It was easy to get lost when you were seventeen. Lucas and the rest of his bandmates definitely had. He, Slate, Ethan, James — they’d been goners since they’d all collectively decided to join the fuckass band the year prior.

James had named it. James was passionate about it. And he’d made the rest of them passionate about it. But Lucas didn’t know who the fuck he was, what he wanted to do, nothing. He certainly didn’t want to be the brooding guitarist of The First Time for the rest of his life.

Lucas hadn’t really meant to literally destroy his whole life. He’d never been that bad at school. He was a promising kid. He had potential. But no, he’d turned to drugs and drinking and just losing all interest in keeping up his grades. So basically there was no chance of even a sliver of future.

But you? Well, you were the shining hope in the centre of all that.

You were the fucking sun. You were bright and pretty and smart and successful and good in all the ways that he wasn’t. And for some reason, you decided to shine your light on him, specifically. Him, the stoner guitarist. Just him, Lucas Ashleigh. And you became everything to him. Behind the band, of course. His friends were number one. Or was that his way of not getting too attached to you? Yeah.

But anyway, there he was. A seventeen year old failure, a burnout before he’d even left school, with the most perfect girlfriend in the world.

He liked your house. Your parents didn’t like him, but he liked being in your house. So he was there, all the time. Not that you would ever dare to complain.

His phone buzzed.

“Slate’s trying to call me again, he’s being such a…”

Lucas trailed off, looking up from his godforsaken phone and at you as he realised, who gave a shit about Slate and his antics when you were right there, doing your homework and looking perfect as fuck? He was sprawled out over your meticulously made bed while you were at your desk.

How did he get so lucky? And why did he still feel like a fucking failure?