The Voice (Luke Hemmings)

64. Capitol

I woke up by Happy Song by Bring Me The Horizon blaring through the speakers of my phone. I heard a groan behind me and smiled as I reached for my phone. "Hello?" I said sleepily. "Hello, you're speaking to Fender Michaels from Capitol Records." I sat up straight. Luke looked at me worried and I put my finger on my lips, so he knew he had to be silent. Wait... Fender? That's an awesome name. "Am I talking to Skyler Mitchell?" He asked. "Yes, that's me." I said. "Okay. Well, first of all, congratulations on winning the Voice." He said genuine. "Thank you." I said with a smile. He sounded nice. "I was just wondering when you could stop by and get all the paperwork done? We'll also inform you what will happen next." He said. "Yea, sure. I don't really have anything planned for like... The whole week. So whatever time is the most convenient for you." I said, trying to sound mature. "Okay. Well, how about 1pm today? The earlier the better." He said with a chuckle. "Yea, that's alright." I said. "Okay. I just sent a mail to you with the address and some things you need to know before signing everything." He said. "Okay, thanks." I said. "Okay. I'll see you at 1pm." He said and hung up. I looked at the time and saw that it was 10.30am. I still had 2 and a half hours... A breeze flew by and I shivered while looking down, seeing I was naked. With only sheets to cover me up. And all the memories of last night came flooding back in, leaving my cheeks bright red. "Good morning." I heard a low voice say from next to me. I looked at Luke and a smile broke out of my face. On his too. "Who was it?" He asked. "Ehh... Fender... Michaels? Something like that. About signing stuff." I said. "Fender? Ah, he's a great guy. You're lucky. He'll probably guide you through everything. Maybe he's your manager even. That'd be cool." He talked more to himself than to me. I pecked his lips before getting out of bed, grabbing a pair of boxers and a shirt out of his closet before walking towards the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower." I said with a wink before walking out. I quickly walked to the bathroom and locked it, knowing Luke would follow me. There was a radio in one of the cabinets and I turned it on, as loud as possible. I turned the shower on and the banging on the door began. "Showering together would save water and shit! You know, environment? Think of all those poor... Icebergs, melting. How sad." He yelled and I chuckled while shaking my head. Idiot. "And the water bill! I could save money!" He continued. "Like you need the money!" I yelled back and it was silent. Ha. I untangled my hair with my fingers before washing it. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and my eyes widened when I saw the lock being turned - from the outside. "What the hell?" I said to myself. The door wasn't locked anymore and Luke walked in with a proud grin on his face. "I'm only letting you do this because of the poor icebergs." I said with narrowed eyes before he got into the shower with me, attacking my lips.

I was singing along to She Hates Me by Puddle of Mudd. It was such a chill song and it was like... The content was like... There was nothing important. And sometimes you need meaningless songs. I checked the address and it was 30 minutes away from Luke's house. I was almost there already. Only finding a parking spot was hard... After a while I found a parking spot and walked towards the entrance of the huge building. Awesome. I walked towards the lady behind the desk, like it said in the mail. "Hi, what can I do for you?" She asked. "I have an appointment with Fender Michaels?" I said. She typed something in her computer. "One o'clock?" I nodded. "He'll be running a bit late, since he's still in a meeting. But you can go to his office already and wait there. You'll have to go right here, second left, first right, first door on the right." She said. I repeated it in my head and nodded. "Okay thanks." I said and walked towards his office. After going the second to the left, the first to the right, and standing in front of the door on the first on the right, I stopped. I'm not going to wait in his office... I mean... That's like... No. I made myself comfortable on the ground and opened Twitter. He was going to be late anyways.

I was concentrated on Rainbow Unicorn Attack that I was playing on my phone when I heard someone walking. I looked up and saw a giant walking towards me. I don't know if he was taller than Luke, but he was a lot broader. Was this Fender? "Sorry to keep you waiting. I was in a meeting." He said while walking towards me with a smile. I quickly stood up and nodded. "Yea, I heard. I don't mind." I said. "Nice to meet you in person. I'm Fender." He said while shaking my hand. "Skyler." I said and he nodded. "Well, come in." He said while opening the door for me. He closed the door behind me and sat behind the large desk. "Please take a seat." He said and I sat in front of him, on the other side of the desk. "Well, where should I start?" He asked and I shrugged. He chuckled. "Well, you won 40.000 and a deal here, at Capitol." He said and I nodded with a smile. "Okay. Well, there isn't going to happen much the next few weeks. Just so you can relax after all the stress the competition put you through." I nodded. "You'll be coming in like, once a week in those 'relaxweeks' and we'll teach you stuff you need to know about songwriting, and just, making an album altogether." I nodded. This was going to be awesome. "And you'll have about 2 interviews a week. This week there are going to be more, because a lot of radio and tv stations will want to know everything about you. And I'm your manager by the way, if you didn't know already. So there is a big chance I'll call you in the middle of the day, saying you have an interview the next day or something like that. Just have your phone turned on 24/7. And I need a backup number from someone who's around you a lot, so I can reach you when you can't pick up your phone and it's urgent." He said and I nodded. "Oh, and since 5 Seconds of Summer is also with this label, I know about you and Luke. Because I need to know everything about you because I'm your manager. Just so you know, no secrets." I smiled and nodded. "Then I'll be giving you Luke's number." I said with a smile. He nodded and handed me a piece of paper with a lot written on it. "You can write the number here." He said and I wrote Luke's number down. "I'll do my best friend's number too, just in case." I said and he nodded. I wrote Anna's number down next to Luke's number and looked at the paper. "Okay, now the boring part. You'll need to read a shit load of contracts and fill in a lot of papers like these, so everything can become official. And you'll have to do it here, for security or some shit rule like that." He said and I nodded. "Okay. Just start with filling in your data."

