Live, Laugh, Luke

Chapter 16

If one were given a single window from which to look upon the changing Eastern world, it should face, I think, the road.

-Freya Stark

Luke's POV

"Hola!"

I can't help but smile as I read the caption on her snapchat. The background is of a massive looking church and even in the selfie she looked small compared to it.

"Spain?" I ask, sending a snapchat back of myself.

"How'd you guess?" she sends back.

"Just lucky :P Where is that?"

"Spain :P," she answers back jokingly and by the time the time runs out on the first, there's another one to replace it. "It's La Sagrada Familia."

"I think we drove past it once," I reply.

"Are you done making faces at your phone," Calum asks, grinning at me through the mirror.

"Hey, at least I'm snapchatting the right head," I retort, watching his face go red as he remembers his snapchat misadventures. My phone lights up as I receive Freya's reply and when I open it I see her frowning.

"That's so sad," she's written.

"If you make faces too long, it'll get stuck like that," Calum tells me, coming up behind me to try and photobomb the snap. Instead, I swipe left to the chat part and tell her I had to go for soundcheck and to have a good day.

"Hey, so whatever happened to the demo you and Freya did?" Michael asks when we get back and I collapse onto the couch. "You ever get a copy?"

"Yea, it's on my computer," I say, nodding at my bag before pulling out my phone. I open snapchat, smiling as I flick through her story, seeing her day in Spain. Michael heads over and pulls out my computer.

"You better not have porn open," he jokes as he opens the computer.

"Nah, it's not your computer," I joke back, looking away from my phone and over at him as he starts scrolling through my music.

"How was it? She any good?" Ashton asks, walking up behind the couch to watch Michael.

"Yea, only a couple lines about Barney."

"What?"

"Nothing," I say with a grin, shaking my head at our inside joke. When Michael hits play on the first one, we all pause for a minute to listen. It's not long, however, before Ashton heads back to what he'd been doing and Michael puts down the computer in exchange for the gaming controller, although he does keep the sound off. I pick up my phone once again and send Freya a snap recording of the demo playing.

"She's good," Calum comments about 10 minutes later, startling me as I browse twitter. I'd thought people had stopped listening.

"Yea?" I ask, relieved to have confirmation and that it wasn't just me.

"Yea," he confirms with a nod. "Still thinking of signing her?"

"I'd like to. Do you think she'd be good?"

"Well she's used to travelling alot, she plays in front of crowds, she can sing, I'd say she was already halfway there." My phone vibrates with a message. Speak of the devil.

[Oh god, tell me you're not listening to that in public...] she texts me, obviously having seen the snap I sent her.

"Say cheese," I call to Calum, snapping a picture of him as he looks over, sticks out his tongue, and flicks off the phone. Grinning, I send the picture to Freya.

[Noooooo!] she responds almost instantaneously. [I'm going to leak yours]

I chuckle to myself, not really believing she'd do it and about to tell her so when I receive another message [What did they think?]

[They hated it] I message her back. When she doesn't respond for a couple minutes I message her again. [I'm just kidding] This time I get a response almost instantly.

[Fuck off you gave me a heart attack] I smile, practically hearing the relief in the message.

[Can't believe you thought they wouldn't lol]

[Hey, idk. maybe you're just crazy]

[They want to sign you also] There's a pause this time as she processes the message. She was still on the fence about the whole thing and I had to be careful I didn't start annoying her about it.

[I just... idk.. let me think about it ok? I've got to go, I'll ttyl] Shit, I think as I toss my phone to the side.

"What's this one?" Ashton asks.

"This is the one we wrote. Didn't quite finish it so it's a bit rough, but we recorded it anyways." I answer, tilting my head towards the computer as I listen to it.

"Cool sound to it," he remarks, and I can detect a bit of surprise in his voice.

"Yea," I chuckle, thinking back to the songwriting process. "It was just a bit of a struggle to keep her focused. Her brain just goes everywhere."

"Yea, I can kind of tell that just through the covers," he replies. "The genres are all over the place. Chocolate, Ain't it fun, Photograph and one of our songs? Kind of hard to pin down a style."

"You know, it's kind of thanks to me that you know her," Michael pipes up.

"What?" I ask with a laugh.

"Yea, I picked her from the crowd. Without me, you'd have never met. I'm like a matchmaker or something. I'm gonna find everyone a girl," he jokes.

"Yea, it's all thanks to you. Not like I saw her at the bar that night or busking the next day or anything," I tease.

"Yea, but you wouldn't have gone up to talk to her if you hadn't already seen her before," he responds and I have to admit, he has a point. Would I have given her a second glance at the bar if she hadn't been called up onto the stage? She certainly wouldn't have had the drumstick to wave around. I'd have noticed her the next night, I reason. She was working the bar so I'd have seen her then. That is, if I even went that night... a small voice in my head reminds me. None of the other boys had wanted to go the second night. The only reason I had was because I knew she'd be there. Well what about the busking? Nope, the voice in my head pipes up. The only reason I'd gone out that day was because she said she worked at the coffee shop and I'd hoped to find her. I shift in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable as I glance over at Michael. He raises an eyebrow, smirking at me as if he knows the thoughts running through my head. It really was thanks to him that I'd met her.

"Well she'll make a great new name on our label," I say casually. That's all it was anyways. No time equals no girlfriends. She was just a friend and hopefully a new name on the label.
"And if you want to pick someone out for me tonight, hey, I won't complain," Calum chimes in with a wink earning a chuckle from everyone.

The conversation drifted off after that, as everyone went through their own pre-show rituals to get ready. The show itself went off without a hitch. Michael picked someone out of the crowd for Calum like promised, although he made no attempts to make a move or showed any interest in her beyond her being a fan. When we get off the stage, Calum starts giving Michael a hard time about not picking out a girl that was his type while I go for my phone to check my messages. I can't help the small smile when I see a message from Freya.

[Alright, I'm in] she sent. I frown, slightly confused as to what she means.

[What?] I message her back. It takes a couple minutes, but I finally get a message back.

[I'm gonna do it. Where do I sign?]

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She's agreed! Luke's got the approval of the other boys so being signed is promising ;) What do you think will happen next? Let me know what you think so far in the comments. I love reading the comments you guys leave. :)