invisible string ✾ lrh

0.3 - started

Soon enough, Calum Hood and Michael Clifford had made their way over to Maggie and Luke's lunch table.

Luke told her they were starting a band. He had expected his red-haired best friend to be disappointed, to be upset that she wasn't going to be the recipient of all of his time and attention anymore, but he couldn't say he wasn't surprised when she actually befriended the two boys and supported them as they started. She didn't seem to care that she had to share him with two others, she just cared that he was happy and enjoying what he was doing.

That should have been Luke's first sign that he didn't deserve her. Because if he was put in her situation, he would've been a clingy mess that wanted nothing more than to spend every waking second with her. Technically, he already was a clingy mess, but he was young and dumb and had a major crush on his best friend, so he didn't really understand yet.

He didn't know what jealousy felt like until Ashton Irwin joined the band.

Maggie gravitated towards the drummer, and Luke understood it to an extent. He knew enough about Ashton's personal life and his early life to know how they bonded and connected over the broken homes they both had experienced, but Luke felt constant pangs of fear that one day she'd end up at his house when she needed someone to talk to, and she'd no longer let Luke sing her to sleep and hold her when her eyes began to fall.

Luke Hemmings didn't know it at the time, but he would eventually be the very reason Ashton and Maggie became inseparable in the future — and it wasn't his charm, his charisma, his humor that would bring them together, it was his mistakes and his inability to come to terms with the fact that he was, in fact, the biggest asshole he'd ever have the displeasure to know in his entire life.

The four boys were practicing in Ashton's garage after school, laughing at stupidly crude jokes and trying to figure out how the hell to make music that people actually liked, when Calum brought up Marigold Insley and Luke's face immediately turned a few different shades of red.

Here's the thing: three of the four best friends that Luke had knew damn well that he was in love with his other best friend, and they had known it since the moment they had seen the two of them interact. And the countless times after the first interaction, where they all tended to end the same way; Luke would stare at Maggie like she was the only thing in the world, like he was stranded in the middle of the ocean and she was a mirage of glitter and gold and bright lights that just seemed to whisper, "Home," in his ears methodically until the current swept him up in a wave of dreams and calamity all at the same time.

Basically, he looked at her like she was the entire world and more, and whenever he'd look away, it would take him a few more seconds to seemingly come back down to earth and realize that there were four other people in the room. And the boys would always look amongst each other and shake their heads like they were in on some secret joke that Maggie and Luke were oblivious too, because they were, they always were, and they'd pretend like nothing had happened.

"So, where's Maggie today?" Was the only thing Luke needed to hear for the blush to creep onto his cheeks.

Calum smiled at him expectantly; no malice involved, just genuinely attempting to get his bandmate to admit what everyone around him already knew.

Luke shrugged, "My mom is tutoring her."

Which was true. What Luke failed to tell his friends was that she had spent the last week at his house, and she had slept in his bed, in his arms, and he had tucked that damn piece of hair behind her ear that always seemed to fall when she was lying on his chest multiple times.

What he didn't tell them was that her parents were finally, thankfully, admitting their issues and getting a divorce. They hadn't put in the effort to tell Maggie that it wasn't her fault, that they just weren't in love like they were when they were kids and that things had changed too much for them to work it out, but Luke had whispered the words to her multiple times.