Day 16 E

As the couple walked back to their table, Luka found his eyes glued to Marinette, not even noticing Adrien's departure.

"Ha, I guess you were lying," he smiled, his warm look nearly melting Marinette's heart.

"What? What do you mean?" Marinette asked, her face covered in a haze of infatuation.

Luka gave her a knowing look, then seemed to crank up his smile to a 10. If her heart hadn't been thumping before, it definitely was now.

"Well, you said you couldn't dance, but your every footstep caressed the melody better than the voice of the lead singer. That's the kind of girl that breaks hearts every time she walks out of a room."

Her cheeks flushed, and she turned back to her plate, silently swirling a scoop of spaghetti onto her fork.

"Maybe if I spill marinara sauce all over myself, Luka won't notice my blush," she joked to herself.

"Haha, your face is so cute!" He exclaimed.

The exclamation was followed by a flying plate of spaghetti. Marinette embraced her awkward and clumsy nature, preparing for a coating of tomatoey stickiness.

Her eyes were locked shut for those few microseconds. They remained locked as she waited for the sauce to pour across her face, fulfilling her own sarcastic prophecy.

As the dribbles of time collected together to form seconds, a chilling thought popped into the temporarily blinded girl's mind.

"What if I flipped my plate and spilled it all over Luka!"

She slowly opened her eyes to see Luka, hand extended, holding the plate with her meal still intact.

"Got it, be careful with the random compliments while you eat food, or you might… spaGET it all over the table," he grinned.

In a moment Marinette went from wanting to laugh, to wanting to cry, to wanting to just smile at Luka forever. Her emotions reached an impasse and as a result she sat stone faced, unable to process what she was feeling.

"Hey, don't stress it Mari. I've always known you were clums- that you had a penchant for moving unusually. Anyways, I've always been overly coordinated. So…" Luka trailed off.

He froze for a moment, collecting his thoughts, or perhaps summoning his courage as he spoke to a quiescent Marinette.

"So… if we ever chose to stick together, we could cancel it out and be two normally coordinated people."

Marinette's heart suddenly decided on an emotion and the poor girl burst into confused tears.

"What's wrong, Mari?" He tenderly inquired.

A gentle sob mixed with her words, obscuring a few of them from Luka's understanding. "I-I'm jus-so lucky to-ave met a-guy-lie you. And I don't-knooow if I-lo-you or Cha-www, or Adr-een and… and… and I just want to be happy."

Luka gazed at her beauty, willing himself to say something useful, anything that could bring solace to his sorrowing love.

"Um, I don't know if any advice I could give would be any good, especially since I don't think I understood half of what you said. But I want you to be happy too, and I'll do anything I can to make sure you are happy and stay that way."

Marinette turned in their booth and wrapped Luka in a deep personal hug, trying to use the affectionate act to express the words she couldn't say.

"Luka, thank you," she whispered into his ear.

As she pulled away, he saw streaks of black start to form from the corners of her eyes.

In a moment Luka was on his feet, running to find a napkin, while wishing he had thought to bring a handkerchief.

He found one and rushed back to Marinette so quickly that he dashed his knee on the corner of the bench. He landed on his other knee to stabilize himself, his hand outstretched, holding the napkin.

A bump on his foot caused him to turn around. Walking past them was a flustered looking waitress, her arm full of dishes. She looked at Luka on one knee. Then at Marinette's tear stained face. Then back at Luka.

"I am so sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your proposal!" She squealed, rushing towards the kitchen.

"We aren- I didn- it's not what it look- I don't even have a ring-" Luka stopped, realizing she was already gone.

"Hahahahahaha!" The hearty laughter erupted next to him, and Luka turned to see Marinette doubled over in the booth, unable to contain her love of the awkward situation. Slowly, she calmed down, though her face still wore a troublemaker's grin.

"Hey," the blue haired man admonished teasingly, while gently wiping away the mascara streaks from his date's face,"this is your situation too, Mrs Couffaine."

The pair burst into laughter again, this time interrupted by a small group of excited waitresses standing over them. The leader of the group was the girl who had first bumped into Luka. She was carrying slice of cake with a picture of a ring frosted on it.

"We have a custom of bringing a complementary slice of cake to couples that get engaged at The Flavorful Fermata," she explained, placing the cake on their table.

"Oh, that's what I was trying to tell-" Luka began.

"Oh, no, you must."

"What Luka means is-" Marinette said.

"It's tradition. We want you to have the cake. In fact, we insist," she said, before turning on her heels back towards the kitchen.

"Congratulations!" One waitress called, following the first girl's lead.

"I hope you have a wonderful life together," another added, joining her coworkers.

With reservations, the pair ate the slice of cake, realizing their refusals wouldn't be heard.

After dessert, Luka paid the bill and the couple headed out to the next destination of Luka's surprise date.

As they walked towards the restaurant's parking lot, they passed by a steel railing. It was at this point that Marinette dared to glance at the boy who was in the process of finding his way into her heart. He seemed to notice and looked back at her, a lovestruck look in his eyes. Startled, Marinette backed away, right into the railing, tearing her jacket against it.

"Oh, no!" Luka exclaimed.

"It's fine," Marinette confessed,"I get so nervous on first dates that I usually spill something on myself, or back into something, or fall in the mud… so I make these cute little disposable jackets out of scrap cloth."

