Blooming
Tension
~Luke~
If this wasn’t such a pressing situation I would have made a joke about how Asian Calum looked right now.
His eyes were squinted angrily and the veins in his neck were much more prominent than in a regular situation. He looked like shit, if I’m being completely honest. He had bags under his eyes, his hair was a mess and I’m not even going to try and figure out when the last time he showered was.
“What the fuck is wrong with you.” He screamed in my face and I moved further back into the wall, not being used to him treating me like this. I wasn’t exactly sure what he was talking about but I’m really regretting the times I encouraged him to go to the gym. His strong build was pushing me harshly into the door and my shoulders were starting to ache from his grip.
I moved to push him off me when he began yelling again. “You think it’s okay to go behind my back to see MY girlfriend. Don’t you know anything about the bro code?” I wanted to make a snarly comment about how he didn’t understand how it worked either but I didn’t want to anger him more than this. This is the worst I have ever seen him and to have it directed at me was even more frightening.
Ashton’s voice sounded from the other side of the room but I couldn’t really focus on it under Calum’s dark stare. Ashton’s voice raised in volume and a few seconds later Calum was being pulled off me by my other two band members and dragged to the couch in the middle of the room.
“What the hell is wrong with you Calum?” Ashton screamed at him. This was a really nice situation to come home to. Michael was sat next to Calum on the couch, holding him back from doing anything else, as Ashton paced in front of him. I was still pressed flat against the wall, trying to regain a normal breathing pattern and recover from the shock that Calum had given me. “In what situation is it ever okay to do that to Luke? Or any one of us.”
Through gritted teeth he spoke. “He met up with my girlfriend. I saw the pictures, don't you even dare try to deny it.” The venom in his voice was truthfully scaring me, it wasn’t my fault that I ran into Lily, and even though I did it’s not a huge deal. She’s my friend too and I have every right to see her as much as the next person.
“You met up with Billy?” Ashton asked incredulously, turning away from Calum to stare at me in confusion.
“It was an accident, I promise. I didn’t know she was going to be there.” I spoke, sounding a little flustered but slowly calming down.
“Sure you didn’t.” Calum snarled and I tensed up a little.
“Hey, that’s enough Calum. Calm the fuck down or get out of here until you do.” Ashton spoke dominantly causing Calum to get up and storm back to his room. I slumped in relief and also moved in the direction of my room until a hand caught my arm. “You aren’t going anywhere until you explain to us what happened.” I sighed and nodded, taking a seat on the couch and explaining what had happened seeing as they had the right to know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“She actually tried to run away from you?” I shrugged and nodded at Michael’s question. “I feel like shit. I feel like absolute shit. I can’t believe we helped do this too her. Like yeah, it’s partially her fault but as her friends we should have known. We should have done something about it instead of letting it get to this stage where she is actually willing to run away from us in order to avoid us.”
I couldn’t agree with him more. “She was just… like ugh, the best way to describe her was broken. She was fucking broken. And all I could do was hold her and hope that it was enough for her, even though I knew it wasn’t.” I pressed the palm of my hands into my eyes to try and distract myself from the broken image of Lilly floating around my head before my fingers threaded through my hair and tugged harshly. “I can’t talk about this anymore, I’m sorry. All I know is that we need to do something to help her out and soon. I’m going to take a nap. We can deal with this later.” And in the blink of an eye I was out of the room.
~Lily~
“Are you sure you’re okay.” I laughed faintly and nodded.
“Yes, now go or you’ll be late.” Her eyes widened and she nodded, adjusting Kat on her hip before moving further out the door. She was taking Kat to play group or something like that but she was really concerned that I wouldn’t be okay with her leaving me here alone, especially after what had happened earlier today.
“Okay, now remember you can always call me if you need anything. I can come home if you really need me. Help yourself to anything in the fridge, you know where the movies are, there’s-”
“Okay, okay, I get it, you can go. Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you later, yeah?”
“Yeah, don’t miss me too much. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
I waved her off and shut the door behind me, running my fingers through my hair before heading to the room that I’ve been staying in. I wasn’t going to waste the time I had away from the boys mopping around eating and watching movies like Sarah had suggested, I was going to try and actually get some of the work done that I had planned to do this year. I’d barely even looked at any of the work I’d taken this year off to do.
