Bittersweet Coffee [A 5SOS, Luke Hemmings Fanfiction]

Chapter 12: Her Shock

"Future shock is the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time." - Alvin Toffler.

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Annie opened the apartment door and let the guys in, slightly defeated from the fact that she had to let them it for hospitality. It wasn’t like she was leaving them out, anyway. She was a bit pissed off that they were a part of that group she had loathed at as her brother had kept on mentioning them to her before, but then again, deep inside, she knew that she had no right to judge them. In fact, she had, indeed, already considered them as her own friends – maybe Ashton and Calum only as she was still way about Luke.

The boys mumbled quite Thank you’s at Annie for letting them in, feeling a bit awkward as they, too, were surprised that she was the derp’s sister. They soon took their shoes off and entered; Annie followed after then and closed the door securely, for safe precautions, of course.

"You guys want some drinks?" She politely asked, though she felt the awkward tension in her apartment. The guys nodded and told her that a juice might do. Nodding in acknowledgement, Annie went to the kitchen and prepared the drinks. She put the four glasses of pineapple juice, together with a pitcher of water in the tray, then went to the living room.

Luke saw her struggling with the heavy tray and offered help. Annie was a bit hesitant at first but Luke insisted so she can't do anything but comply with his request. As he took the tray from her, their hands accidentally brushed against each other and Annie flinched, immediately yanking her hand away, almost hitting the tray off if wasn't for Luke's fast reflexes.

She had felt some sort of electricity zapping on her skin when it touched Luke's, which readily confused, mentally scolding her skin for being abnormal. She watched as Luke's face contorted into concern, though she just brushed it off and turned around, not wanting to catch eyes with Luke.

Luke was about to ask her what was wrong since he turned away from him until Annie walked away and went to the living room, sitting in the sofa across Ashton and beside Calum. He guessed that he wouldn't get the answer he wanted, so he brushed the question away and placed the heavy tray in the table, then sat down next to Ashton.

Annie cleared her throat to gain their attention, "So, if you guys are meeting Mike, then why are you this early? You do know his classes don't end till 7:00PM, right?" She asked.

"Well, your 'brother', told us that he'll come home at 5:00PM since their professor was absent," Ashton said, emphasizing the brother, while Annie rolled her eyes in return with a scoff. Ashton had wanted to tease her about it. He knew that it wasn’t in her personality to acknowledge other people, but he didn’t really expect her to call her own brother that informally, as if he was no one, with no emotion involved whatsoever.

"Yup, and since we're dismissed early, we decided to come here ourselves, since Luke wanted to visit the park earlier. We didn't expect to meet you there though, but luckily we did! And now we finally know who the derp's sister is! Although we didn't expect it to be you either." Calum added, slightly rambling his words like there was no tomorrow, which had reminded Annie of how his brother would speak too much as if he was holding his breath. She figured that he learned it from Calum. One way or another, she figured that they were all close with her brother, considering that they had visited him.

"Well if you think about it, you and your 'brother' are totally opposites. You don't seem like the derp's sister if you ask me. Are you sure he's your brother?" Luke asked, his tone of voice teasing.