Rochester Avenue // Luke Hemmings

Chapter 5 - 'What A Great Pickup Line'

On Wednesday morning, just as I was getting ready to head off to the studio there was a knock on the door. I quickly went to open it, only to see Nathan standing there sheepishly.

"Hey. Can I come in?" he asked, and I stepped aside so he could walk past. I left the door open.

"Look, I really wanted to apologize for being a dick on Monday." He waited for my response, and when I didn't reply, he said quickly, "I shouldn't have stormed out like that, either. Can I make it up to you? What are you doing tomorrow night?"

"The internship," I said tersely.

"Oh, surely you can leave a bit early?" he said dismissively.

"No, I can't. And besides, I enjoy it," I informed him, going back into the bathroom to carry on doing my makeup.

Nathan sighed. "Is this internship going to take up all your time?"

I just shrugged.

"What about the weekend? Surely they don't expect you do work then. I know you can't do Saturday morning because of your music group, but how about the evening?"

I paused in my makeup. "I don't know," I replied honestly. "If they need me, I'll go in, but if they don't... I guess I'm free."

"No need to sound so enthusiastic," he muttered, and I put my makeup back in its box and left the bathroom, grabbing my bag for work.

"Look, I'm sorry. Saturday evening... sounds good." I glanced at the time on my phone. It wasn't quite time to go but I didn't really want to stick around, so I said, "I have to go. I'll be back later." I then exited the dorm very quickly, leaving him behind looking a big confused. I sighed to myself and tried to forget about him.

~ ~ ~

I was the first one at the studio, since I had left earlier than planned when Nathan showed up. I just didn't really want to have to talk to him, so of course I decided to run away from him.

I wandered around, looking at all the guitars and the soundboard. I reached out to touch it then decided I shouldn't in case I broke something, which would most likely happen. I also desperately wanted to pick up one of the guitars but I didn't want to break that, either. Furthermore I didn't want to risk any of the boys showing up early and seeing me play the guitar.

"You're early." Luke's low voice interrupted my admiration of the guitars. I turned around to face him, not being able to meet his gaze since I was still a bit embarrassed from what I said to him about his eyes.

"So are you," I responded. "According to Kate you guys are usually twenty minutes late."

Luke shrugged and came further into the studio. "The others will probably be late. I wanted to come in early so no one would be here."

"Oh, sorry," I said immediately. "You want me to go? I can go–"

"Not what I meant," Luke cut me off. He paused, then said, "I just... I was doing some more stuff on our song, and I kind of wanted to try it out before everyone got here."

"I won't stop you," I said with a smile. I actually really wanted to hear him sing the whole song, if he had managed to finish it.

Luke nodded and walked past me to get one of the guitars. As he picked one up, he looked at me a little strangely. "Are you sure you don't play guitar?"

"No. I mean, yeah, I'm sure I don't play," I rambled slightly.

"Really? Because you were kind of looking at the guitars like you wanted to play one of them," he said disbelievingly.