"Stuck In The Friend-Zone Again and Again"

"I See You With Him"

Luke's P.O.V.

I flipped through channels on the hotel T.V., having finally finished Paris' story. It was amazing; she really had talent.

One channel said something about 5 Seconds of Summer, so I decided to remain on that channel to see what it said.

"Around lunch time today in a small town in Ontario, Canada, 15 year old friend of 5 Seconds of Summer Paris Hadley was spotted eating lunch with another boy," the girl said.
I rolled my eyes. Seriously, the press were so annoying.
"Hopefully Luke won't be jealous, as rumours have been circulating about the pair dating in secret," she went on.
Yeah okay. Maybe there were rumours before but now there were probably a whole lot more after that was said. Thanks for that.
I turned off the T.V. in frustration at the press, and was about to dial Paris's number when I realized that she was in class. Damn it. I started pacing.I needed to talk to her.
I stopped moving. Why did I need to talk to her so bad? To reassure her that I was totally okay with her dating that guy Jake? She knew that. But that must have been it, I said to myself.

An hour later Calum returned to our room. "Hey mate, I'm sorry about Paris," he said.
"What?" I asked.
"She's dating that guy, I saw it on Twitter," Calum said.
"Firstly they're not official that was their first date, and I would have known because Paris would have texted me about it, and secondly it's fine I was texting her last night about it. She was so excited it was adorable."
"Wonder if he's kissed her yet," Calum said thoughtfully.
I shielded my eyes. "Ugh I don't want to think about that." For some reason the thought disgusted me. I didn't know why, it just made me want to be sick.
"Right I forgot you liked her, sorry mate."
"I don't like her, that's just gross, she's like a little sister to me," I defended.
"People usually don't want to bang their little sisters, mate," Calum said seriously.
My mouth fell open. "I do not want to bang Paris."
"Okay but you want her to be yours," Calum stated.
"No I don't," I said forcefully.
"Fine. Live in denial. See if I care," Calum said sassily, pretending to flip his hair and walking out of the room.
"I'm not in denial, am I?" I thought. I shook my head. "No, no. Just friends, that's all."

****************************

By Friday, I was so sick of hearing about Jake and Paris from the paps. Everywhere I went it was "Luke how do you feel about Pairs cheating on you?" "Luke how are you handling Paris's betrayal?" WE WEREN'T DATING WHY DID THEY NOT GET THAT?
I didn't tell that to Paris, though. We texted every day and night. She seemed really happy with Jake. She said he was really nice and treated her amazing, and knew a lot about her. And he could give her rides to work because he was older and had a car.
He sounded like a nice guy, from what Paris said.
I still wanted to meet him, just to make sure. Because if he hurt her...
"I'm like a protective older brother," I thought, laughing at my train of thought.
At 5:57 I got a text from Paris:

🎶Parissss🎶: "Hi Luke"
ME: "heyyyy"
🎶Parissss🎶: "hi or hey?"
ME: "both"
🎶Parissss🎶: "so anyway I was wondering when the next time you guys were gonna be around cause not to sound clingy I miss you guys:("
ME: "We have a week off next week so we can hang out:)"
🎶Parissss🎶: "yay! What should we do?"
ME: "we should eat pizza and do stuff"
🎶Parissss🎶: "want me to ask my mom if you can park the bus in our driveway?"
ME: "sure. Also ask if you can stay in it with us"
🎶Parissss🎶: "a moment good sir"
I chuckled at her vocabulary.
About 2 minutes later I got another text from Paris:
🎶Parissss🎶: "mom says okay on both accounts"
Wow her mom was really chill.
ME: "awesome!"
🎶Parissss🎶: "yaaaaaasssss"
At that moment Michael started banging on the door, signalling it was time to go to dinner.
ME: "gotta go Michael's pounding on the door for me to go for dinner"
🎶Parissss🎶: "okay, talk to you later?"
ME: "definitely"

**********************************

On Monday I noticed that Paris posted a picture of her and this Jake guy on her Instagram. He was good looking, sure. She was better looking and, in my opinion, was out of his league, but I heard that you're supposed to go for people that are out of your league.
Paris probably thinks that he's out of her league, the way her mind works.
She appeared to be glowing in the picture, that's how happy she looked.
If he made her happy, that was all that mattered, right?
Wrong.
He also had to treat her right, and know what she liked, and not hurt her, and be a gentleman.
Knowing Paris he was like that; she was a fangirl (apparently they have very high standards).

On the other hand, some of the fans were not taking this well; there were many tweets showing up in my mentions saying how heartbroken and devastated they were that she was dating someone else.
Some were taking it a bit too well; there were also some tweets saying things like "finally, now she won't be hanging all over Luke, the bitch".
Others still were taking the opportunity to come up with conspiracy theories to keep their ship alive ("@Luke5SOS and @musiquedeparis are dating, she's fake dating that guy to cover it up, I KNOW IT").
I replied to some of the rude tweets, saying that she never "hung over me" and really liked that guy and didn't deserve hate.
I also replied to one of the conspiracy theories, saying that no, we weren't dating, and that she was in fact dating Jake for real.
I felt bad for the fans that wanted us to be together, their hopes were being dashed.
At the same time, it was a relief that Paris was being seen with someone else so that the press couldn't say that we were dating as much.