After three hours of signing things and Fender explaining everything a phone went off and blasted RING RING MOTHERFUCKER there was a short ringtone sound before the breakdown came. "Crown The Empire eh?" I said with a chuckle. "You know them?" He asked. "Eh, yea. Big fan." I said with a smile. He nodded and got his phone out of his pocket. Well, at least he has somewhat the same music taste as me. "Fender." He said shortly into the phone. It was silent for a while. "Yea, we're almost done. I'll send her there when we are. Okay bye." He put his phone back into his pocket. "It was Dan, 5sos' manager. He wants to talk with you and the boys." I frowned and nodded. I sat back in my seat and sighed. My hand was hurting from all the signing and I had a headache from the reading. But, it was all worth it.

After 10 more minutes we were done and I had to go to Dan. I saw the boys standing in front of his office and they greeted me enthusiastically when they saw me walking towards them and I was attacked by hugs. "Someone's happy to see me." I said while rolling my eyes. I gave Luke a peck on his lips and he slipped his arm around my waist. "What's this all about?" I asked and he shrugged. "Don't know. But probably about the whole dating thing." He said and I nodded. "Come in guys!" We heard Dan's muffled yell. Ashton opened the door and we all walked in, sitting next to each other at a large table, Dan on the other side. "First of all, congratulations with winning the Voice." He said to me and I thanked him. "Now that that's all over, you might be relieved you don't have to keep your relationship with Luke a secret anymore." Luke's hand slipped into mine under the table and squeezed it. I smiled and nodded. "Yea, very." I said. "But, you have to keep it down. Everything. If people know you're Luke's girlfriend now, they'll probably think you're a slut and gonna date all the guys before dumping them and moving on to another." I looked at him with wide eyes. But I guess he had a point. I nodded my head slowly. "So, basically, in a couple of weeks you guys can do whatever you want. The boys will have an interview next week, and they're going to tell them the next thing:" He snapped his fingers, gaining the boys attention. "You're going to tell them that Skyler never dated Calum. That we just did that so people wouldn't start to assume things. So she never dated Calum." He said. "The next week, you'll have another interview. You two have been seen together quite a bit, no kissing in public yet. Basically, Luke, you tell them you two aren't official, but have been on a few dates." Wow, he really thought everything through. "And some interviews after, you have been spotted kissing, blablabla, you're officially dating her." He said and the boys nodded. "I'll tell you all the whole story a few minutes before each interview again. So you don't have to remember all of that right now. But just... Stay inside for one more week." He said sternly. We all nodded. "Well, Skyler, you can go back to Fender again. He just texted me that you had to go back. And I have something to discuss with the boys anyways." He said. I nodded and stood up. "Thanks for... Planning all of this." He looked at me weirdly before shrugging. "It's my job." I nodded and closed the door behind me, going to Fender's office again. I guess I'll be spending a lot of time there. "Ah, Skyler, yes." He said when I walked in. "The interviews are going to begin already. Say byebye to your relaxed old life, because you have an interview with Today at 8pm, together with Hayley, which is in 4 hours. You'll have to perform Teenage Dirtbag there too. And then you'll have another interview tomorrow morning with some people from Disney at 11am." Disney? Awesome. "Dan just told me that the boys are going to tell everybody that Calum wasn't really dating me, so should I do that too? Or should I wait until they've told everybody?" I asked, just so I wouldn't fuck my first interview up. "No, just wait until the boys said it." He said and I nodded. "I'll text you the address and everything. And I will be there too." He said and I nodded. I'm probably going to see him a lot. But I didn't mind. He's a nice guy. "Okay. Now you can go home and relax while you still can." He said and I nodded with a smile. "Okay. Thanks for everything." I said. "Honey, I ain't even started yet." He said and I chuckled. "Byee." I said while walking out of his office. I quickly texted Luke, saying I was going to go home already. Just spend some time with Anna. It's been a while.