Critical || Luke Hemmings

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sydney’s POV 

“Let me take you out tonight,” Luke insisted from beside me for what felt like the thousandth time tonight.  It was his last night here before he and the guys had to go back and finish up the tail end of their tour.

I sighed from beside him, curling into his body further as we cuddled on the couch in the middle of my living room, watching Calum and Michael play fifa while Ashton watched some weird show off of Netflix.  It’s not that I didn’t want to go on a date with Luke.  Trust me, I wanted to.  I was more nervous about people seeing us.  And if it were anything like the other day when Luke acted as if he didn’t even know me in the hallway, I didn’t want to do it. 

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, averting my eyes from his serious gaze.

“Syd, please?” he whined, resting his head on the top of mine, pouting, I’m sure.

“You don’t even want to hold my hand in front of people,” I countered, causing Calum to look up from the game and give Luke a puzzled look.  I honestly didn’t mean for that to come out as harshly as it had.  In fact I knew why he didn’t want to do that in front of others right now, but I couldn’t stop the words from leaving my mouth. 

“You what?” Calum scoffed as Michael hit pause.

“It’s none of your business Cal.” Luke mumbled, hiding his face in the crook of my neck.

I honestly was fine with hiding things from the fans, but going on a date in front of God knows how many people and having to act like we’re just friends seemed exhausting.  I hate to think that we’ve come so far in such a short amount of time to have to go back to acting like there’s nothing there.  It hurts and I’d like to avoid that pain.

The boys had all turned their attention to Luke who was now trying desperately to defend himself and his actions to the three of them.  “You all know the fans wont all be calm and collected no matter how cool they are,” he sighed, clearly frustrated with this topic.

“Yeah, I get that, but what are you going to do Luke?  Hide Sydney forever?  What happens when you guys get married huh?  Are you going to tell everyone that the ring on her finger is just a friendship ring?  What happens if you guys have a kid?  Are you going to tell them that the stork left it on your door and you two thought it would be fun to raise it together?” Michael questioned, making the others hold in a few chuckles.

“We are not getting married or having kids,” Luke groaned, looking down at me briefly.  “Well not yet at least… And by then I’ll be sure that everyone knows just who she is to me.”

“So if you’re keeping it a secret now, how long are you going to wait before actually telling everyone?” Ashton questioned, looking up from his show. 

“When he’s ready,” I butt in, finally having enough of the interrogation.  Luke paused briefly, tightening his arms around my waist, signaling as a thank you.  “Obviously it sucks right now but we can’t just start telling the entire world about us when it just started.  I don’t want them to possibly ruin it..” I sighed, sitting up and fixing my hair on the top of my head.  “Not that I think they will, but it’s too early in this.. thing.. right now to bring in over five million peoples opinions.”

The boys all nodded, finally understanding where Luke and I were coming from.  “I want to at least wait a while until we’re really confident about the two of us before telling them,” I said as Luke nodded beside me.

“I agree.”

“It’s just..” Calum sighed, “the three of us have been expecting this to happen for literally years now and now that it’s here we don’t want you to be ashamed of it.”

“I’m not ashamed, are you?” Luke grinned looking over at me.

I shook my head back and forth, squeezing his hand lightly.  “Not ashamed at all.”

“Then why did you mention him not holding your hand??” Michael sighed, clearly confused about the two of us.

“I will admit that it sucks that I can’t hold his hand in public and having to act like we’re just friends is not how I want to spend my first date, but I guess I’d rather do that then not go out at all..”

“So are you saying you’ll let me take you out somewhere?” Luke shot up beside me, giving me a large grin. 

“I guess,” I shrugged, trying to hide the smile that was tugging at my lips.

“YES,” he screamed, jumping up from the couch and running towards the guest room where his suitcase was.  “Be ready in an hour!”  And with that he slammed the door shut behind him where I could faintly hear him singing happily to himself.

Falling back on to the couch, I looked over at Ashton who was still intently watching my every move.  “What?" 

“You love him.”

“No I don’t shut up,” I scoffed, looking away from him and over at the TV.

“Yeah you do,” Ashton grinned.  “And the second you get married I’m going to bring up this exact moment and tell you I told you so,” he shrugged giving me one of his signature giggles before looking back down at the screen.

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This chapter sucks and it makes me mad tbh.  I'm really sorry.  It's also super short so expect me to make it up to you guys in the next chapter when I promise to make it much longer than this bc holy shit no.  This was also a filler and yall will get your extreme lydney feels next time.  Please comment and stuff as always, your feedback means a lot and I love you guys.