𝖇𝖆𝖌𝖘; 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖐𝖎𝖉 𝖑𝖆𝖗𝖔𝖎.

𝖊𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓: 𝖑𝖊𝖙 𝖎𝖙 𝖗𝖚𝖘𝖍 𝖙𝖔 𝖒𝖞 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖉

lana's pov

Laroi came around in the morning. Truth be told, I was extremely nervous. We had planned for him to come around to help me with my stuff, or lack thereof, at 11am. I had been up since six. 

My place was a shithole, as an understatement. It was all I could afford, I guess that's all I could expect moving to LA with little savings and an inconsistent income from publishing short stories. 

That's why all the glamour that came with Laroi kind of intimidated me,  and I knew it was intimidating for him too. It was easy to take advantage of people when they were in the spotlight, not like I knew Laroi even did music before I met him. 

The knock at the door made me jump so hard, I had to take a moment of stillness before I went to open the door. Laroi stood there, smiling. 

"Hello, beautiful." He stepped closer to give me a kiss on the cheek, I couldn't help notice him trying to catch a glance of my apartment behind me. 

"Don't expect much." I tried a smile, when he noticed I had seen him look into the apartment. 

"Oh, leave it out." Laroi tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, holding the side of my face. He made sure I was looking at him, "You really think this is gonna change anything?"

I shrugged, staying silent, finally breaking eye contact.

"Come on." Laroi held my hand and nodded toward my apartment, "Austin's desperate to meet you."

We went inside, Laroi shut the door behind him, he stood still for a moment, hands in his pockets, looking around the apartment, silent. 

"Like I said, it's not much." I mumbled, shuffling my feet, unable to meet his gaze.

"Trust me, I've seen worse." Laroi smiled at me, "I grew up in a place where I basically had to share my room with cockroaches." I looked back up at him. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive." I suddenly felt embarrassed. 

"Oh, seriously, don't worry." He ran his hand up one of my walls before looking at me again and smiling, "You weren't." He walked towards some boxes I had gathered, "This the stuff you're taking?" I nodded, "Ok, cool. I'll start loading them into my car." 

He lifted up one of the boxes with ease before smiling at me, "Go on." He nodded, "Go say goodbye."

"To?" I said, an amused smile appearing on my face. Impressively, he used a free hand to wave around the place.

"To here." He used the hand to help him with the box again, "As much as you might hate it. It's the first place you called home in LA, that's special." 

It was refreshing to notice how effortlessly humble Laroi was, he was right, he really did not care about anything that was 'below' his status. I returned his smile, before nodding, and walking toward my bedroom. 

"I can't believe I'm actually doing this." I bit my lip, looking at Laroi's house as we pulled up in his car. Laroi looked at me, trying to figure out my expression, when he couldn't, he asked.

"You're sure you're happy with this?" It was a valid question. I mean, we met, what? A week ago? Fuck, it sounds even sillier out loud. That's because it was silly, one of the silliest things I've done. But I was infatuated with Laroi, and my living situation was beyond rough. I hadn't even told my parents, I was loosing touch with them before I even left home, I guess I didn't expect that to change when I got here. Still, I owed it to them to tell them about this.

"Lana?" I guess I had taken too long to answer, because when I looked at Laroi now, his expression had gone from unsure to worried.

"Yes, yes. I'm happy. This is the right thing to do." I clasped one of his hands in mine, giving it a squeeze.

"Okay, good." Laroi nodded, "I just wanted to make sure." He smiled, "You ready to move into your new home?" 

katarina's pov

Of course, she'd been nice. Laroi probably attracted her by putting on his sad, heartbroken boy he'd been so good at doing since we broke up. Pathetic. He cheated on me first. 

I should have had sympathy for her, but I didn't. Something about the whole seemed menacing. I guess it was my place to save her, that would happen on its own soon enough. Lana and I would become so close, that when it came to choose between me and Laroi, she would feel guilty and choose me, realising what a fucked up person Laroi is.

I wonder when he'll release a song about her.

lana's pov

"Hey, what's up, I'm Austin." Laroi's brother took off his sunglasses before putting out a hand to shake mine. He seemed mature for his age, he had made the effort to come and meet us at the door, although his expression was unreadable. 

I remembered what Laroi had said about Austin being right about his ex-girlfriend, so it was understable he was apprehensive about me.

"Lana." I grinned as hard as I could, "Laroi said you help him with his beats, that's so cool. Do you have a studio here?"

Austin's eyes widened slightly, I could tell he was suppressing a smile. He put his sunglasses back on.

"Yeah. Yeah, actually I do. It's nothing much, just something to play with while we're home." He nodded, "I can show you, if you want?"

"I'd love that." I turned to Laroi, who was grinning even harder than I was.

"You go ahead, I'll get all the boxes out."