Toxic - Luke Hemmings

Chapter 31

Izzy's POV

On Monday morning Luke and I were running around the house like chickens with no heads. We had most of our stuff packed, but we neglected the fact that we still had to shower, get ready, pack up the car, and make the half hour drive to campus. It was 10:30 when we woke up, which was lucky considering we both forgot to set alarms.

We showered together to cut back some time, and then Vanessa offered to put everything in the car for us after we knew everything was packed. By the time it was almost 11:30, we were miraculously ready to leave. We said good bye to Brett and Vanessa, telling them we'd see them when we got back next week.

Luke threw me the keys to the car, insisting that I drove. I wasn't expecting to be the one to drive the whole trip, so I was planning on having him switch with me at some point. I drove us to campus and was able to park right before noon. We just hopped out and opened the trunk, sitting on the edge of it as we waited for everyone to show up.

Surprisingly, the guys were the first to get here. They piled out of Michael's mom's car with all their bags, having his mom get out to meet me. She pulled Luke into a massive hug as I remembered he spent a while living right next door to them. She turned to me right after, holding her arms out for me to give her a hug.

"You must be Izzy." She said excitedly, wrapping me up in the first mom hug I had gotten in longer than I could remember.

"It's nice to meet you Mrs. Clifford." I told her, pulling away while she admired me.

"I've heard so much, Mikey couldn't stop talking about you all week." She put her hand on my shoulder, quickly getting a response from Michael.

"Okay mom, that's enough." He rushed her away from me, letting her say bye to everyone before giving her a hug himself. I felt Luke tense up next to me when she said Michael couldn't stop talking about me, but I let it go. Mrs. Clifford waved to all of us the whole time she was driving away, such an adorable freaking woman.

Right on cue, Sophie pulled up and immediately ran over to me. She didn't even grab her bags, she just ditched the car, and even Ashton, to give me a hug. I hugged right back, having missed my best friend for over a week. Ashton whined about me getting the first hug until she gave in a went over to him.

It was honestly sweet to see Ash meet her parents for the first time. They had been together for over two months now, but this was their first opportunity to showcase it to her family. We let them talk for a minute, trying to give them some space while they met under not completely ideal circumstances. It wasn't long until Michael noticed that the SUV we had was definitely not a Cadillac.

"Whose car is this? I thought Brett had an Escalade?" He asked Luke, making me hold back a smile. He pulled me into his side, rubbing my arm while he looked back at Mike.

"It was Izzy's Christmas present." He said, making Mike and Calum both freeze. They look at us with raised eyebrows, then they looked at each other.

"You bought her a car?" Mike seemed a little irritated, but I couldn't tell if that was just him being surprised or not.

"Against my wishes, but it's starting to grow on me." I smiled up at Luke, watching him chuckle lightly.

Calum screamed over to Ash and Sophie, luckily right when they were waving off her parents. They came jogging over to us, confused looks spread across their faces. Calum just motioned to the car and then us, I guess he wasn't really able to verbalize it. When Sophie realized what it was about, she just shot me a huge smile.

"It's not that deep guys." Luke laughed. "It's just a car."

"Wait, what's going on?" Poor Ashton was still confused as all hell.