Luke managed somehow to sleep through the night waking up several hours later confused at first before realizing he was still in the hotel. He was still trying to comprehend what had happened.
He eventually got up heading to the bathroom where he changed from the t shirt to a the green button down Calum had given him along with the black dress pants and fancy shoes. The shoes were kind of tight but it'll do for now.
He fixed his hair before heading out down the hallway, he felt eyes follow him as he made his way into the lobby where he waved at the workers at the front desk before getting out on the sidewalk.
The heat hit him immediately, he hated how bad the heat had been.
His stomach growled with every step he took but eventually he made it back to Calum's restaurant, the door was unlocked so he pushed it open and went inside.
"CALUM!" He yelled a couple of times and Calum came running from the back with an apologetic look upon his face.
"I didn't hear the door open, sorry. I'm with the repair guys for the A/C, sorry that it's still hot in there. Anyways, are you hungry? We have coffee and bagels behind you on the counter." Calum explained as he pointed at everything. Luke turned around biting his lip seeing the pot of coffee and all the different bagels lined up.
Luke was unsure whether or not if he should take one or not. Calum saw all the contemplation going on in his head at that very moment.
"Have as much as you like." Calum gestured for him to sit down and poured him a cup of coffee and watched Luke as he reached for a bagel.
Luke began to eat but he didn't want to look so desperate but he was so hungry and Calum just kept reassuring him that it was okay and he ate a few more until he satisfied his hunger.
"I wanted to show you the stage you would be using from here on out." Calum gestured for Luke to follow him to the other side of the restaurant, Luke eyed everything, before getting the courage to stand up on the stage.
"You can use the microphone there, just make sure it works the way you want it. If you need a guitarist to back you up, my hostess Greg is pretty good at playing." Luke stepped up on the platform and started messing with the microphone trying to make it his height and trying to make sure it worked.
"I'll be in the back just come get me if you need something. I'll give you some space."calum walked away after a little while, and Luke started doing some warm ups adjusting the microphone volume until he got he desired.
He did some vocal warm ups and the door opened and he noticed a teenaged boy with brown hair come in dressed up in a black button down and black trousers.
Luke recognized him right away and tried to ignore him. But he knew that the teenager was staring.
And then it clicked how he knew him.
A few weeks ago in a rainstorm Luke took cover underneath the awning because it was coming down in buckets and this teenager yelled at him claiming that he was blocking the entrance and shoed him away.
Luke remembers that afternoon very vividly because he ran away hiding in an alley way while his clothes and hair got saturated by the rain.
He just remembered feeling awful, uncomfortable and embarrassed the rest of that day.
He tried to make it look like he wasn't looking over at what the teenager was doing but it was too late because he walked over, "hey, I'm Greg. You must be the new entertainment." Greg extended his arm and look nervously shook it.
"Uh yes. I'm Luke." Then everything clicked in Luke's head, that's the guy that Calum was telling him about earlier.
They chatted for a bit, mostly small talk, and the incident didn't get brought up once which revealed Luke.
He continued to mess around while warming up and at one point it got way too hot so he stopped unbuttoning the collar of his shirt, running his hands through his golden curls trying to figure out how to cool down.
Calum walked back in to the dining area and motioned to Greg, basically telling him that Luke was the new entertainer and that the A/C was still not repaired.
Calum watched as he saw Luke knelt down, breathing kind of heavy, appearing like he was trying to breathe less heavily.
Luke was down on one knee at the point trying to breathe through the heat and humidity, "my heart rates too high, it's too high." He kept repeating to himself and Calum get watching Luke wondering what was wrong but Luke was too afraid to tell him so he excused himself to the bathroom where he splashed water on his face.
He spent along time in there trying to cool down trying to bring he heart rate down. If his heart rate got too high he could possibly faint it wasn't a good thing.
A few hours went by after that particular incident, Calum gave Luke lots of water and lunch and thankfully the air conditioning was all fixed up at this point and it made things a lot more bearable.
Patrons filled up the dining room and it made Luke nervous seeing all the people sitting down, drinking, eating and chatting.
He remained seated at the counter just waiting for his queue.
Calum walked up onto the little stage tapping a wine glass with a fork trying to quiet the chattering and trying to get all the attention on him.
"I want to thank everyone for being so patient, I didn't meant to keep all of you waiting. Tonight is a special night because we have a new singer. Please but your hands together for Luke." The patrons clapped and Calum pointed and Luke and he stood up trying not to make a fool of himself as he headed to the stage.
He didn't bother to introduce himself he just grabbed the microphone and that's when Greg appeared next to him playing an acoustic guitar which was totally through him off guard but he went along with it singing a cover of the song "Chasing Car" by Snow Patrol and it instantly won the crowd over and it impressed Calum too.
Calum still couldn't believe that he had such a powerful and clean voice despite being so shy
and mysterious.
Luke did a couple of different covers that night, getting the patrons really into it.
He wasn't expecting all these people to like it or to sing along but the crowd reaction was the reason why Calum wanted to bring him back the next day and he accepted the offer.
After Luke finished that night Calum gave him a hot meal and a drink before letting him go back to the hotel to get some rest.
When he finished up he thanked Calum again leaving through the front door.
It was late, foggy and dark and he took his time walking trying to fathom the outcome of the performance he had but then he heard voices behind him and that's all he could remember.
He woke up the next morning to a sweet voice asking him if he was okay, he opened his eyes realizing he was on the middle of the sidewalk and a nice woman helped him stand up.
She looked at bit freaked out pointing the blood stains on his shirt, he quickly realized that he was assaulted and robbed the night before — everything happened so fast and so suddenly he had no way of stopping it, now way to defend himself.
He was so disappointed in learning that the sixty seven dollars he made in tips from the night before had been stolen from him.
He thanked the woman for helping him and got back to the hotel where he attempted to clean himself up and collect his thoughts as he stared into the bathroom mirror.
He sighed trying to get the stains out of the shirt, the last thing he didn't want to do was ruin something that wasn't his.
This wasn't the first time he experienced violence on the street, he was unfortunately very common for unhoused people to experience violence by other unhoused people or just people in general.
It was never okay and it always made him fell like shit because he didn't ask for this, he didn't ask to make the choice of selling all his worldly possessions, he didn't ask to forfeit his house to the government, he didn't ask to have an incurable illness that took years to diagnose and costed thousands of dollars to find out and to medicate.
Life was never in his favor and he always got the bad end of the deal.
He gave up after a few minutes washing his face instead before heading back out to the restaurant where Calum was relieved to see him.
"I tried to call your room last night and I couldn't get ahold of you, are you okay?" And that's when he noticed the bloodstain and gasped.
"It's all good." Luke didn't want to make a big deal out of it. But Calum was clearly horrified by the site.
"Luke are you okay? Do you need me to call the police?" Luke's eyes widened, "No!" He yelled at Calum got all taken back by the reaction.
This incident reminded him of something that happened several months ago where he saw an altercation on the street and a bystander called the cops but the whole thing got misconstrued and he got arrested instead, spending a night in jail and it was a horrible experience. He never wanted to go through that again.
After that incident, he never wanted help again, he just figured out he can handle it and take of it himself. He didn't want to be falsely accused and interrogated ever again.
Luke made Calum let the whole thing go going over to the stage trying to focus on tonight's show instead.
He just wanted to finally have a peaceful few hours.