before the pain | luke (JATP)

XIV

"How about I pretend to be dead on Sunday?" Mila asked looking at Elijah, yet she fastly looked away, ever since she started her senior year, she hadn't been writing as much as she wanted to. She used to write in her classes, yet now she was paying attention or talking with Alex and Reggie.

She would normally write in the lunch breaks, yet now she used them to eat with the boys. She closed her eyes feeling how her head began hurting thinking about just the small events that had been happening in the last two weeks of school. Yet the tiredness continued and soon the closed eyes became a nap and her headache became a dream.

The dream stopped when her door opened and her mom began cleaning the kitchen. Mila opened one of her eyes to look at the time, she took a deep breath and got ready before heading out the door, not saying anything to her mom. She took her pastel blue bike that she had the day before driven home from school, after leaving it there for almost two days.

The golden leopard was... not filled,  yet a good amount of people were standing in line outside the bar to get in. Mila parked her bike a little away from the line before placing herself in the queue. She could hear the faint beating of Alex's drums, which made her smile gently. It only took some minutes before she found herself inside the golden leopard, it was a small bar not far from the inner city. She found herself a table and sat down.

Mila's eyes wandered around, the stage was empty beside four instruments, two guitars, bass, and the drums. She didn't know what to expect, yet as the four boys entered the stage, Mila stood up screaming and clapping. She didn't expect the other boys and girls to do the same.

"Hi" Some girls screamed hearing Luke just talk into the microphone, this made Mila hold her laughter in as much as she could, Luke looking almost scarred as the fangirls, fangirling over the most normal boys Mila had ever met.

"I'm Luke, this is Reggie, Bobby, and Alex... we're Sunset Curve, thank you for being here, this is our first song of tonight is called Long Weekend, we hope you'll like it" The boys began playing and the small crowd screamed, Mila smiled brightly seeing the boys play and sing, somehow their music made her feel at home, like all the stress, she had been going through didn't matter as Luke's voice made her heartbeat skip a beat. She looked at him as he sang, his voice was loud and matched him perfectly.

After playing a couple of songs Luke chuckled into the microphone. "This is a new song we have written, it's called now or never" Mila smiled brightly as she remembered the small text she had written in his broken black notebook, they had decided to name the song after her line.

The room got blasted with the most amazing song Mila had heard, or at least she believed so as they played, Luke began singing and Mila felt something weird inside of her, like butterflies in her stomach as she looked at Luke only noticing his eyes were on her as well, yet he looked away only seconds later.

"Take off Last stop Countdown till we blast open the top Face first Full charge Electric hammer to the heart" Luke sang as Alex played on the drums like this was the last time he would ever play. As they played, Mila slowly took her hand to her necklace, the s in her hand making her heart feel warm. She now knew, that her own family was falling apart, yet she had found a new one...

As they played the last song, everyone screamed and cheered, Mila's smile was the brightest as she was the loudest in the whole bar. Mila looked at Reggie who was nodding towards a door, she wouldn't have noticed otherwise, she nodded slowly knowing what he wanted her to do, she left her seat and walked to the door, finding herself soon after backstage.

The boys were sweating and cheering at each other. "Alex, you played amazing!" Reggie said as he put away his bass. "I mixed up now or never with get lost though" Alex sighed, which made Reggie look at him with a mad look. "Can you just own it for once?" Alex didn't get the chance to answer as he noticed Mila's curly hair standing quiet by the door.

"Soooo what did you think?" Alex asked as the boys looked over at who he was talking to, all of them smiling even bobby. "I loved it! You guys are really talented!" Mila said with the brightest smile. "All thanks to this dude" Reggie pushed Luke gently, yet Luke laughed awkwardly as he looked into Mila's eyes.

"Thank you for coming," He said looking at her, she nodded and bit her lip gently looking at them all. Bobby being the least interested, as she began speaking he even walked away to get water for himself. "Don't mind him" Luke whispered, yet Mila didn't ...

"My mom... have asked all of you to join us for dinner on Sunday" Mila spatted out, all the boys widened their eyes, Bobby even dropping the water he just picked up. "She... what?" Bobby asked, being confused and wondering if he heard wrong.

"Listen... I have never had any other friends and my mom wants to get back into my life ..." Mila sighed, shrugging. "Will there be food?" Reggie asked with a soft smirk, this made Mila laugh as she nodded. "Of course"

"Then we will be there" Luke smiled. He put his hand to her hair, yet hesitated taking it away again, he wanted to ruffle her hair, yet decided otherwise. The hand gesture did made Mila take a step back from him. She looked at all of them before smiling gently.

"See you on Sunday then... " Mila smiled shyly as she waved goodbye, hurrying to her bike to bike home, never having felt more embarrassed. "Did she just ask us to join her and her family for dinner?" Bobby asked, looking at the three others who stood there as weirded out.

"I guess dinner at Garcia's could be fun" Alex laughed as he shook his head, putting an arm around Reggie, who did not seem to like the pressure. "How do you think her parents are?" Luke asked as he took his guitar on his back.

"Weird like her"

"Then it's good you're uninvited" Reggie smiled to Bobby before leaving the room, Alex and Luke tried not to laugh as they left the bar with Reggie, leaving Bobby alone to clean up.