white blank page // luke hemmings

08.

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luke's pov

"Is it gonna be cold?"

Calum's voice is completely serious when he asks me this, and I give the back of his head (which is practically buried in his dresser doors) an incredulous look.

"Cal, It's England," I push myself up onto my forearms so I can see into the suitcase he's sat on the floor beside his bed. He's filled it with two thick sweaters and a pair of jeans, hardly enough to get himself through a tour, let alone a summer one.

"I don't keep track of the weather there," He turns from the dresser sharply, tossing another even thicker sweater into the mix.

I crawl across the bed and reach down into the suitcase and promptly remove all three jumpers, balling them up and throwing them lightly at his back. 

"It's not going to be as hot as it is here, but it won't be cold," I tell him, flopping back onto my stomach and burying my face in his duvet as to show him how dumb I find his question. "Christ, Cal," I add for good measure, lifting my head up slightly to see him grabbing a handful of tank tops from the floor of his bedroom and beginning to sloppily fold them. 

There's a week left until we leave for tour, and because we know if we don't do it now, we'll leave it until the last minute and forget half the things we'll need, Calum and I have decided to do nothing but pack today.

I don't like packing. It's tedious and time-consuming, and now that we're starting to travel more than we ever expected we would, all it does is remind me of the family and everything else I leave behind when I go. 

But if there's anyone who likes it less than I do, it's Calum. He can't fold anything to save his life, and he usually manages to put the task off even longer than I do.

Cal's forgetful, too. He's always stealing my toothpaste and whatever else he's forgotten the minute we get to our hotel.

The suitcase is starting to fill by now, and he's virtually stopped trying to properly fold them.

"How're things going with Isobel?" He asks me when his packing is nearly finished, leaning back against his dresser and looking at me expectantly.

"Good," I answer plainly, not because I don't want to tell him everthing, but because I have no idea how to explain any of it. She's hard to put into words. I've tried before.

"You're with her a lot," He throws a pair of socks into the bag before sitting down next to me, the bed creaking beneath our combined weight.

None of them can wrap their heads around why I'm with her so often, having only really met her about a week and a half ago. 

"It doesn't feel like a lot, though," I tell him, bunching up his duvet until I have a little lump to rest my head on.

"You two are getting pretty serious, yeah?" Calum's tone is completely casual, but my face goes hot anyways.

I have no idea how to answer his question. I have no idea what we are. We aren't dating really, but we're close enough to it that I regret not kissing her at that art exhibition of hers. I regret it a lot.

"No, we aren't," I mutter after a long few seconds, avoiding eye contact. It makes me feel stupid to not have a definition of what Is and I are. I don't think we're only friends, not anymore, but we aren't much beyond that. I don't even know if I want to be much beyond friends. She brings out this insane confusion in me; half of me wants to just tell her how I feel because she always seems to understand, but the other half of me wants the opposite. 

Calum doesn't say anything, but I know he thinks I'm lying. I would too, if it was one of the other boys in my place. I talk about her a lot more now that we've met, more than enough for them to draw the conclusion that I am completely hung up on her. 

We sit like that for a few minutes. I'm thinking about what he'll say when we head over to my house to pack my thingsand he sees the picture hanging above my bed. I've tacked up the painting of Isobel's I bought right above my headboard. I think she undercharged me. I would've paid much more for it than I did. 

"You like her, don't you?" He says after a short silence, and even though I know he's not prying, he's just looking out for me, the same as Ashton and Mikey are, I want nothing more than to change the subject. Isobel is all I've been talking about. I'd be bored of me by now if I was them. 

But pushing Isobel from my mind is easier said than done. 

And that very question has been dancing around in the back of my mind ever since that day we met at the coffee shop. It's a question that should be so easy to answer, yet every time I even start to think about it, I get all flustered and my brain starts to stop working. 

I mean, I do like Isobel, I do. I think I've known that for awhile now, considering I used to drop whatever it was that I was doing when I'd hear the mailman pull up to our mailbox. But now that she's actually here and real, the whole idea is a thousand times more terrifying. 

"You know you can tell me," Calum says softly, taking my silence as hesitance, "I'm not going to give you shit about it or anything."

It's just that if I admit out loud that I like her, I can't take it back. I can't hide from it anymore. If I admit to it, I'll have to eventually share that with Isobel herself and that idea alone causes my stomach to flip.

"Yeah," My voice falters ever-so-slightly, "I do like her," I breathe, releasing the truth into the world, never to be hidden again. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the corners of Calum's lips turning up as he kicks his suitcase close. Though I can feel my face growing hot with slight embarrassment - my feelings aren't something I'm used to discussing, even with my best mates - it feels nice to finally admit it out loud. 

"We all knew it already, I just wanted to hear you say it," Cal smiles at me, wearing a grin in a very pleased manner, not at all teasing or smug. 

I let out an embarrassed laugh and reach over to punch him in the arm, to which he dodges by throwing himself on top of me.

Cal places all of his weight on me as the two of us wrestle - an occurence much too common for our own good. 

"You two are cute though," Cal says as he sits on top of my back, pinning me down on his bed, "If I had to give my blessing to anyone, Isobel would be it."

I turn  my head as far as physically possible to peek at Cal, unable to suppress my grin.

"Look at you getting all mushy," I tease him in return, instead of actually expressing my happiness over the fact that my best mate approves of Isobel.

With that, Calum delivers a harsh blow to my head with his pillow, hard enough to make my ears ring. 

"Well someone around here has to be," He scoffs, "You barely talk about the girl, and here I was ready to listen to you rattle on and on about all the things you adore about her," He shrugs as he sinks down into his bed, his legs still draped across my torso.

"Well if that's what you're waiting for," I sigh, flipping over so I'm staring up at the ceiling, "She's got the prettiest smile, like pretty enough that I would notice it all the way across the room. And her eyes light up in this adorable way whenever she talks about something she's passionate about, like her art - which is also really cool and she's incredibly talented, which makes me wonder what exactly she's bad at because I haven't found a single thing. And I thought meeting her was going to be this awkward encounter of us starting back at the beginning like strangers, but being with her is so effortless adn the total opposite of awkward, which is a miracle for me. And- " I start to spill out all the things I've been thinking the past week.

I'm not even halfway finished with my list before Calum's stopping me.

"Okay, ew, I take back what I said," He crinkles his nose, causing me to burst with laughter, "I think I liked it better when you kept all that to yourself, mate."