The day dragged by so slowly. After Luke had confided in Stella and eaten the delicious breakfast she had prepared him, he gave her a hug, thanked her for everything, and left without telling anyone where he was going. He came back around three hours later with a bag from the shop. Ashton passed him in the hall, "Three hours and you come back with a single bag from the grocers?" he asked.
"I didn't just go to the grocers," Luke said before slipping into his room and shutting the door behind him. Ashton knew he'd been acting strange lately, so he shrugged and continued down the hall. Stella alternated her time between watching Netflix in Mikey's bed on his laptop and playing Guitar Hero with him in the den. Calum and Brooklyn went out to the beach to spend the day together.
When night finally approached, Stella went to Luke's room to check on him. She knocked on the door and got no reply. She knocked once more, that time adding a soft, "Luke, you okay?" When he still didn't respond, she opened the door slowly to find an empty room. Confused, she walked over to his dresser. On it, she saw a piercing gun, an empty box of brown hair dye, and a gum wrapper.
She furrowed her brow as she walked to the den to see if the other guys knew where Luke was. "He bought some weird ass stuff at the store," she said to Ashton and Michael. "Like what?" they asked.
Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys
He sat on the edge of the bathtub, holding the hair dye. He just looked at it, mentally asking himself if he wanted this kind of change. He sighed and stood up, looking in the mirror. He noticed the bags under his eyes, how they were protruding so dramatically. His pupils traveled to the frown plastered to his face. He realized that was all that had been there for days. He ran his right hand through his dirty blond, flat hair before looking back to the bottle he held of chemicals.
He stuck his head under the faucet and ran cold water. He shivered as it hit his neck, causing sensation that replaced the emotion he'd been lacking. He lifted back up and watched in the mirror as the droplets trickled down his face and off his chin, onto his bare chest.
He took the bottle of dye and started to squeeze it into his hair, rubbing it into his roots, making sure it reached everywhere. He sat on the counter next to the sink for 45 minutes before taking off his boxers and climbing in to the shower. He made sure to get the excess chemicals out of his hair before cleaning his body and stepping out of the shower. He wrapped a towel around his waist and sneaked to his bedroom before anyone saw his hair.
The door squeaked open. Stella, Michael, and Ashton peered in from the den. They could see that a light had been turned off. They heard slow, steady steps getting louder. He walked in the room with dark brown hair. He was wearing a cut up Blink-182 shirt, a leather jacket, black skinny jeans, and was holding Ashton's Aviators. The three of them stared at him in awe; they had no idea what to say or even what to think.
He rolled his eyes at their reactions and walked back to his room. The three of them exchanged glances, "Is it too early for him to be reaching his midlife crisis?" Ashton whispered, looking back at the spot Luke was just standing in.
Luke sunk into his mattress, piercing gun in one hand, small towel in the other. He turned toward his full-length mirror at the foot of his bed. He stuck a corner of the towel in his mouth. Enough to mask any sound he was about to make, but not too much, considering the stud was about to be lodged in his lip.
He clenched his jaw, closed his eyes for a few seconds, then positioned the gun. He counted down from three and clicked the trigger. "Fuck!" he closed his lips around the towel before the pain of the needle in his lip reminded him that it wasn't the best way to relieve himself.
He closed his eyes tightly and mentally reminded himself he was no longer that guy.
"If Avery were here, she would have pierced on two instead of three so I wouldn't expect it. She would also get me ice to make it numb. But she's not here anymore," he thought. He cleared his throat and stood up, laying the piercing gun back on the dresser.
He stared at himself in the mirror. This is you now, he thought.
He decided to take off the leather jacket. He replaced it with a light-wash jean jacket and spritzed himself with his most expensive cologne. Reentering the den, he grabbed his keys out of his pocket and waved his hand at the three of them.
_____________________________
He drove a black SUV with blacked-out windows. With his left hand at the top of the steering wheel, he gripped it tightly. He drove around downtown Sydney before parking in a packed lot and crossing the street. It was dark, only one streetlight aiding him. He could hear drunken slurs coming from men that sounded much tougher than him, followed by giggles and replies from women.
He hurried into a bar, showed the usher his ID, and took a seat next to a girl with huge tits and a tiny dress. He asked the bartender for a beer and looked confidently at the girl until she noticed him.
"Hey," he said, taking a swig of his beer. She smiled at him, checking him out quickly and responded, "Hi." Her voice was sweet and sexy.
"What's your name, beautiful?" He asked her. "Arabella," she responded with a smile, one he couldn't help but return, "Okay, Arabella, how about I buy you a drink?" He asked her.
She nodded, pushing some of her hair behind her ear, "I'd like that." Luke got the bartender's attention, "She'll have another one of those, on my tab."
Luke and Arabella talked through three drinks each. "I have a great idea," Luke told her over the music playing in the background. He said something to the bartender rather quietly then grabbed Arabella's hand. He bit his lip ring and led her to an empty booth, where he helped her lay across the table. She laughed, "What are we doing?" she asked him.
He smiled at her, "Body shots." A man brought Luke a tray of shot glasses, a bottle of tequila, a small bowl of salt, and a pre-sliced lime. Luke set the tray on the seat of the booth. He smiled down at Arabella who was giggling.
He started with her stomach, pinching salt out of the bowl and placing it there. He placed a lime slice in her mouth and kicked back a shot. He looked her in the eyes as he licked the salt from above her belly button and grabbed the lime from her mouth with his own. She sat up on her elbows and smirked at him as she climbed off the table and motioned for him to take her place.
She placed the salt above his belly button, copying his first move. She went through the motions as he had done minutes earlier. They continued, getting closer and closer to more sensitive body parts. From the stomach, the salt traveled to her hip bones, upper thigh, then her inner thigh. Each time he licked her skin, he made sure to keep complete eye contact.
She took a different route, however. From his stomach, she went to around his right collar bone to his neck. Her final turn, she placed the lime in his mouth before applying the salt. His brows knit together. When Arabella noticed, she smiled, "Trust me," she whispered in his ear, rather seductively. She stuck her finger in the bowl of salt and lined his lips with it. She trailed her tongue lightly across his lips. She grabbed the lime with her teeth and spit it out before he lifted his upper body off the table and kissed her, cupping her face with his palms.
That's the last thing he remembered before he blacked out.
