few more times in the quiet privacy of his room just like this. Each time, it felt a little worse. The excitement of trying something new had worn off, and by now, Luke knew that the feelings he had for Whitney didn't involve kissing her like this.

Those feelings could always change, though, and that's what he told himself every time the familiar ice filled his stomach. So, he kissed her, because a good Pair should, and he tried to snuff out the feeling that he was doing something so intimate with a woman he saw as a sister.

The sound of the pleasant music undercut Luke's thrumming heart and stiff limbs, and he willed himself not to flinch away when her gentle hand smoothed down the center of his chest and she leaned more of her weight against him.

Luke's mind wandered to the night at the bar when he'd told Abel that his Pair didn't take it seriously, and he admitted to himself that he was probably wrong. He parted his lips to allow Whitney to deepen the kiss, and his hand balled into a fist at his side, and the picture of Abel's dimpled smile painted itself to the walls of his mind.

Luke touched Whitney's side with his free hand and felt the soft curve of her waist and tried to use it to wash away any trace of Abel. It didn't work. The more he tried to push him away, the more he appeared: his smile, his hazel eyes, his short hair, the low, smooth tone of his voice when he spoke to Luke under the bustle of the bar.

Luke pulled away from Whitney, pulse racing, as a hint of panic set in.

Whitney gave him a sweet, reassuring smile, and Luke forced his mind to wipe away the other person in his head.

She picked up his hand with her own and, moving in to kiss him again, slid it up her side and over her chest.

Luke jerked away in surprise, eyes snapping open.

"I'm sorry," Whitney said hurriedly, sitting back away from him.

The inches of space between them were a world of relief for Luke.

"I thought we could try something," she said, her face red with embarrassment. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine, I just—" He just didn't want to touch her like that. He didn't say so.

"Everyone else—I mean—" She broke off, looking at the blue sheets between them.

"What?" Luke asked, mind muddled, body pulsing with trepidation.

"Every other Pair we know, they have—you know—they sleep with each other, so I thought we could try," Whitney said, each word quieter and less confident than the last.

"We're not married," he said, plucking the excuse out of a hat, as if that was the one thing amongst all of The Faith's teachings that she would be convinced he held onto.

She looked at him for a long second, and the rims of her eyes went red.

Luke drew her into a hug, guilt pouring over him as her eyes filled with tears. "I'm sorry," he whispered into the side of her head.

Whitney took a deep breath over his shoulder and then pulled away again. "I'm going to go," she whispered, not looking at him. She swung her legs off the side of the bed.

"Whitney, I—" The rest of the words died in Luke's throat. He had no idea what he was supposed to say.

She was quiet as she walked through the apartment to the front door, and the smile she gave him as she walked outside was wooden.

"I'll see you later," Luke said weakly, and her silent nod made him feel even worse.

Luke shut the door, and the air around him felt so suffocatingly heavy.