I guess that’s what happens when you hang around four rowdy boys 24/7.
Not that I’m really complaining.
I don’t think that I can avoid them for much longer. As much as I’d like to run away from my problems, I can’t avoid them forever. And I really, really, miss them. Seeing Luke today really brought that fact to my attention and I can only try to ignore it for a few more days before I’ll find myself crawling back to them. It was bound to happen soon anyway.
Those boys are basically my family. As much as I hate them sometimes, I can’t seem to be apart from them for more than a few days.
I brought up safari on my Mac, bypassing all the social media websites that were sure to be making up something or other about the boys and I. I sent my friend and one of the head people on my management team, Mandy, an email requesting that she send through some of the work I was supposed to be doing whilst I was away with the boys.
Not even five minutes later and my computer was ringing, indicating I was receiving a face-time. I accepted Mandy’s call, adjusting my hair so it looked slightly more presentable than previously.
“Mandy, my leading lady!” I cheered as she popped up on the screen.
She scowled at me, hushing me. “Be quiet, my roommates sleeping and she’ll kill me if I wake her up.” I chuckled, feeling comforted by the familiar face. “Why the heck has your phone be off. Do you know how much stuff we’ve been trying to clean up here? And we can’t even talk to you about it. Jesus girl, you’re lucky I like you.”
“Sorry, my phone’s been off. I’ve been... avoiding certain people recently. What are we dealing with this time?” I asked with a sigh. Honestly, journalists should do something bigger with their lives sometimes. Not all of them are bad, but the majority are just gossipers.
She signalled for me to wait a second before I could hear her rummaging through some stuff beside her.
“Ah ha, here we go.” She told me, shuffling some magazines in front of me. “There’s this one, it talks about you and Luke getting all close or something. This one says something like “Is the fame getting too much for Lilly Underwood, first taking a year’s break and now seen leaving the One Direction tour”. The headline for this one is “Harry Styles and Lilly Underwood: Now that’s something we didn’t see coming!” And this last one’s my favourite: “Summer seemed to get too hot for Lilly Underwood, spotted leaving the 5SOS boys earlier this week.” Like wow, how long did it take for you to come up with that one?”
I gaped at her for about a minute before I rolled my eyes. “See this is why I avoid looking at anything to do with social media 90% of the time.”
“But like girl, are you and Harry hooking up because I totally dig it. Have you seen him, he’s a freaking god. I’d like to have some private time with him if you know what I mean.”
“Oh my god ew. Like I totally understand where you are coming from but last time I checked, we were saying how we were like almost related, and although Calum’s worried that I may take a different path then that, it’s kind of a no-go zone unfortunately. I can totally set you guys up though. Just, don’t tell me about any… endeavours you have after that okay?” I giggled. “Anyways, shouldn’t you be doing your job, not fantasising about Mr Styles?” A light blush spread across her pale skin before she acknowledged my statement.
“I guess you’re right. A girl can only dream though.” I snapped her name jokingly and she shot me her middle finger. “So do you want to tell me what’s going on aye?”
“You don’t want to know.” I told her truthfully rolling my eyes and sighing. “You should get yourself some popcorn, find a comfortable seat to settle down in because I have a feeling that you’ll enjoy the catastrophe I have created in my life. Well that is if you’re actually listening to me instead of day dreaming about Haz.”
After a lot of fuss, Mandy decided that she was ready for whatever I had to throw at her, a note pad and pen in hand. I told her that Calum and I had a thing going – not mentioning that it wasn’t completely feeling-based, because although she was my friend, she was also part of the team that liked to control my life and I didn’t really want my choices getting back to them. They wouldn’t really… appreciate it, is the best way to put it – and how there had been a few mishaps with Luke, indicating, but not explicitly saying, that he had feelings for me, even though I still wasn’t too sure myself. I also made mention on how Harry and I had been hanging out a lot lately and how I just needed a break from the boys and all the pressures that have been surrounding me this year. Like I was supposed to be having a break from a lot of this crap this year for crying out loud, and look where I am now.
Mandy kind of surprised me by taking notes throughout my story, commenting on certain things like a friend does but acting in a work-appropriate way at the same time. I guess she was required to do that anyway, that’s why they pay her the big bucks. Well, actually she kind of gets that from me but that’s not really important right now.
