"You have such a pretty name." Bree babbled as we stopped outside the doorway. Her eyes were round and full as she spoke (at the approximate time of two hundred miles per hour). Two plump, coral coloured lips moved to reveal as set of pefectly alligned teeth.
She was just, so, pretty.
I'm supposed to be her?
Oh, Calum honey, someone needs an eye test.
"Thank you." I reply, fiddling with my spare hair tie, staring down at the tiled floor, not used to being complimented by a winner of the gene lottery. I push my hair out from behind my ear in a hopeful attempt to hide the clusters of breakouts on my skin from someone who has probably never come face to face with a pimple. " I like your accent."
"Awh, you're so cute!" she shoved me playfully in the shoulder. "I like your..." her eyes took in my grey t- shirt and distressed jeans. She crinkled her nose quickly before looking up and smiling once again. "Is this your first time in England?"
Hah, charming...
"Yeah, yeah. It is." I pressed my lips together, stuffing my hands into my pockets.
"I grew up here." Bree explained, "Plus, I know all the best places to shop!" she said giddily, her strong english accent clearly present as she spoke. I let out a few half hearted laughs, shaking my head.
"No thanks, I'm not really into shopping."
"Oh no, please," her eyes fell on my age old shoes with frayed laces and stained flaps. "I insist." she finished.
Just then the sound of footsteps emerged from the hallway on our left side. We both looked up to see a girl with frosted blue hair making her way towards us. She had her earphones in, tangled at the base, her eyes set directly on the phone in her hand.
"Where are the guys?" she called from a few feet away. Her voice echoed around the hall as she took a bud out of her ear. She wore a maroon top and her pastel hair was twisted to the side.
"Red door, second left." Bree replied flatly, inspecting her nails. The girl thanked Bree and nodded at me before dissapearing into one of the doors.
"Who's that?" I questioned to Bree, who was still fussing over her nails, fiddling on the various rings set upon her fingers.
"Anabella, Ash's girfriend. The guys call her Ani." a bleeping sound came from Bree's pocket as she pulled out a studded phone. I watched her unlock the phone as she carried on talking to me, eyes firmly on the screen. "Gorgeous name- kind of ironic it's her's" she finished. I raised my eyebrows, shocked at Bree's sudden bluntness. She didn't notice, but instead placed the phone back into her pocket. "The guy's have to cancel a few gigs in Sydney so she came here because she was," she made quotation marks around her head with her fingers. " 'Missing them.' "
"She seems nice."
Bree scoffed, tucking away the strands of hair framing her face. "You're funny." she snorted, "Listen Sophie, if you think you know whats best for you and the guys," her voice went low, "You'd stay away from her."
"I don't understand, she doesn't seem-"
"Suit youself." Bree interrupted, shrugging her shoulders. She started walking down back toward the stage, me following as she did so. "You'll find out soon enough."
I opened my mouth to reply but we had already entered by then, Bree immediatley running over to Calum as soon as we did so. I looked around for the girl we saw in the hallway, extremely curious about what Bree had said.
I spotted Ashton at the back, being hooked up to yet another microphone by the stage manager. In the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of blue and green. Turning over my eyes met with Mikey, Luke and the girl- Ani, I believe her name was.
I walked over to them, already able to hear Mikey's voice before I even got there.
"Come on, admit it. You do. Yes you do." Michael spotted me walking over, "Sophie! You'll agree with me. You heard Ash on the phone last night, right?"
"Uh.."
"You're overreacting." Ani rolled her eyes playfully. Her laugh was thick and hearty and she smiled with the left side of her mouth. "Your just jealous."
"Of what?" Mikey challenged.
"I have better hair then you'll ever have." she smirked. I'll admit, her hair was pretty damn nice. Michael's eyebrows raised up so high they dissapeared behind his neon fringe.
"Are you kidding me? You have fucking smurf hair!"
In the midst of the pair bickering, I noticed Luke roll his eyes at the two. I snorted at his reaction and he gave me a small wave from behind Mikey.
