The Player Writes Love Stories?

Tessa’s POV

I wake up to my alarm blaring, I bring my hands up and rub my eyes. I take a deep breath before getting out of bed and walking over to my closet, it’s currently Fall so I grab a pair of leggings with a cute floral black lace top. After changing I walk to my bedroom door and grab my black combat boots and slide them on, I open my door and walk to the bathroom. I brush my teeth and hair and go downstairs to find I have the house to myself like I normally do.

My mother works all the time and I could care less about where my father is, my parents divorced when I was twelve and my mother has been working non-stop for the last few years to keep herself occupied. I’ve tried to talk her out of working so much but she doesn’t want to listen to anything I have to say. I feel like she blames me for them splitting, it’s pretty hard for me to deal with it because we used to be close and I don’t have any friends so I’m practically alone in my life. She puts on a show in public and acts like she's actually proud of who I am.

The only friends I feel like I have are my readers on a website that allows me to upload the books I write. After my father left I found a happiness in writing books. I don’t feel nearly as alone as I was before I decided to start writing books, I just wish I had someone to hang out with in person.

I walk into the kitchen and grab a granola bar out of the cupboard and unwrap it before walking to the front door and grabbing my jean jacket. I walk down my short driveway and wait for the bus that should be coming in the next 10 minutes.

I take the bus because I don’t have my full license or a car yet, I’m still only in grade 11 and I’m only 16. I have my G1 but that’s the furthest I’ve got with getting my full license so far plus I don’t have a car so I’m stuck riding the bus.

When the bus stops I silently get on take my seat near the back, I always sit alone and just listen to music. I find music helps to calm me and it distracts me while I’m on the bus and it also keeps out most of the noise from the kids that are somehow in a great mood and screaming in the morning. I put my headphones on and just shuffle my music, I listen to the beat of the song and let myself smile slightly. My bus ride is pretty short and only lasts fourteen minutes so if I really wanted to I could walk to school but that would mean I’d have to get up earlier and I’m a pretty big fan of sleep.

When the bus stops I walk off a few people bumping into me in the process, I finally get off the bus and walk towards the doors to the school. I go to my locker and pull out my English binder, at least I have English first today it’s the only class that I actually find fun. I go straight to my English class because I don’t have anywhere else to go or anyone to hang out with before class so I just go early and read for half an hour every morning.

“Morning Mr.Smith,” I say walking into the class. Mr.Smith is in his late fifties and in my opinion, he’s the best teacher in this school, he’s always nice and he makes the boring work fun.

“Good morning Tessa” He reply’s before bringing his attention back to the book in his hands.

I take a seat in my usual spot and pull my phone out, I open the book I’m currently reading and get dragged into the book. I only pull my attention away from it when Mr.Smith starts talking, I shut my phone off realizing the class filled up with students and class has started.

“So today I’ve decided to give you guys a new assignment, to write a five or more page short story. I wanted to let everyone do this alone so I could see your individual writing skills but I do need to mark you guys on teamwork too and I thought this might be a fun way to do it.” I mentally groan I hate working with other people. It’s awkward and I always end up doing all the work for everyone.

“I’ve also already chosen your partners for you. I’ve partnered each of you up with someone close to your writing level, it will be due on Friday and must be typed. Does anyone have any questions?” Mr.Smith asks looking up from the papers in his hands. No one raises their hands so he continues.

“Hailey and Anna, Blake and James, Elizabeth and Elliot, Luke and Tessa” Once I hear that I’m partners with Luke I zone out. How could Luke be close to my writing level? This has to be some kind of mistake, Luke skips class a lot and he’s almost never on time. On top of that, he’s a tattooed player, there’s no way someone like him could actually do any work with someone like me.

Luke isn’t known to be mean or anything, I’ve never seen him bully anyone he’s just strong, tattooed and sleeps around. He’s not the type of guy I want to be around.

I’m too shy to tell Mr.Smith he must have made a mistake, I’ll just write the story when I get home and put Luke’s name on it with mine. I snap out of my thoughts when someone sits beside me, I look to my left and meet eyes with Luke.

“Find my car in the parking lot after school. We’ll go to my house to work on it, don’t keep me waiting for you.” Luke says, it takes me a couple seconds to find the right words to respond with.

“I don’t have my laptop and I’m fine working on it alone anyway” I shrug.

“My house after school. My car is a 1999 Nissan Skyline, I remodelled it to look like the one Paul Walker drove in 2 Fast 2 Furious. It should be easy to find.” It’s clear he’s proud of his car.

“I still don’t have my laptop” I argue, I don’t want to go to someone else’s house especially his.

“I don’t care we can use mine, we’re going to my house”

“Fine,” I say as I give up, I don't need Luke hating me adding to my already low status. Even though I haven't seen Luke bully anyone I'm positive some of the girls that follow him around would have no problem bullying me if I pissed off their 'leader'.

“Good” Luke then gets up leaving the classroom, Mr.Smith just sighs and lets him go knowing he wouldn’t be able to stop him.

When the bell rings I head to my next class, Math. I don’t understand why we need to learn so many pointless things in Math, I’ll never remember all the stupid equations and rules after high school anyway. I never have good focus in Math but today I’m completely zoned out, why did Luke want me to go to his house so bad? Why couldn’t he just let me do the assignment alone? Is that not the way people like him work?