She removed the remnants of the jacket, a gaping hole from the cuff of the right sleeve to the middle of her back, and placed it in a garbage bin.

As they reached Luka's motorcycle, he looked at Marinette.

"This next ride is going to be a little long, and it'll get cold," he explained, then slipped off his leather jacket, and extended it towards her. The musician stood there, patiently waiting in a light blue t-shirt that accentuated his muscular build (particularly his biceps, which were half exposed from the sleeves, and were obviously stretching the fabric around them).

Marinette tried to argue, but found a shiver escaped her mouth in the place of words. Luka wore a victorious expression as Marinette snatched the jacket and put it on.

As they began their ride, Marinette couldn't help but notice this ride felt different than the one from her house to the restaurant. She had wrapped her arms around him, just as she had done the first time, but now she could feel firm ridges against her fingers. She almost let go of him completely at the realization that those ridges were his sculpted abs.

She continued the ride, noting how warm his jacket was. It was fleece lined, and even better, she could smell his scent on the jacket; a gentle musky smell that made her heart beat faster but simultaneously gave her a feeling of calm contentment.

In the pale moonlight, the wiry hairs of Luka's arms stood straight. It was only then that Marinette considered how cold it had to be for him. She let go of him with one hand and unzipped the jacket, then returned ger hand ot its original place around Luka, pressing herself against his back even tighter, hoping to share some of her abounding warmth.

"I'm sharing warmth. Just like Chat does," she thought.

Instantly she cursed herself for pressing herself against Luka and at the same time thinking of that feline ball of warmth.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the motorbike's deceleration. Luka pulled into a vacant parking spot and popped out his kick stand. Marinette hopped off the bike, taking off her helmet, and handing it to Luka.

He took her hand and walked to the entrance of the large building: Jagged's Palace.

A hot blush splashed on Marinette's face. "Oh, Luka, a hotel. I don't know if I'm ready for…"

Instantly Luka turned just as red.

"Oh, no! No way! I mean… I really care about you Marinette, but I would never. No, I've met Jagged a few times, the latest being last year's French Music Festival. I mentioned that it was lame that I couldn't practice in the middle of the night on those rare occasions that inspiration struck. Jagged had just built this place and he gave me a key to the roof. Apparently he likes to 'rock on' on the roofs of his hotels."

Marinette felt a sense of relief as they continued the conversation. "Ah. I can see how you might be able to get away with it since Jagged's Palace is so much taller than the buildings around it… but what about the room below it?"

"Oh, the penthouse suite is reserved specifically for Jagged. And the ceiling is soundproofed, but we aren't going to play music there today, so that doesn't matter," Luka called running ahead.

"We aren't?" Marinette asked.

"Come on, we don't want to miss it!"

Marinette rushed into the building and followed Luka to the elevator, all while wondering what he had in store for them. He put a key into a keyhole labeled 'roof' and turned it. Instantly the elevator door closed and it shot up, going directly to its destination.

When the elevator reached the rooftop, the door opened to reveal a blanket laid out on the roof. Luka sat on it and beckoned Marinette to follow suit.

She did just as a streak of burning white cut across the sky overhead.

"Was that a shooting star?" She asked excitedly.

"Yeah. There's a meteor shower tonight, and this place seemed like the perfect place to watch it," he mentioned as Marinette snuggled up against him.

"By the way, did you make a wish on that shooting star?"

Marinette shook her head.

"That's ok, you'll get the next one," Luka decided.

They spent the next hour and a half watching the sky, talking, laughing, and staying close for warmth.

"So, Luka. What made you think to take me stargazing?" Marinette asked.

"Well, I love the stars. I like to make wishes. In fact I'm still waiting on one I made a year or two back," he remarked casually.

"Really? What was it?" Marinette asked.

"I can't tell you. It might not come true if I do," Luka responded.

"Fine, but waiting for a wish isn't the only thing that you like about stars, is it?" Marinette replied.

Luka thought for a moment before speaking.

"I've always loved music and I guess it's not normal, but when I see beautiful things, I hear music. When I first saw a shooting star it played a melody I'll never forget… just like when… nevermind."

"What?" Marinette prompted.

"I said nevermind," Luka whined, departing from his usual cool collected self.

"Nope. Tell me," she demanded, turning into the version of Marinette that enjoyed jokingly chastising Chat Noir for his misbehavings.

"Um… well, the only other melody I can't get out of my head… one that I treasure more than the song of the stars… is the one that I heard the first time I saw you."

The roof was instantly silent as traffic, the hum of lights, and even heartbeats went mute.

"Sorry, I don't want this to STARt to get weird," Luka said.

Instead of responding with a pun, Marinette placed a kiss on his cheek.

"Yeah, there is definitely a place in my heart for Luka," she decided.

She pulled even closer to him, trying to absorb every last drop of warmth from him. Shortly after, a gentle snore let her know that Luka had been lulled into slumber's enticing trap.

"I can snuggle up with Luka. I just have to remember that I have to wake him up in a minute. I won't hear the end of this from Alya if I fall asleep."

Marinette smiled, glad that she had found someone so warm to hold, and temporarily forgetting about Chat as her mind calmed down. Not that she was sleeping, Marinette was just resting her eyes for a second, maybe a minute.

…maybe longer.

Well it looks like in this war of love, Luka had the winning hand on day 16, but will he keep his lead, or will AdriChat find a way to tie things up? Find out next week!