Arabella || Luke Hemmings

denver

October 10, 1984 - Somewhere outside Denver

Arabella was looking forward to the start of the US leg of the tour, mainly because it would be easier to travel to places. Living out of a tour bus wasn't so bad. She was pretty sick of staying in a new hotel every night or catching a few z's on a plane. But tonight, the weather in Colorado wasn't cooperating. A terrible snowstorm caused the crew to pull into a sketchy motel for the night because the drivers could barely see anything ahead and they weren't taking any chances in the storm. They'd pick up the trip tomorrow if everything settled down.

"I thought it didn't start snowing until December in Colorado?" Ricky's teeth chattered as he hugged himself for warmth. The sketchy motel was also having problems with their heating so they were bundled up with every layer of clothing they probably packed.

She couldn't complain about their circumstances because this would be a good story to share around and it was not all that bad hanging out with your best friends while on the verge of hypothermia.

Ian paged the band's pager to have Arabella meet him in his room.

Arabella really didn't want to walk out in this absurd weather, but when Ian called, you must run to his side before he exploded on you.

Arabella opened the front door after telling her bandmates she'd be right back, snowflakes were caught in her hair. She felt like a snow princess. She rubbed her hands together as she ran through the snow, having to go across the parking lot to get to room 108. Why couldn't Ian just come to her room instead? She impatiently banged on the door until Mason opened the door. She could see Luke's familiar blond locks and she rolled her eyes, this was going to be some sort of meeting that would regard her and Luke's 'fake relationship' that wasn't so fake anymore. They weren't sure how to tell Mason and Ian that they were the real deal. There was a chance they'd backlash and have tabloids create terrible lies about them or they wouldn't believe them...there were so many things that could go wrong and they didn't want to risk anything.

"What was so important that I needed to run across the lot?" Arabella blew air into her cupped hands, but the air came out cold, freezing her hands further. Why didn't she have gloves? Those would be essential at a time like this.

"As you can see it's snowing." Mason had his arms crossed while he slightly bounced on his feet.

"You don't say." She rolled her eyes again, pulling her beanie further down to cover her ears.

"Mason and myself have set up a little rendezvous at a park in Denver. It'll be snowing once we get there, so we need you and Luke to go to the park and do cute things in the snow." Ian was writing something in his agenda and Luke wanted to rip it from his hands and toss it in the toilet. "Paps will be there. So you know the deal."

"And what if we don't survive to see tomorrow?" It might've been a crazy question for Luke to ask, but at this rate he was not sure he'd make it another hour.

"I'll expect you two to make this appearance in the afterlife as well." Mason flipped on the television. The cable was so horrible it played in black and white and kept going out every few seconds.

Arabella would get murdered before hypothermia took her.

"I got an email about Kosmic performing at Harry Styles's sister's birthday party." Ian looked up at Arabella and she was ready for a scolding. "Apparently you guys said yes to the kid?"

"Well...yeah..." Four yeses and one no. If he was going to get mad at us for saying yes then it'd be appropriate to drop him. Kosmic talked about having freedom to do what they wanted without Ian jumping in and saying no.

"I think..." He tapped his finger on his lips. "It's a brilliant idea!" He clapped.

Arabella hated the dramatic pauses so much.

"Wait...really?"

"Yeah!" He went back to his agenda. "It'll be good publicity once the internet finds out Kosmic performed at Harry's big sister's birthday party. Get some photographs with Harry and his sister too, sell them to every magazine!" Even though he wasn't looking at Arabella he was still excited. "I didn't think you guys could pull off this whole business thing, but I have to admit, you guys have good business tactics. You always know where to go. I like it! I knew I chose the right band."

"Oh, well, thank Luke for that business choice."

"It was all my idea sir." Luke saluted.

"Smart kid, you have Mason."

"He's smart but a pain in the ass." Mason slapped his hand on Luke's shoulder in a fatherly way.

"Was that it?" Arabella asked. "Because I'd really like to return to a room where I'm at least getting eye contact from the people I'm talking to."

"Yeah, go on." Ian shooed. "You too, Luke."

"How are things in your room?" Luke questioned as they walked closely together through the snow falling.

"Cold. What about yours?"

"Calum's taking turns cuddling everyone, he's such a lad."

"That he is." She agreed. "You should bring the guys over to our room, maybe with more bodies in the room we'll warm up quicker?"

"Would Haze be okay with that?"

"Yeah, her and Ashton are better now." Arabella shrugged. "They talk some, so that's good."

"I'll pitch the idea and text you if they oppose!" He jogged off in the direction of his room and she did the same to the direction of hers.