Cadences [cake au] ✔

// thirty // [Final Chapter]

Are you crying right now? Because I am (figuratively, anyway) FINAL CHAPTER EVERYONE, GET READY

Chapter 30

Luke's POV

Calum's smile as he watched Michael and Ashton make out caused some stirring in my chest and it pained me how much I wanted to go up to him and kiss him too. I mean, what was stopping me?

Taking a deep breath, I approached his position behind a potted tree and called his name. His head turned to face me and the colour drained a little, making me more anxious than excited to see him.

"U-uh, hi Luke..." he mumbled, going a bit pink as his neck slumped. I scanned his posture from his parallel feet to his fiddling fingers to the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

"Do you forgive me yet?" I asked in a way that was more forward that I'd initially hoped. I waited a few moments for his answer and when none came, I declared, "Whether you do or don't, I want you to have this. Last night... well let's just say Michael was occupied so I spent some time in the recording studio and this is the result. I hope you like it."

The demo CD in my back pocket was taken out and placed in Calum's palm, before I smiled at him and headed off in some random direction. What would happen next, I hadn't a clue; but as long as he listened to it, I had faith that things would be sorted out.

Calum's POV

"Hi Cal, it's er, Luke here. This is probably the sixth time I've recorded this so let's hope this one is good enough – basically, I need you to know that everything Jack said was a lie. You shouldn't listen to him and make a hasty judgement based on his lies because you'll only get hurt. I got hurt by him once, too. He's not a nice person, but he has a certain charm that strikes people like bullets-"

I paused the track, unsure of whether I wanted to continue. iTunes said that there was five more minutes of this track which freaked me out a little quite frankly, because I had no idea what Luke had to say that lasted five minutes. Curiosity still got the better of me.

"-bullets and I fell for that charm. What happened last night though? That wasn't pure coincidence."

He went on to talk a little about him and Jack meeting in a restaurant or something, and Jack making some sort of crazy deal that Luke didn't even agree to. As the truth came out, I began to feel worse and worse about doubting Luke – of course he liked me, he'd made that clear to me on several occasions. All I wanted to do was find him and give him a tight hug and a big kiss on the lips.

The remaining three minutes were taken up by a song, which he said was called 'Vapor'. My ears perked at the sound of his voice alongside a guitar.

"I'll take what you've got, got, got, I know it's not a lot, lot, lot, cause I just need another hit, you're the thing that I can't quit... I want to breathe you in like a vapour, I want to be the one you remember, I want to feel your love like the weather, all over me, all over me... I want to print our hands in the pavement, savour your words I won't ever waste them, look in your eyes and know just what you miss, so lie to me just lie to me..."

He sounded so different in this song, unlike the other songs of his I'd heard. It made him sound like a real musician – and I hardly ever regarded people as 'real' musicians. A single tear fled from my glossed over eyes and I leapt up from my seat, ripping the earbuds from my ears and grabbing my keys as I ran out of the room to find Luke.

Trouble is, no matter where I looked, I couldn't find him. I didn't even dare to knock on Michael's room because of the noises I was hearing from within, and the music departments were all pretty empty, each and every room on each and every floor.