HANDLE WITH CARE
4. Public Information.
A N N I E
It was Annie's day off yesterday, and yet she spent it dancing with her client when she was supposed to be tidying his room. She had just finished with her last client of the day before heading over to her friend Nina's book store.
They never spoke about Annie's work, primarily because Annie wasn't allowed to, her clients information was top class private and she could never ever speak about them. She wasn't even supposed to say their names yet she couldn't help telling Nina about Luke.
She didn't tell her about his problems or what they've discussed in their session but she did tell her that apparently he was famous.
"Well what's his last name?" Nina tapped away at her computer, her feet up on the desk as it was way past closing time.
Her and Annie were the type of friends that preferred the quiet life, like reading and watching films together. They rarely went out to clubs and parties but when they did, they went out.
Nina was very confident in herself, which Annie couldn't help but admire giving she was a little on the shy side.
Her job allowed her to hide that well though, considering it was literally her job to be confident and talk and engage in conversations with strangers.
When they went out however, Nina liked to hype them both up so they knew just how amazing they looked. It probably sounded big headed but it worked for them.
"I'm not supposed to tell you," Annie muttered, taking a bite out of her well needed late lunch. Nina gave her the eyes; where she would raise an eyebrow and stare at Annie until she gave in. Annie always gave in because of her awkward nature that couldn't handle being stared at for that long. "But, Hemmings."
Nina nodded in success, tapping some more on her computer before raising her eyebrows. "He's hot," she turned the screen to Annie, images of a younger Luke flooding the screen.
"This is so weird, stop." Annie turned away, feeling as though she had betrayed Luke's privacy.
Nina ignored her, scrolling through the google search as her eyes deepened. "Has he told you about his parents?" She questioned, clicking onto one of the many news outlets.
Annie shook her head, they hadn't got to that yet, they hadn't even spoken about the reason for his problems yet.
"Oh, well, they were all in a car accident, Luke was the only one to survive." She sighed, seeing an unpleasant and disturbing image the paparazzi managed to get and sell.
"That's terrible," Annie whispered, feeling her heart drop to the centre of the earth and flying out the other side. She knew she would have to wait for Luke to actually talk about this but she wanted to help him get through this. "I had no idea."
"He's super famous. Millions of followers. Damn, his band mates are good looking too." Nina was now stalking their twitters, Luke's being inactive from over a year ago.
Annie looked back at the screen. She recognised these people from the poster Luke had yesterday. Nina was currently looking at photos of Calum, he tweeted a few days ago.
It was a photo of his dog, the caption being 'love my little guy' which Nina thought was adorable. Annie rolled her eyes before noticing her click on Luke's profile.
His last tweet was about the last show on their third world tour. He was thanking everyone for loving the music as much as he did and listening to them.
Without a second thought, Nina tapped in the band name on YouTube, seeing the millions of subscribers the account had along with the hundreds of millions of views their songs had.
She clicked on the most viewed one, she looks so perfect, and Annie thought this was a completely different band. Luke looked nothing like he did now, none of them did. Just hearing his voice sing was so foreign to her, so different to his talking voice she felt as though this was luke's singing twin brother maybe.
Actually, she knew he had an older brother by the name of Jack, she met him yesterday. He was very friendly, and flirty, but she thinks he was doing that ironically.
"Can you stop now, I'm violating his privacy." Annie frowned, trying to ignore Luke's wonderful voice as she started rummaging in her purse.
"It's public information. Millions of people have seen this legally, so it's perfectly fine. Anyway, when's your next appointment with him?" Nina turned her computer off, grabbing the keys to the shop and following Annie out.
"Tomorrow, he's always got the last sessions." Annie followed Nina to the door, wrapping her scarf around her neck as September brought the bitter winds.
"Can I come? I want to meet him." She nudged Annie's side, opening the café door for her like she always did.
It was routine for them to go to Linettie's, a family cafe owned by a sweet old Spanish lady. Her daughters and granddaughters would work in the shop, all of them being super friendly and remembering the duos drinks.
Nina and Annie could talk for hours, and they do, and they would probably still be talking now if it wasn't for rockstar Luke Hemmings walking in.
Annie never would of thought of him as a rockstar if it wasn't for the mass search her best friend did only an hour ago.
Her eyes bulged as the cream from her hot chocolate stuck to her top lip. Nina gestured to the accident, laughing as Annie furiously rubbed away the excess cream, putting her hot chocolate down as she checked if she looked ok in the reflection.
"Nina I swear to god if you say anything about what we found out today I will burn your shop down," Annie hissed, her eyes noticing how Nina's glinted with mischief.
"Here he comes," she winked, sitting back and smiling to the two men walking over.
"Hey," Luke smiled, cup in hand as Jack stood next to him. Jack was texting someone on his phone before slipping it back in his pocket, smiling at the two women sat down.
"Hi," Annie pulled the sleeves of her jumper past her hands, realising sitting near the open window probably wasn't a good idea considering the low temperatures. "How're you?"
"Good, good yeah, we're just getting some coffee, we're not staying." Luke nodded, sipping from his take away cup as he side-looked at his brother.
"He actually agreed to leaving the house with me for the first time in, like, years, so this is a pretty monumental moment." Jack commented, smiling to his brothers therapist. "We can stay for a little bit, right Luke?"
Luke was scowling at his older brother, silently growling as he let out a deep breath.