"Awh, are you scared I'm distacting Ashton?" Ani teased, poking her bottom lip out as Michael folded his arms and humphed out a faint 'no'. In the corner of my eye, I could feel Bree looking over at me as her voice streamed through my head.
"He's just jealous he doesn't have a girlfriend." Luke said suddenly.
Ani looked from Luke then me, then back to Luke. She pointed at the both of us, "Oh are you two.." she looked directly at me. Her eyes were a faded blue, almost grey and her lips were delicate and pale. "Are you guys together?"
My eyes grew wide as I caught Luke's gaze, that mirrored my expression. Immediatly, I dropped my eyes back down at the ground, violently shaking my head.
"Uh, no, no, she's uh," Luke stammered. Behind Luke's voice, you could hear Michael chuckling at his new found topic to annoy Luke with. "She's with Calum." Luke finally managed out. He pointed over to Ashton, "I'm goin' to go now..." he murmured, his eyes fixed on Ashton's direction. Michael followed him,
"Idiot." Michael said, thumping him on the back of the head.
Ani looked back at me. "Is that true?" she was Australian, but unlike Ashton's, her accent wasn't as strong. I nodded.
"Oh, that's a shame." she said, "I'd ship you guys so hard."
***
The rest of the day basically consisted of ten pecent being actual band rehearsal, followed by ninty percent the guys being stupid. As usual.
It took five hours to rehearse a two hour set and I think it's fair to say the guys are pretty worn out. I'm not complaining though-it got me thinking. I glanced at the clock set on the hotel wall that read 11:05pm, listening out for any sounds of the guys I decided that now was a better time then never.
I opened my laptop, and perched my elbows on the bed, resting my chin on my hand as I typed into the search bar. In a second, my screen filled up. I clicked the top video result:
'5 Seconds of Summer (The Lost Tapes)'
Luke appeared on the screen, fiddling with the microphone he stuggled of attatch to his costume. I couldn't help but giggle slightly at his determination to remain looking cool as he finally suceeded.
"How long is this going to take?" his deep voice rose up from the speaker. I rolled my eyes-trust him to say that.
As the video played, I found my self opening a new tab and once again hovering over the search bar as I Mikey's voice played from the other tab.
"...it's YOLO."
I slowly pressed into the keypad, debating whether or not it was actually worth the effort. I typed up 'Calum Hood Girlfriend' and having done that clicked search. I scrolled through the results before landing on the same gossip site that had written the article about Cal and Bree. Clicking it, it had a picture of me coming out of the building where the guys had their radio appearance. I scrolled down to the comment section.
Out of all the mistakes I've ever commited, I think I regret doing that the most.
In a minutes worth of reading I felt physically sick. The video on the other tab was still playing the video but it couldn't distract me from the plain black and white in front of me. I let out a shakey breath. Better get used to it, right?
'Omg did you hear her? She was crap.'
'Why the hell does Calum like her?'
'Shes ugly lmfao.'
There were two pages worth of comments.
And I read every single one of them.
Suddenly I heard a knock on the door. Quickly I clicked on the other tab and paused the video, flinging the laptop behind my back in a failed attempt to hide it. I sat up trying to look natural before whipping my head towards the direction of the door.
"Luke?" I blinked, slightly confused at the sight before me. Luke had his head peeking around the door, a small smile on his lips.
"Hey." He walked in, carefully shutting the door behind him. "I could have sworn I heard the guys were in here, I thought everyone was asleep." his voice was quiet, almost a whisper.
The guys? What is he on abou-
Shit.
"Aha, nope, no guys here," I leant back slightly, hopefully concealing the laptop. "Just me, haha, just..."" I laughed nervously, feeling for the top of the laptop, slowly closing it. "..Me."
My eyes fell onto a glass jar was holding. A jumbo sized, family pack of-
Pickles.
"Got hungry?" I pointed at the jar. Luke scratched the back of his neck as he tried to explain the jar of pickled vegtables in his hands.
"I noticed you liked them so," Luke mumbled, holding out the jar. "Here."
