player ♚ lrh

43 - forgiveness

Luke hadn't realized how tired he was until he dropped his fists from the bag.

He hadn't been sleeping much. Last night had been the worst, for he'd barely been able to rest comfortably with Elise on his chest, knowing he'd have to watch her go to work, alone, the next day. He did his best to cover it, though truthfully he'd never felt more anxious in his life.

It probably wasn't his brightest idea to destroy his knuckles at the gym, again, but it was a distraction that worked quite well. He glanced down at them, flexing his fingers and quickly feeling the raw burn that stretched over his skin, sighing in the process. It wasn't that he minded much, for he'd been going insane upstairs and needed something to help pass the time, he just didn't want Elise to worry.

And she would. She always did, and he always caught the wince that would cross her face, even when she said nothing. Luke suppressed a groan as he grabbed his bag, running one of his worn hands through his messy hair. She cared so much more about his well-being than he did for himself; they were alike in that way—for each other. The thought made him feel, well, a lot of things—things he couldn't entirely delve into at the moment.

Instead, he threw on his discarded shirt and rummaged tiredly for his phone. He had stopped checking it about an hour ago, deciding he looked rather insane staring at the device waiting for...anything, really. He wasn't sure what, exactly, but he'd gotten next to nothing—until now.

He stopped walking. The screen was bright with notifications; starting from 40 minutes ago. He caught Ashton's contact name easily, frowning slightly at the numerous missed calls and dozens of unread texts. "The hell," he muttered to himself, scrolling through the messages.

Ash
Answer your fucking phone.

Ash
Dude, I'm serious. Answer. Rn.

Luke frowned again. Most of his texts were variations of the same thing, but it was the tone he used, so urgent, so serious, and so very unlike his friend, that he knew it couldn't go ignored. Ashton never spoke like that unless it was dire, or close enough.

But it was his last text, from about eight minutes ago, that he latched onto.

Ash
At least answer Elise.

His heart sank. She was there, under his missed calls, her pretty nickname colored in red. She'd last called him five minutes ago, and three times before that.

Fuck. Luke gritted his teeth together, unable to stop himself from coming to the absolute worst conclusions. He couldn't help it, his chest was already swarming with anxiety, trying to piece together what he could've possibly missed in the last hour, whilst failing to contain the guilt he felt for missing her calls. Fuck, shit—

He tapped her contact quickly, bringing the phone up to his ear and feeling like an asshole as he pushed his way out of the gym's glass doors and into the lobby, cold air greeting him. He was already fumbling with the keys in his pocket.

Was she okay? He didn't know. Why was she with Ashton? He didn't know that either. The phone wasn't ringing in his ear and he was getting antsy. Was she still at work? Had Calum shown up? He didn't really want to know the answer to that, but he had a pretty good guess.

"Oh! You know what? Never mind, he's right here,"

He could hear the conversation at reception, and could vaguely spot the girl leant over the desk out of the corner of his eye, but Luke wasn't paying attention to that. He was staring at his phone, wondering why the fuck it still wasn't ringing—