“So… what do you think?” I asked almost nervously. I didn’t want management on my back as well.
“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to handle it easily. But then again, some of the other’s might have something different to say about it. I can’t really tell you what needs to happen right now, but please keep your phone turned on because if anyone else has a problem you’ll be hearing from us, and we all know how impatient they can get so let’s not even go there.”
I nodded briskly. They really weren’t patient. Especially when they called you at 1 am and expect you to answer them. Some of them are idiots really.
“Is there like anything else that I really need to do now. Like should I be hanging out at my sister’s for a few days or get straight back to the tour?”
“I’m really sorry hun, I can’t answer that until I talk to the others, but I’ll probably get onto them after I finish up with you. I’ll have an answer to you by tomorrow at the latest, but you might have to be ready for a video conference in case that’s what they decide needs to happen.” She was about to say something else but the doorbell rang here.
“I’m sorry Mandy, I really need to see who this is. I’ll be back in a second. Just hang on.”
“Yeah that’s fine, I’ll be here. I’m going to text the team to let them know we’ve spoken.”
“Yeah okay, I’ll be right back.”
I approached my sisters front door cautiously, unsure as to whom it may be. I knew that Sarah or Craig wouldn’t have rung the doorbell so who could it be?
My face scrunched up in confusion as I took in the sight of Calum in front of me. Before I could even properly react, however, he was speaking.
“Please don’t say anything, I need to get this off my chest. I know that you probably hate me, and that you’ve said that we should take a break. And I know that you never really considered our relationship to be real or anything like that but…"
He stopped to take a deep breath.
"I think I love you.”
If this wasn’t such a pressing situation I would have made a joke about how Asian Calum looked right now.
His eyes were squinted angrily and the veins in his neck were much more prominent than in a regular situation. He looked like shit, if I’m being completely honest. He had bags under his eyes, his hair was a mess and I’m not even going to try and figure out when the last time he showered was.
“What the fuck is wrong with you.” He screamed in my face and I moved further back into the wall, not being used to him treating me like this. I wasn’t exactly sure what he was talking about but I’m really regretting the times I encouraged him to go to the gym. His strong build was pushing me harshly into the door and my shoulders were starting to ache from his grip.
I moved to push him off me when he began yelling again. “You think it’s okay to go behind my back to see MY girlfriend. Don’t you know anything about the bro code?” I wanted to make a snarly comment about how he didn’t understand how it worked either but I didn’t want to anger him more than this. This is the worst I have ever seen him and to have it directed at me was even more frightening.
Ashton’s voice sounded from the other side of the room but I couldn’t really focus on it under Calum’s dark stare. Ashton’s voice raised in volume and a few seconds later Calum was being pulled off me by my other two band members and dragged to the couch in the middle of the room.
“What the hell is wrong with you Calum?” Ashton screamed at him. This was a really nice situation to come home to. Michael was sat next to Calum on the couch, holding him back from doing anything else, as Ashton paced in front of him. I was still pressed flat against the wall, trying to regain a normal breathing pattern and recover from the shock that Calum had given me. “In what situation is it ever okay to do that to Luke? Or any one of us.”
Through gritted teeth he spoke. “He met up with my girlfriend. I saw the pictures, don't you even dare try to deny it.” The venom in his voice was truthfully scaring me, it wasn’t my fault that I ran into Lily, and even though I did it’s not a huge deal. She’s my friend too and I have every right to see her as much as the next person.
“You met up with Billy?” Ashton asked incredulously, turning away from Calum to stare at me in confusion.
“It was an accident, I promise. I didn’t know she was going to be there.” I spoke, sounding a little flustered but slowly calming down.
“Sure you didn’t.” Calum snarled and I tensed up a little.
“Hey, that’s enough Calum. Calm the fuck down or get out of here until you do.” Ashton spoke dominantly causing Calum to get up and storm back to his room. I slumped in relief and also moved in the direction of my room until a hand caught my arm. “You aren’t going anywhere until you explain to us what happened.” I sighed and nodded, taking a seat on the couch and explaining what had happened seeing as they had the right to know.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“She actually tried to run away from you?” I shrugged and nodded at Michael’s question. “I feel like shit. I feel like absolute shit. I can’t believe we helped do this too her. Like yeah, it’s partially her fault but as her friends we should have known. We should have done something about it instead of letting it get to this stage where she is actually willing to run away from us in order to avoid us.”