"Thanks." I said almost questionally as Luke gingerly handed me over the jar. "Can I ask what brought you to give me these at," I glanced at the clock, " 11:55 at night." I half smiled, attempting to lighten the mood as I unscrewed the lid.
"I couldn't sleep." Luke shrugged, "I was going to use them as conversation starter," he paused, as if realizing what he just said. "...Or something."
He cleared his throat, his eyes searching around the room as if something out of nowhere would jump out and give us some topic of conversation. Please don't notice the laptop, please don't notice the laptop, please don't notic th-
"What you doing on there?" He gestured at my laptop casually, unaware of the fact I was mentally screaming.
"Uh.." I pushed the laptop further away, "Nothing."
Luke rolled his eyes, "Sophie, you're about as good as lying as Michaels hair is natural."
"What? That doesn't even make-"
Before I could finish my sentance Luke had already jumped onto the bed, shoving me out of the way and opened the laptop.
"No!" I tried to pull him away but me, being a barely over 5 foot tall girl with zero percent muscle trying to move a 6'3 man child;
I'll let you picture the scene.
Luke pressed the enter key and Calum's animated voice oozed through the speakers.
"...Tight and bright!..."
His voice kept running through the speakers until the shot turned to Ashton. The pair of us were silent for a while before Luke turned around to look at me, both his eyebrows raised and his tongue poking through his teeth.
"You searched us?" He said smugly, crossing his arms and facing me.
"I was just curious okay?" I turned the other way, my cheeks grower redder my the second.
"Did it ever cross you're mind you could have just, oh I don't no..." he sighed sarcastically, waving his hand in air, "Asked us?"
I thought about it for a second, not sure on how to reply. The truth is I didn't actually know. I think the boys are a little oblivious to the power a fan can have access to. I didn't care about the age, height and birthday. I wanted to know their quirks, what makes them different. Why they're fans love them so damn much.
"You'd be surprised about how much I know about you now, actually."
"Go on." he imposed.
"Well for starters," I sighed, wondering where to begin. " I know Michael has some odd Panda Express addiciton." I listed, "Ashton tweets like every four minutes... and you," I looked up into Luke's eyes. "You do smileys really weirdly."
Luke snorted "Alright, I'll give you that." He plonked himself beside me on the mattress. " he nudged me. Anything else you want to know?"
Well, there was one last thing...
"How many likes do you get on average per post?" I said, slightly quicker then I usually would in an attempt to make the question sound the least less stupid.
"What?" Luke replied, amused.
"You heard me." I said, "You're like instafamous, Mr..." I recalled his username in my head, "Luke is a penguin?" I put on a deep voice and hunched my shoulders forward. "Hey I'm Luke and I like to party." I mocked.
A slight sprig of crimson grew on Luke's cheeks as he smiled sheepishly. "How 'bout we find out?" he said, pulling out his phone. He raised it up in front of my face, about to take a photograph.
"No thankyou.." I pushed the phone away from my face. I glanced at the clock again that read past midnight. I was in a pair of red pajama pants and a basketball jersey, my hair was tangled as it rested on top of my face and my eyes were tired and baggy. No way was he getting a picture of me in this state. Luke huffed.
"Are you ticklish?" he asked randomly.
"Don't. Even. Think about it." I warned. I would not be held responsible for this guy's injuries if he did. Before he could answer I sprung to my feet and belted to the door. I felt Luke run up behind me as I reached for the door handle but Luke slammed it back shut with his left hand.
"No! Luke, I look horrible!" I protested, my cheek pressed up against the door.
"I beg to differ." he chuckled. His chest was up against my back, him using his body as a sheild to stop me escaping from his grasp. His phone came into my view. "Smile!" he said, sing- songy, amused by my squirming.
"Luke!"
"Sophie, you made the picture blurry." He said, fake annoyed. As he spoke I could feel the vibrations on my back and I could feel his warm breath on the nape of my neck. "Don't move," he said. I could, even though I was facing the door and I couldn't see his face, still sense another one of Luke's signature smirks appearing on his lips.
"Honey."