Wherever You Are // A Luke Hemmings fanfiction

Part 11

(Luke POV)

“Friends with benefits is such a good idea until it’s put into practice, don’t you agree?” Ashton slurred, gesturing at the TV. I pressed my lips firmly together, trying not to laugh as Michael and Calum nodded their heads in agreement, equally intoxicated.

We’d gone back to our London hotel to watch a few movies and Friends with Benefits obviously had to be one of them, seeing as Mila Kunis was the only other girl who could make my heart skip a beat the same way it did when I was around Mikki. Okay, maybe that was a slight over-exaggeration, but she was still insanely hot.

“That could’ve been us, Mikki,” Ashton said, raising his glass of Jack Daniels and drunkenly smiling over at his best friend, who was sat on the sofa next to me. I raised my eyebrows in surprise and looked down at Mikki, whose cheeks had flushed scarlet. She currently looked like she wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow her up, and her green eyes were wide as she looked over at him. “We could’ve been fuck buddies.”

“Ash, leave it,” I said, noticing how uncomfortable Mikki looked. I put my arm around her shoulder reassuringly, and she turned buried her face into my side, gripping onto the soft material of my jumper and squeezing her eyes shut. “You’re clearly making her feel awkward, the thought of you and her having sex –”

“But we have had sex!”

My eyes widened in shock at the blunt statement, and Calum and Michael turned to look between the two best friends, equally surprised. “You… wanna explain?” Calum said slowly, trying to avoid slurring his words like Ashton was. I thought back to my conversation with Mikki earlier that day, on the plane. She’d been so insistent for me not to tell Ashton of all people, and she’d spoken about regretting her first time and only doing it because everyone else was, with the first guy who had come along. It all made sense.

She’d lost her virginity to Ashton.

“You don’t have to explain, Ashton,” I said, shaking my head at the older boy and pulling Mikki closer against my side. Mikki definitely didn’t want Ashton telling the other boys about this; it was something she was embarrassed about and regretted. I could tell by her body language that she knew I’d put two and two together: she adjusted her position, burying her head in the front of my shirt so she was resting on my chest, her arms wrapped around my torso, almost like she was desperate for me to protect her. “Leave it.”

“No, I wanna hear!”

“Ash, you need to explain.”

“Mikki and me,” Ashton said, gesturing at the small brunette who was lying on my chest in an attempt to hide her face. “Slept together when I was sixteen and she was fourteen. Everyone else was doing it back. I’d done it with the girl who’d just broken up with me; half the people in your year were doing it back then. You two were probably doing it too, or if not then, the year after. Mikki felt like she was missing out.”

I could feel Mikki’s heart pounding against her chest, and I rubbed circles on her back reassuringly. She’d been so embarrassed when we were discussing it on the plane, and I knew it was probably something she wasn’t proud of, or she wouldn’t regret it as much as she did. “Mikki liked this boy at your school, right. Tyler, I think his name was,” Ashton continued, drunkenly pointing over at her. “But she’d heard Tyler wasn’t a virgin, and was worried about not being able to trust someone enough to sleep with them. So when I offered one time we’d been drinking, she basically jumped at the chance.”