I couldn’t agree with him more. “She was just… like ugh, the best way to describe her was broken. She was fucking broken. And all I could do was hold her and hope that it was enough for her, even though I knew it wasn’t.” I pressed the palm of my hands into my eyes to try and distract myself from the broken image of Lilly floating around my head before my fingers threaded through my hair and tugged harshly. “I can’t talk about this anymore, I’m sorry. All I know is that we need to do something to help her out and soon. I’m going to take a nap. We can deal with this later.” And in the blink of an eye I was out of the room.
~Lily~
“Are you sure you’re okay.” I laughed faintly and nodded.
“Yes, now go or you’ll be late.” Her eyes widened and she nodded, adjusting Kat on her hip before moving further out the door. She was taking Kat to play group or something like that but she was really concerned that I wouldn’t be okay with her leaving me here alone, especially after what had happened earlier today.
“Okay, now remember you can always call me if you need anything. I can come home if you really need me. Help yourself to anything in the fridge, you know where the movies are, there’s-”
“Okay, okay, I get it, you can go. Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you later, yeah?”
“Yeah, don’t miss me too much. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”
I waved her off and shut the door behind me, running my fingers through my hair before heading to the room that I’ve been staying in. I wasn’t going to waste the time I had away from the boys mopping around eating and watching movies like Sarah had suggested, I was going to try and actually get some of the work done that I had planned to do this year. I’d barely even looked at any of the work I’d taken this year off to do.
I guess that’s what happens when you hang around four rowdy boys 24/7.
Not that I’m really complaining.
I don’t think that I can avoid them for much longer. As much as I’d like to run away from my problems, I can’t avoid them forever. And I really, really, miss them. Seeing Luke today really brought that fact to my attention and I can only try to ignore it for a few more days before I’ll find myself crawling back to them. It was bound to happen soon anyway.
Those boys are basically my family. As much as I hate them sometimes, I can’t seem to be apart from them for more than a few days.
I brought up safari on my Mac, bypassing all the social media websites that were sure to be making up something or other about the boys and I. I sent my friend and one of the head people on my management team, Mandy, an email requesting that she send through some of the work I was supposed to be doing whilst I was away with the boys.
Not even five minutes later and my computer was ringing, indicating I was receiving a face-time. I accepted Mandy’s call, adjusting my hair so it looked slightly more presentable than previously.
“Mandy, my leading lady!” I cheered as she popped up on the screen.
She scowled at me, hushing me. “Be quiet, my roommates sleeping and she’ll kill me if I wake her up.” I chuckled, feeling comforted by the familiar face. “Why the heck has your phone be off. Do you know how much stuff we’ve been trying to clean up here? And we can’t even talk to you about it. Jesus girl, you’re lucky I like you.”
“Sorry, my phone’s been off. I’ve been... avoiding certain people recently. What are we dealing with this time?” I asked with a sigh. Honestly, journalists should do something bigger with their lives sometimes. Not all of them are bad, but the majority are just gossipers.
She signalled for me to wait a second before I could hear her rummaging through some stuff beside her.
“Ah ha, here we go.” She told me, shuffling some magazines in front of me. “There’s this one, it talks about you and Luke getting all close or something. This one says something like “Is the fame getting too much for Lilly Underwood, first taking a year’s break and now seen leaving the One Direction tour”. The headline for this one is “Harry Styles and Lilly Underwood: Now that’s something we didn’t see coming!” And this last one’s my favourite: “Summer seemed to get too hot for Lilly Underwood, spotted leaving the 5SOS boys earlier this week.” Like wow, how long did it take for you to come up with that one?”
I gaped at her for about a minute before I rolled my eyes. “See this is why I avoid looking at anything to do with social media 90% of the time.”
“But like girl, are you and Harry hooking up because I totally dig it. Have you seen him, he’s a freaking god. I’d like to have some private time with him if you know what I mean.”
