Cadences [cake au] ✔

// nineteen //

Chapter 19

Calum's POV

We woke up on the music room floor, and once I'd recalled what had happened just hours prior, I couldn't help but grin brightly, almost as bright as the morning sun that was presently stunning my eyes. Yawning, I sat up and stretched, noticing that Luke's arm was loosely wrapped over my stomach and that I was still completely unclothed.

Luke stirred, groaning when he noticed that his sole source of warmth (as we had no blanket) had gone, waking up and blinking a few times.

"Come back Cal, let's cuddle," he groaned hoarsely and I obeyed, only because his voice was too attractive to simply ignore. I snuggled into him and smelt the faint wisps of smoke on his skin, relaxing because I now associated that smell with Luke and I associated him with – well, a lot of things. Peace, safety, laughter, fun, pleasure, and perhaps most importantly – love.

I beamed as I remembered what he'd said to me last night.

"I think I love you too."

He noticed that I was smiling and asked, "What are you thinking about?"

I cleared my throat and replied, "Just the fact that you said something really special to me yesterday."

"You want me to say it more? I'll say it to you the rest of our lives if you want."

"No, then you'd ruin the special aspect of it. But I wouldn't mind if you said it now."

He giggled and said, "I love you."

I shut my eyes, desperately hoping that I didn't have to go back home. But I knew that my parents would actually murder me if I wasn't home when they were, and that alone was enough for me to peel away from Luke. Besides, if my mum was given some time to cool down, perhaps she'd let me come back to university.

I highly doubted it though.

When my eyes opened again, I noticed for the first time just how blue Luke's eyes were. They were an exceptional shade that often changed colour, sometimes depending on the colour of his eyebrow piercings, sometimes depending on his mood. His nose was thin and sharp with structure and poise, and his lips were thin, a pair of circular piercings sticking out from his bottom lip.

"Wait, did you get new piercings?"

He nodded and unfolded one of his hands from around my waist to show me. "Yep. The lip ring was way too outdated. I went for snake bites, do you like them?"

"To be honest, I think I'd like anything if they're on you," I said with a strong blush beginning to flood my cheeks. The way he made me felt was genuinely something I'd never experienced before, and it was things like this that made me realise how worthwhile my life was. Sure, there were very many shitty aspects to it – notably the parts that my mother controlled, but anything else just made me so incredibly happy.

Especially Luke.

"Can we do something today? I need to be on the plane in the afternoon but we could have lunch," I eventually ended up saying after what was going to be endless staring into each other's eyes. I didn't want to end it, obviously, but knowing I didn't have much time left in the day, I wanted to make the most of it.

"But it's still so early!"

"It's already eight, how is that early?"

He gave me a deadpan look and shook his head. "Where do you want to go? I'll take you."

"No, let me take you. I brought plenty of cash with me."

Luke's POV

I don't know how I managed to persuade him, but we ended up going to the recording studio in the rock department which I had the key to. During the week that he'd been absent, I'd spend a few hours a day in the studio, either writing or recording demos with Michael, sometimes even alone. Although I hated silence, it was definitely valuable when I was trying to concentrate.

"It's open?" he asked with surprise when I pushed the handle down and leant my shoulder against the glass, revealing a somewhat dark room with a few monitor lights/LED lamps on the audio mixers.

"Privileges of being a member of the rock society," I replied, winking. My hand fumbled for the light switch and I flicked it, watching the room come to life.

Calum's eyes glistened when he saw the microphones, instruments, mixer boards, music stands, computers and software in their full glory, spending a few moments taking it all in. I folded my arms, admiring his awe-struck face with a smug smile.

Once I'd decided he'd had enough 'wow' time, I started setting up the equipment, simultaneously deciding that we probably had the time to record one song. Just as this thought crossed my mind, someone came bustling into the room looking very bright-faced for the morning.

"Oh hey guys!" Ashton beamed, waving whilst holding a cup of coffee in one hand. "Calum, you're back?"

"I came back for one night," he replied meekly, but we still heard the amazement in his voice.

Anyone could see the smirk Ashton had on his face when he heard this, telling us that he had a good idea of what we'd done last night. "Are you guys using the room now? I can come back later-"

"No wait!" I shouted, hurrying out of the actual recording area and stopping him. "Can you help us produce one song?"

He raised his eyebrows, clearly not expecting us to be here for that reason. "...Sure you want me here?"

I grabbed his arm. "Yes, I do. Get the final track onto two CDs for us by the end of lunch, I'll pay you back with something later."

With that, I led Calum into the soundproofed room that had a locking door, and sat us both down on the two wooden chairs I'd placed there just a few minutes before. Picking up a guitar, I played a quick arpeggio, watching him play around with the keyboard.

"Now, usually we record each instrument separately, but as we're short on time right now, we'll just do it together. Besides, it's gonna be a fun song, not a serious one."

He smiled, making the butterflies already in my stomach go wilder than they had been, asking, "So what's the song?"

I told him that I'd developed on the lyrics we'd written a while back on our first date, and named the song 'Hey Everybody'. His fingers tinkled the keys for a bit, figuring out a melody in record speed, leaving even me astounded despite my prior belief that I'd been pretty quick at that. It only made me want to work with him more.

Once we were ready I gave Ashton the 'ok' signal and through our headphones we were wired a metronome beat. Making eye contact with each other, we started playing our respective instruments, finished with that and recorded voices.

"She maxed her credit card and don't got a job; she pays the gas with all the change in her car. It's not the end of the road, yeah we've all been there before, and it goes oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh..."

Three odd minutes later we were done – we'd done it all in one take which was actually really impressive given we'd never recorded with each other before. There was a strange satisfaction felt inside us both and I had to give those perfect lips a kiss before we met Ashton outside who was mixing the tracks together, adding sound effects and whatnot.

~

"Guys, it's done!" he exclaimed, an hour later, slamming his hands down on the table. "I just gotta burn the track onto the CDs then you're good to go."

Calum and I had been cuddling on the couch the whole time but we cuddled even harder. I left a couple more kisses around his face and he giggled at the cold tingle my piercings gave him whenever they touched his skin.

"You know, this would be so much better with drums-"

"Yes, but this is just for us two so you can go bang your drums elsewhere, yeah?" I snapped, immediately changing my demeanour when I saw Calum again. Ashton scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief as he finalised everything for us, jotting down on the CDs in his neat handwriting the words: for Luke and Calum, the most musical lovers known to earth.

***

Can't believe we're almost at chapter 20! Sorry for this boring shit, it'll get more interesting... I hope?

Do you guys listen to music by buying CDs, buying from iTunes, using Spotify, Pandora or something else?

Vote+comment for virtual 5sos raw recordings

Kimmy xx