The Intern (Luke Hemmings 5SOS)

3. Couldn't Sleep If I Wanted To

A knock on my door at 9 am was both cruel and not entirely unexpected. I’d gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before, and knew without a doubt that I looked like hell incarnate when I opened the door of my hotel room.

Calum and Ashton are grinning on the other side. “Come look at this.” 

I follow them across the hallway to Luke and Michael’s room, to find those boys standing on their hotel balcony in t-shirts and pajama pants. Also, the deafening screech of about 500 teenage girls screaming.

“Uh,” I say, pausing in the middle of the room. The boys’ suitcases are thrown in a corner, the beds unmade, the TV off. I look stupidly around for some teenage girls. None.

Luke turns around from the balcony, raises his eyebrows, and jerks his head, beckoning me onto the balcony.

I peek over just enough to confirm my suspicions—yeah, there’s about 1000 girls on the street below our hotel, many of them with huge 5SOS posters.

“Damn,” I say, laughing but then stepping back into the room, out of sight. “That’s dedication.”

Ashton waves at me from the balcony. “Come on out here!”

“Uh, no.” I shake my head, and now I have all four of the boys’ attention. 

“Why not?” Luke asks. 

“How would your fans, not to mention the media feel if some random girl just prances onto your hotel room balcony?”

Looks of recognition on all four faces.

“Good point.” Michael smirks. “Wouldn’t want you to get mauled by a bunch of fourteen year olds next time you go to the shops.”

***

So it turns out that there are a lot of people involved in a tour. Instrument technicians, stage technicians, show coordinators. The tour bus, though, was monstrous.

Which was good because altogether we totaled about 16 people. But thankfully, after our first show in Dublin, which had gone very well, people were tired as hell and the bus didn’t really seem like it held 16 people when 14 of them were dead asleep.

This morning, to the tuneless drone of screaming girls, Cora had walked into Luke and Michael’s hotel room about two minutes after I did. She stomped in, glanced around, and her eyes landed immediately on me.

“I knocked on your hotel door, and you didn’t answer.” She said, a little roughly. The boys turned around to look at us, as Cora frowned at me.

“Uh, sorry. I just came in here a second ago. What do you need?”

Luke has noticed us talking and walks in from the balcony, to the heartbroken shrieks of young teenage girls. Cora lets out a huge, frustrated breath, closing her eyes. When she opens them again, they’re glaring daggers at me. 

“Did you tell someone where we were staying?” she asks in a tone that completely suggests that the answer is ‘yes’.

Despite being in her pajamas and slippers, she looked terrifying. She sounded terrifying. Luckily, being the daughter of a cut-throat politician and his equally calculating wife, I had experience dealing with people like Cora Underwood.

And honestly, she wasn’t anywhere near my parents’ caliber. “I did not.” I say calmly, looking her right in the eye.

“No one?”

“Not a soul.”

“Not your parents? Friends?”

My parents wouldn’t care, and Sam would just bitch about not being there with me. “No, Cora.”

We both know I’m not lying, which is why her threatening gaze becomes much less threatening and she sighs loudly. “Then who the hell did?” she asks no one in particular. 

I let my shoulders fall a bit, crisis averted, and glance over at Luke. He looks almost… impressed.

That’s right, I’m Rory Anderson, bad ass bitch from Washington freaking DC!

And now, on the tour bus, I again look over at Luke to find him listening to music and messing around on his phone. He’s sitting next to Calum, who’s been passed out for the last hour. Cora’s beside me, snoring lightly, her forehead pressed against the window.

A second later my own phone vibrates in my hand and I pull it out to see a text from none other than the lead singer.

Luke: Can’t sleep, Anderson?

It had been a whirlwind day—I’d met a ton of people, some of whom were sitting 5 feet away from me and I couldn’t even remember their names. It had been fun but vaguely terrifying—running around and doing stuff for Cora, or the techs, or the boys. I’d fetched more towels and water bottles and food items than I had ever fetched before.

But it had definitely been fun.

Me: I can, I’m just not.

Maybe not entirely the truth. Too many thoughts were racing around in my head. Too much excitement, the aftermath of a hectic night still pumping through my veins. I had no idea how Calum managed to perform in front of thousands of people and then fall asleep an hour later.

Luke: Elaborate.

I smiled down at my phone, and then happened to glance over at him. He was smiling at me, eyebrows raised.

Me: A lot of action around here.

His response comes seconds later.

Luke: You know you loved it.

***

Everyone has their guilty pleasures. Mine are soda, definitely, and The Office.

I’m sitting on the floor at the night’s venue in Cork, watching it on my phone. I’ve got my head phones in, being totally unobtrusive, just watching my show. I happen to look up just to find all four boys watching me from their seats on the room’s only couches.

I’d been laughing at a prank Jim played on Dwight, but my smile diminishes significantly when I see them all clearly trying not to laugh at me. “Uh, what?”

“You. Laughing. At whatever it is you’re watching.” They’re all smiling hugely, the prats.

I stare at them blankly for a second. “It’s a comedy.” I finally say.

“Must be hilarious.” Ashton deadpans.

That does make me laugh. I roll my eyes at them. “It totally is. So shut up.”

“Don’t you have a job?” Calum teases me.

We all glance over at Cora, who’s on her laptop. We got here early, and the boys don’t go on for another hour and a half. We’re all just waiting for the storm to hit.

She glances up from her laptop at me, then goes back to staring tiredly at the screen. “Meh.” She says, shrugging.

We all laugh, and then Luke plops down on the floor next to me. “Alright, let’s watch this hilarious comedy.” He smiles at me.

I think back to us texting the night before. “You sure? I’m not positive you can handle the wit and general awesomeness of The Office.”

“Never heard of it, but I believe in trying new things.” He takes the earbud I offer him.

I just laugh, scoot a little closer so that he can see the screen as well, and press play.

***

Author's Note

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