Beside You

Chapter 9: Singing

Chapter 9: Singing

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Derek left after about half an hour later for rowing. It was as though he was waiting for the perfect timing, because as soon as Derek left Luke rocked up.

“You didn’t wait for me today,” he said sadly.

“Sorry, I had some pretty important things to tell Derek. Where’s Michael?”

“Dunno. Maybe he went somewhere after school. You have any food?”

“In the fridge, I told Derek,” I said, as I sat down at the kitchen island.

“Told him what?” Luke asked through a mouthful of ice-cream.

“I told him the truth.”

“About us?”

“Yeah.”

Luke nodded slowly. “It was about time anyway.”

“You took that awfully well.”

“It’s only fair. Ashton knows so one of your friends should know too.”

“Don’t worry, I really only have two friends I could actually tell this to.”

“Hoorah to socially awkward people,” Luke said sarcastically. “So what are you doing over the weekend?”

“Nothing much.”

“You wanna go to the movies then?”

“Sure.”

*

“Watching Rise of the Guardians has made me believe," I announced as I stepped through the door.

"Santa, The Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny... they're all true!"

"See I told you it would've been a good movie. You owe me that," I said.

"Okay fine. It's one for El and zero for Luke," said Luke.

Luke pretended to cheer. The other guys suddenly appeared from nowhere and bombarded us with random questions. We didn’t even really get the chance to answer any of them when Luke was literally dragged off by the arms into Michael’s room. They claimed they were ‘filming a new video’ but to me it sounded more like they were killing cats in there. Don't get me wrong, when I did hear singing it was absolutely fantastic, but the majority of their time seemed to be spent mucking about.

After what felt like an eternity of painful death to my ears, Ashton, Calum and Michael came storming out.

“Oh good, is the torture finally over?”

“Nope, we’re getting lunch; we’ll be back really soon,” Ashton said.

“Goodie.”

They laughed and then ambled out the house. I realised Luke wasn’t part of the ‘lunch’ party. I went over to Michael’s room and found him playing his guitar.

“Why aren’t you going with the guys?”

“I already had some before at the cinema."

I gasped sarcastically. "Luke Hemmings saying no to a chance of food? What is this?!" Luke grinned.  “So um... you guys are getting pretty busy aren’t you?”

“Yeah, we’ve been working for basically half this year on the EP. You wanna hear one of the songs?”

“Really? I get to have the honour of hearing one of the songs before any other fan?”

“Yeah, but you’re way more special because well… you’re Michael’s sister and you’re my supposed girlfriend and Calum's to-be-girlfriend…”