Fly Away || l.h

11

***

We walked over and sat down in a table next to the stage, and Luke grabbed us sodas from the bartender.

"How did you find out about this place? You seem to know all the little secrets about New York." I asked.

"Well, remember when I said I kind of have some issues with insomnia? It always starts up again when I'm under stress, and whenever that happens I tend to wander around the city I'm in a bit, soo I come across some pretty interesting places." Luke smiled, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh, well that must suck. At least you get to know of all these places." I said.

He nodded, and stood up, walking over towards the karaoke machine.

He queued up a Blink-182 song, and started to sing into the microphone softly.

"I miss you. Hello there, the angel from my nightmare. The shadow in the background of the morgue, The unsuspecting victim of darkness in the valley"

I sat there, smiling at him from the empty audience. I love it when he sings to me like that, trying not to embarrass himself in front of me, yet still trying to make my heart melt, like he knows he can do all too well.

When he was done with the song, he came down the stage and was about to lead me back up to it, but his phone started to ring loudly, filling the air with "PIZZA! PIZZA!" over and over again. I started to laugh, but he looked pissed.

"What's wrong?" I asked, concerned.

"Ah, it's just my mom. She always freaks if I go somewhere without security." He shook his head.

"Oh. You better answer before she has an aneurysm." I laughed and stood up.

"Hello?" Luke said into his phone.

I could automatically hear his mom screaming into his ear.

"LUKE ROBERT HEMMINGS! WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU? ASHTON TOLD ME YOU LEFT THE HOTEL LAST NIGHT AND NEVER CAME BACK. YOU BETTER GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE RIGHT NOW."

"Mom, I'm already eighteen, I can do what I want here." he said, calmly. He looked over to me and flashed a grin.

"Young man, just get over here right now. We have a lot to discuss, and some great news has been acquired. I'll deal with this later." His mom yelled.

He hung up the phone and gave me an apologetic look.

"Is it ok with you if we leave now? I think something pretty big is happening. She never is that determined." Luke shrugged his shoulders again, and ran his hands through his long, blonde hair.

"Yeah, of course. Anything you need." I gave him a small smile and grabbed my purse so we could leave the restaurant.

We thanked the waitress that was just about to serve us drinks, and Luke gave her a $5 for a tip. He opened the revolving door and stepped outside into the cool morning air, and took a deep breath. In, out, In, out. I could see the air from his lungs in the sky, as a white cloud traveling up until it disappeared.

I walked up and stood next to him, also slowly breathing the fresh, chilled air into my lungs. It woke me up pretty easily, I was now alert.

Luke slapped himself in the face, the sound piercing the air.

"What the hell?" I asked.

"Sorry, but the couple hours I got of sleep last night, and the one hour on the plane, was the most sleep I've gotten in a couple weeks. I've been completely wired on caffeine, I've just been having such trouble sleeping recently" Luke shook his head slightly to wake himself up, and upon closer inspection I could see the dark circles under his reddened eyes.