It wasn't that he didn't want to spend time with Annie, but after their dance yesterday it got a little awkward. He didn't want it to be, he actually wanted to dance to all the albums he owned (which was a lot), but as soon as the first one finished and a silence fell it was the only thing in the room for what felt like hours.
He also thought it was a little odd that he was slightly seeing his therapist outside of his sessions. He wasn't seeing her, obviously because that was weird, he just happened to run in to her of course.
"Right... there's a table over there." He pointed to the other side of the room, away from his therapist and her friend.
"You can sit with us if you want, it's no bother." Nina spoke, smirking to Luke before waving him and his brother down to sit with them.
Jack sat next to Nina, already starting a conversation before Luke even had the time to sit. He didn't want to sit, not next to his therapist, but he did want to sit next to Annie.
He didn't understand why he had these feelings for Annie, he had only know her for a few weeks and already he wouldn't know what to do without her.
Jack didn't know this but, he wasn't the reason why Luke left the house today, it was actually Annie. In their last session they had spoke about how keeping himself locked away wasn't healthy, and that it shouldn't matter about paparazzi, that his health comes first. Luke had never thought about himself like that, like he deserved to come first but Annie was showing him that it was ok to be selfish sometimes, and he loved it.
Whilst they sat in an uncomfortable silence, Annie noticed how he was staring, and laughing a little, at her not-so-adult drink of hot chocolate. She didn't care that adults were supposed to have lattes or cappuccinos or whatever, you could never go wrong with a hot chocolate in Annie's eyes.
And in Luke's eyes, Annie could do no wrong, not even if she tried.
-
It had been raining all day and for the life of her Annie couldn't fix her heater. Normally she would just kick it and it would start up again but Annie might of kicked it a little too hard this time.
Her previous client was being a bitch, and although Annie couldn't say anything rude she wished she could just knock some sense into the woman. Her husband had a pretty extravagant affair, before taking their kids and fleeing the country, all in less than 24 hours. She wasn't holding up very well but she was bitching about every little inconvenience in her life, which Annie tried to advice wasn't a good way at keeping positive.
Luckily for Annie it was her last session in a few minutes with Luke, but unlucky for her she couldn't be any colder even if she went and swam in the Artic. She was most definitely a cold person, which had its perks in the summer but right now, the start of a freezing autumn wasn't the best.
"Just fucking work you piece-" Annie started ranting, twisting at the twisty thing on the side of the radiator. It didnt do anything, the thing was still an icicle of some metal in her office.
"Did you want some help? What's the problem?" Lukes voiced echoed through the room, hot smokes of air escaping his lips as he walked in.
Annies first thought was how comfy he looked, Big jumper, coat, some comfy looking trousers and trainers. She was in black trousers, a striped button up and some heals. She was kind of hoping Luke would suggest they take their shoes off again so her toes could get some air, even if it would give her frost bite.
"It's nothing, just the radiator isn't working so it's freezing. You might want to keep your coat on." She chuckled as he started to take it off, confused as to why he carried on, even after her warning.
"Well, I'm warm actually so you can wear this if you want, it's fluffy on the inside." He held it out to her, trying not to let his teeth chatter as the cold nipped at his skin.
He was lying about being warm, how could he be warm in this environment? It was probably the worst rains they've had for a long time, but he didn't mind getting a little cold so Annie could warm up.
"No, it's ok, that'd be unprofessional. Thanks anyway." She shook her head and sat down in her chair, her body stiffening slightly when Luke made his way over.
"Unprofessional my ass," He rolled his eyes, draping the coat over her shoulders and smiling before sitting himself on the couch, laughing when he saw her hurriedly getting into the oversized material.
"Anyway, it was good to see you out yesterday," Annie started and Luke's heart skipped a beat. "It's nice to know you're going out again. I must be doing something right."
"Well after your speech about self-importance I realised I can go out and get a coffee if I want one, its my choice." He saw how excited she got when he mentioned she was the reason, that she helped and he realised how happy that made her.
Annie nodded her head quickly, "That's amazing, soon you'll be able to talk to your friends again, meet up with them maybe." She commented, her eyes staring into his own as she questioned him.
"I don't think so, that's too much. I don't think I'm ready for that," he muttered, feeling stupid about how he can't even talk to his friends, his family. He wouldn't know what to say,
Hey, I missed you, Sorry I've been ignoring your calls and texts and tweets and visits, I just couldn't cope with the past and didn't want to live out the future. It wasn't your fault, of course it wasn't, it was mine really. I shouldn't of shut you out, shouldn't of pretended you didn't exist, that our careers weren't important. I ruined that for you and I'm sorry.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel rushed. You can talk to them whenever you're ready." Annie noted, making sure not to talk about his friends again. "Maybe you should stick to going out once a week, or a few times a week."
Luke nodded, before furrowing his eyebrows and shaking his head. "I don't want to go out alone."
"Well, if it's make things any easier, we could meet at the coffee shop and just go for walks or whatever you need." She smiled.
"Sounds good, can't wait." They heard the familiar knocking on the door and Luke lifted himself up, hesitating on whether or not to ask for his coat back before just saying a thank you and goodbye.
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This isn't the best but I kinda rushed it because I wanted to get something out
I'm sorrrryyyyyy
It'll get bettterrrrrr
Love you alll thank you
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A x