Fire on Fire [L.H]

ten

(Luke's POV) 

     I pulled up to my house at the driveway to drop Danielle off.  "Here you go," I said. 

       "You're not gonna pull in?" She asked, undoing her seatbelt. I shook my head. 

       "No, I have rehearsal. But if you could do me a favor since I bought you lunch and work supplies," she chuckled at me, mocking me in such a way. "Run inside for me and grab the notebook on my island in the kitchen." 

      Danielle rolled her eyes as she grabbed her drink from the carrier. "Sure," she said. Stepping out of the car, I hit the garage door button and allowed her to go through the garage. Stopping at her car first, she ran inside and opened the door. 

       Grabbing my phone as I was being called, I answered Ashton. "Hey," I said. 

        "Just checking. You're coming right?" 

        "Mhm. I'm about to be on my way, I have Danielle fetching me something," I explained. 

        "Ooh," he said. "Did you just call her Danielle?" He asked. 

        "Yes... because that's her name!" I replied back. 

        "What did she do to piss you off?" He asked. I furrowed my eyebrows. 

         "What?" I asked confused. I heard the door to the house shut and saw Danielle coming through, waving the book in the air. Nodding at her questioning, she came out and I shut the garage. Taking my phone off speaker, I put it to my ear. 

        "You've never called her Danielle before. Not since the concert in New York," Ashton explained. 

        "Well, I can have my reasons, and you know how that goes- thank you," I said as Danielle passed the book to me. Nodding at me with a hum, she took off back to her car. I pulled back to give her room to back out of my driveway before I followed her car out of the complex. 

        "I know. But, don't you think you're being a little too dramatic?" Ashton asked. I connected my phone to the car and rolled the windows back up so he'd hear me clearly. 

       "Dramatic?" I repeated. "You realize the girl I was once into left me hanging high and dry!" 

        "Okay, now that is being dramatic," Ashton said, causing me to roll my eyes. "Can you let her explain?" 

        "Why are you defending her?" I questioned seriously. After all these years and everything we've been through, he's gonna take her side in this? Did he really feed into her bullshit? No problem, they can friends all they want. I don't care about that. But I don't want her lies to feed into my friendship with these boys. 

        "I'm not defending her! I'm just being reasonable!" Ashton said immediately. "If you would give her the chance to explain why she-" 

        "Her explanation is never gonna change! She stood me up that night and then she lied to me a few weeks ago." 

        "That's my point- how do you know it's a lie when you have Cara who worked at the damn place, giving her perspective-" 

         "You know what? You're just feeding into her bullshit lies! You actually are gonna sit here and tell me that I'm wrong here? That I should apologize to her? That I should give her the chance to explain herself? She stood me up! What can be more clearer than that?" I asked loudly. 

        "Luke, I'm not feeding into anything! Can't you see this was just a big mistake?" 

         "Getting involved with her? Yeah, I knew it was a mistake. But now I have to be out and about for the next week with her for her dumb contract and my stupid publicity." Ashton sighed through the phone. 

       "You are putting too much stress onto one little incident. It's never that serious, Luke." I rolled my eyes again. He's making it sound like she's the victim. What a friendly gesture, Ash. 

       "I'm done talking about this. I'll see you at the studio. Goodbye." Hanging up before he could say anything else, I hit the steering wheel out of anger. I can't handle him sometimes. It's hard to get through this stupid social media relationship just as much as it is to tell my friends how it makes me feel when they blatantly tell me to let it go. How can I let something like that go? It's a sick feeling! And then being lied to in my face....UGHHHH! Can these two weeks just go already!

{Danielle’s POV} 

      “I want it to be over,” I stressed to Cara. Rubbing my forehead, I put my arm on the table and Cara leaned forward after sipping her drink. I was at Papa Vino’s, where Cara works. She was on her lunch break, so I came to join her. 

      “It was that bad?” 

     “Yes! I’m telling you, he hates me more than I hate him,” I complained. After my morning with Luke, I have been sensing the vibe that Luke is beginning to hate me more than normal. Now is it something I did? Hell if I know. “I’m not gonna lie, I hope Rolling Stone doesn’t call after these two weeks.” 

      “Okay,” Cara said, stopping me from my nonsense. “You really hate this relationship so much to where you hope that your dream gig will rip out of your hands?” She asked me. “You are stressing way too much!” 

      “You just don’t get it, Cara; nobody does! Who in this world gets thrown into a fake social media relationship because I certainly haven’t heard of one!” I defended myself. This stupid relationship isn’t easy. The part that makes it harder is my feelings towards Luke. 

      “I understand that. But what is it about this relationship that makes your head explode?” Cara asked me. “Is it that fight you had with him? Or is it your feelings for Luke?” 

      I do have to admit, I still get butterflies when we hold hands. That never went anywhere. But it's like I hate to admit it. And Cara will expose me too. 

       I groaned and slammed my head back down on the table. "Cara..." I groaned to her. 

       "So, you admitting to liking Luke still?"

        "Okay, I guess it's fair that I haven't gotten over him," I said, snapping my head back up. "But it's-" 

        "It's the argument that is going away," she answered for me. I nodded my head at her. 

        "Exactly! I mean, I never did want this. I never wanted what happened to us. But I just can't stand him. I hate him so much but it's like I have such deep feelings for him! And I don't know, it's so confusing." Cara looked at her watch as I rested my head on my hand. 

       "Well, you're gonna have to figure it out. I gotta get back to work. I'll call you after work, okay?" Nodding at her, I stood up and helped her clean off our table. Hugging her goodbye, I walked out the door to head to my car when I was caught by a man with a camera. 

     "Danielle! Where's Luke?" He asked me. My first instinct was to ignore, but I knew couldn't. 

      "He's working at the studio right now," I replied. 

      "Is it true that you two are dating?" He then asked as I got to my car. Ooh, my favorite burning question.