Soon enough the bell rings signalling Math being over, once Math was done the rest of the day seemed to go by quickly. Finally, at the end of the day, the bell rang one last time releasing me from my Science class. I walk quickly to my locker and put my books inside and walking toward the side doors because that was the side of the school the parking lot is.

It doesn’t take me long to find his car because I’m a huge Fast and Furious fan, I have to admit I’m slightly fangirling over the fact that I get to ride in a car that looks like it’s out of an F&F movie. I think my happiness is pretty obvious because when I meet eyes with Luke he’s smirking.

“Like the car?” he asks, I simply nod.

“Get in,” He says moving from where he was leaning against the car and opens the driver’s door, I go to the passenger seat. Luke starts the car up and my smile grows slightly bigger, I hear him laugh quietly looking at me.

“It’s cute how excited you are about a car.” He says pulling out of the parking lot.

“Fast and Furious was my childhood,” I tell him, before realizing he just called me cute. I then think about how many other girls he must call cute and take home in this car, oh god what if that’s why he wanted me to go to his house. There is no way I’ll let anything happen, I won’t do anything but write.

“I’m stopping at Starbucks before going home do you want anything?” Luke asks.

“Just an iced pumpkin spice latte,” I say holding out a ten dollar bill for him but he just shakes his head.

“The least I can do for forcing you to come to my house for an assignment is to buy you a drink,” He tells me pushing my hand down.

“You sure? I have no problem paying.” I tell him.

“That’s cute but trust me I don’t mind.” There he goes again calling me cute.

“Okay” I stay silent after that I’m not really sure what to say.

When we reach Starbucks he just goes through the drive-through and orders out drinks. I thank him when he hands me my drink, I take a sip and smile again. I have no idea why I’m in such a good mood today, maybe because this is the first time I’ve ever gone anywhere else but straight home after school. Regardless, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that I’m generally happy for once, I never get out to do anything.

“So any idea’s what you want to write the story about?” Luke asks me, I’m surprised how focused he is while he’s driving he didn’t take his eyes off the road when he asked me.

“Not yet, maybe some kind of murder mystery? Do you have any idea’s?” I ask.

“Possibly something with a corrupted government, I like the murder mystery idea though too.” He shrugs.

“We could merge both, maybe have the government kill someone and the main characters try to find out why they were killed?” I just throw out some ideas.

“Sounds good” With that, we stop talking and I stare out the window, it takes another 10 minutes until Luke is pulling into the driveway of a house.

Luke and I get out closing our doors behind us, I let him walk in front of me because I’m guessing he has the keys. But he stops at the door and turns around facing me. I look into his eyes which have suddenly gone dark.

“Whatever you see in this house and whatever you find out is never talked about. You’re the first person I’ve ever brought home.” Luke tells me sternly.

“O-okay” I didn’t mean to stutter his mood swing just caught me off guard.

“Good,” he says before opening the door.

When we walk in I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Everything looks neat and organized, I set my drink on the floor and untie my boots. Once I get my boots off I follow Luke up the stairs, he leads me to the first door on the right.

Luke opens the door and on the other side is a fairly clean room, he goes over to the bed and jumps on it laying down. He gestures to the spot next to him, I laugh quietly and set my drink on his night table before laying down.

For some reason I can’t think straight, if I could I wouldn’t be close to him. But whatever for once I’m enjoying myself and I’m having fun.

“I was thinking we could have two main characters and just write two and a half pages each,” Luke suggests.

“Sure”

“Do you wanna write first or me?” Luke asks.

“You can,” I tell him.

“Do you wanna pass me my MacBook? It’s on my end table.”

“Sure” I reach and grab it, handing it to him. I watch him as he leans against the wall and clicks around a bit before typing.

I watch him as he enters a state of complete focus. I bring my attention from him to my phone, I have a few notifications about new followers and votes on books but I just dismiss them and go to Instagram mindlessly scrolling.

“So what were you scared of me seeing?” When I ask he sighs.

“Don’t worry about it.” Luke snaps, bringing his attention back to his laptop. I sigh and lay down closing my eyes, I wake up to Luke shaking me. I didn’t even realize I fell asleep.

“I finished my part your turn,” Luke tells me.

“Okay,” I say as he hands me the MacBook.

“That means it’s my turn to sleep,” Luke says laying down and putting his arm over his eyes.

I go through what Luke wrote and to my surprise he’s amazing at writing, I think he’s even better than I am. I stare at the page for awhile but eventually, idea’s start flowing and it’s like the words are typing themselves.

I hear a soft snore and look over at Luke to see him clearly asleep, I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to look perfect while they’re sleeping but somehow Luke does. I smile and bring my eyes back to the laptop screen, I notice a notification pop up in the top right corner.

‘Wattpad~ 3 new notifications’

I know what Wattpad is and I’ve been using it for years but why would Luke have it? My brain starts coming up with conspiracies and I do something I shouldn’t have done, I click the notification. What comes up amazes me and intrigues me, Luke is an author? He’s on Wattpad under the name of Alexander Clarke. I go to his profile page and see that he has over 100,000 reads.

I click one of his books and read the description and soon find out that it’s a love story, I go to the next one and it’s a love story too. He only has three books published so I check the last one and sure enough, it’s a love story too. Who would guess a guy who can’t hold a girl for more than a week writes stories about people getting their true loves.

Who knew that the player writes love stories?