The Promise

Chapter 8

I'm guessing you want to know my current situation. Let's see: I'm sitting in the back of a black van with tinted windows that is currently stuck in traffic. Traffic. At 11:00 at night. Not to mention the tension is incredibly awkward. I still don't believe that Luke genuinely wants to go on a date with me. Or I even want to go on a date with him. Yes he's cute but a complete jerk. He is sitting next to me and is playing around with his fingers. He keeps spinning the tiny silver ring on his pinky and looking at me nervously. "Let's play a game." I burst suddenly. "I'm intrigued." he smirks and I roll my eyes. "No like twenty questions you dweeb." I say and he pouts. I playfully punch his arm and unbuckle my seatbelt so I can sit across from him. "You first." he says and I nod my head trying to think of a question. "Favorite band?" I ask him. "Green day." he immediately responds. I nod my head and he scratches his scruff. "Favorite independent artist." he randomly asks. "That's a tough one." I squint. There's so many independent artists that I love. "Define independent artist." I ask and he chuckles. "Okay how about artist." he says and I nod. "Can I give three?" I ask and he rolls his eyes. "Fine." he laughs and I smile. "Elvis, Macklemore and Halsey." I smile. He looks at me in shock. "That's quite a range of different artists." he comments and I nod my head. "I'm a lady of variety." I raise my eyebrows and I immediately regret that. He smirks at me and unbuckles his seatbelt. He sits close to me and I roll my eyes. "You know," his minty breath fans my face, "You're still wearing my shirt." he points out and my breathing becomes shaky. "Y-yeah so?" I choke out and his smirk widens. "It looks good on you Ace." he smiles and leans in as he talks. The butterflies come back and my bat isn't working. "Okay." I say and turn away from him, trying to steady my heartbeat and breathing. I can feel his stare on the side of my face and resist every urge in my body to look back into his blue eyes. It's. So. Damn. Hard.
I finally give in and find him genuinely smiling at me. "What?" I ask a little confused. He hated me twenty minutes ago. He's literally the definition of a moody teenager. "Nothing." His smiles falls from his face and the van slowly moves through the traffic.
Finally after twenty minutes of awkward silence we arrive at a little pizza place. Luke gets out of the van and waits for me to get out. I look at the hole in the wall pizza place and then to him. "This has the best pizza in London." he walks ahead of me and turns around as he walks to talk to me. "When we lived here before we were super famous we always came here." He smiles at me and grabs my hand. He immediately lets go of after he realized what he did. "Sorry." he sheepishly says. I smile at him and grab his hand. "It's a date isn't it?" I ask and he nods his head nervously. I stand by my previous statement: he's the actual definition of a moody teenager. Look up moody teenager in the dictionary and there Luke is. Its definition is 'Luke Hemmings'.
He walks ahead of me into the tiny restaurant and the old Italian man smiles. "Luke!" His accent rings throughout the empty restaurant. "I almost thought you weren't coming!" The man steps out from behind the blinding white counter and gives Luke a hug. "I would never blow you off Enrico!" Luke says with a smile. "It's been a long time since I've seen a girl with you!" The man says noticing me. The man walks over to me and smiles at me. I can clearly see his wrinkles but his eyes twinkle with something that is not as common as it used to be. Happiness. I smile at him. "I'm Rosie." I introduce myself. He smiles widely at me and pulls me into a hug. "Hello bella." He strong accent rings in my ears as he pulls away from the hug. His intoxicating grandpa smell reminds me of my own grandfather. "Well sit wherever you want and I'll bring the usual." he winks at Luke and Luke blushes. Luke picks a booth in the corner and we slide in on opposite sides. I look at him and he smirks at me. "Having fun?" He sarcastically asks. "Could you not be a jackass for three seconds?" I roll my eyes. He stretches out his arm and grabs my hand. Small tingles find their way all the way up my arm and I look into Luke's eyes "One, two, three." he counts and I yank my hand away from his. Stupid hands I mentally scold. He drops his smirk and looks down at the table. Moody asshole.
"So what are you majoring in?" He asks me suddenly. I take a breath in. "Journalism and Communications." I say and he looks at me and nods. "I wish I could major in that, you know, if I hadn't dropped out of high school." he chuckles. I laugh and look at him. He's still staring at the table. "Do you ever regret it?" I ask him and he snaps his head up. "What?" He cocks his head to the side slightly. "You know, dropping out." I say and he sits and thinks for a second. "If I hadn't," he begins slowly, "dropped out, we wouldn't be touring the world and living our dream. We wouldn't have been so successful and made so many incredible friends along the way. I guess I wish I had graduated before everything took off though." he says, "It just would be nice to have the option of going to college if this whole band thing fails." he shrugs and I nod my head. "High school was really annoying. You're lucky." I say trying to comfort him. "But I missed everything. Prom. Graduation." He says and focuses back on the spot on the table. "Yeah but you got to avoid all the drama. SAT, SAT prep, college applications, all the "who slept with who" shit." I say and he nods. "I just sometimes wish I experienced it but now I'm traveling the world playing in front of thousands of people who are singing our songs back to us." He smiles at the table and sneaks a peek at me. I blush a little and find a crumb on the table. "Look at you two!" Enrico says placing two enormous pizzas in front of each of us. "You two need to look at each other for it to actually be fun!" He scolds us. Suddenly I feel my head being lightly yanked up and I see Enrico holding on to our hair and basically forcing us to look at each other. "She's pretty Luke and you're a gentleman! Look her in the eye!" He scolds Luke and let's go of our hair. "You two aren't in middle school!" He shouts over his shoulder and I giggle. Luke looks at me and bursts out laughing. We both start laughing uncontrollably and he looks at me in the eye for the first time that night. I pick up a piece of my pizza to avoid eye contact and take an enormous bite of it. "This is so good." I groan and I close my eyes. "Just wait until after." I hear him mumble and I open my eyes and find him smirking at me. "Don't make me chuck this at you." I threaten him and he scoffs. "As if you would waste this pizza on me." he laughs and I giggle. "True." I say and take another bite.

-

"That was so good!" I shout when we were outside the pizza parlor. I hear Luke chuckle from behind me and I look at him. "That is seriously my new place." I say and he nods. "Take a picture of me in front of it." I say. I hand him my phone and he turns it around so it's facing us. "Smile!" He says and snaps a picture. I look at him confused. "Look, when your showing all your friends this amazing pizza place I don't want you getting all the credit for finding it!" He laughs and I just smile at him. What a dork. The van arrives and my pal Al is driving. "Hey Al!" I scream at him and he laughs. "What'd you do to her?" He asks Luke. "I just fed her some pizza." Luke shrugs. "Now you've done it." Al mumbles and I giggle. We get into the van and Al starts driving. Luke is typing furiously on his phone and swing my legs onto the seats opposite from me. I lay my head back and close my eyes. I feel myself slowly drifting off, but I could care less. Today has been hectic.

Tadaa!!! Okay I'm hoping next time I update is from a lovely new computer! I should have it in about a week but if you want me to update sooner just comment and vote. Five votes and I'll update in the next few days!! Remember to vote comment and share if you like this story!!!