“Oh my god ew. Like I totally understand where you are coming from but last time I checked, we were saying how we were like almost related, and although Calum’s worried that I may take a different path then that, it’s kind of a no-go zone unfortunately. I can totally set you guys up though. Just, don’t tell me about any… endeavours you have after that okay?” I giggled. “Anyways, shouldn’t you be doing your job, not fantasising about Mr Styles?” A light blush spread across her pale skin before she acknowledged my statement.
“I guess you’re right. A girl can only dream though.” I snapped her name jokingly and she shot me her middle finger. “So do you want to tell me what’s going on aye?”
“You don’t want to know.” I told her truthfully rolling my eyes and sighing. “You should get yourself some popcorn, find a comfortable seat to settle down in because I have a feeling that you’ll enjoy the catastrophe I have created in my life. Well that is if you’re actually listening to me instead of day dreaming about Haz.”
After a lot of fuss, Mandy decided that she was ready for whatever I had to throw at her, a note pad and pen in hand. I told her that Calum and I had a thing going – not mentioning that it wasn’t completely feeling-based, because although she was my friend, she was also part of the team that liked to control my life and I didn’t really want my choices getting back to them. They wouldn’t really… appreciate it, is the best way to put it – and how there had been a few mishaps with Luke, indicating, but not explicitly saying, that he had feelings for me, even though I still wasn’t too sure myself. I also made mention on how Harry and I had been hanging out a lot lately and how I just needed a break from the boys and all the pressures that have been surrounding me this year. Like I was supposed to be having a break from a lot of this crap this year for crying out loud, and look where I am now.
Mandy kind of surprised me by taking notes throughout my story, commenting on certain things like a friend does but acting in a work-appropriate way at the same time. I guess she was required to do that anyway, that’s why they pay her the big bucks. Well, actually she kind of gets that from me but that’s not really important right now.
“So… what do you think?” I asked almost nervously. I didn’t want management on my back as well.
“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to handle it easily. But then again, some of the other’s might have something different to say about it. I can’t really tell you what needs to happen right now, but please keep your phone turned on because if anyone else has a problem you’ll be hearing from us, and we all know how impatient they can get so let’s not even go there.”
I nodded briskly. They really weren’t patient. Especially when they called you at 1 am and expect you to answer them. Some of them are idiots really.
“Is there like anything else that I really need to do now. Like should I be hanging out at my sister’s for a few days or get straight back to the tour?”
“I’m really sorry hun, I can’t answer that until I talk to the others, but I’ll probably get onto them after I finish up with you. I’ll have an answer to you by tomorrow at the latest, but you might have to be ready for a video conference in case that’s what they decide needs to happen.” She was about to say something else but the doorbell rang here.
“I’m sorry Mandy, I really need to see who this is. I’ll be back in a second. Just hang on.”
“Yeah that’s fine, I’ll be here. I’m going to text the team to let them know we’ve spoken.”
“Yeah okay, I’ll be right back.”
I approached my sisters front door cautiously, unsure as to whom it may be. I knew that Sarah or Craig wouldn’t have rung the doorbell so who could it be?
My face scrunched up in confusion as I took in the sight of Calum in front of me. Before I could even properly react, however, he was speaking.
“Please don’t say anything, I need to get this off my chest. I know that you probably hate me, and that you’ve said that we should take a break. And I know that you never really considered our relationship to be real or anything like that but…"
He stopped to take a deep breath.
"I think I love you.”
Notes
Whoaaaaa say what?
Sorry not sorry about the cliffhanger, I had to end the chapter somewhere...
Sorry this has taken a while, as I've probably mentioned previously, I've got to focus a lot more on my school stuff this year because it's actually like important this year.
But I've just finished exams and I have about two-three weeks to actually breathe and do the stuff I want so hopefully you'll get a few updates in that period of time!
I hope you're all good, even though like this week has been sad (if you're 1d af like me)
I've got a few announcements (which I was going to tell you about ages ago but I forgot whoops sorry):
I have two or three new stories coming very soon.
The first one which has approximately 10 chapters already written is a Calum one called Asshole
I also have a new Harry one, and a new Ashton one that I hope to put up once I get further into the production of them :)
That's all from me this time
Happy Easter for next week!
And to everyone who has a March birthday, I hope you all had a fab day!
I'll be back soon, just drop me a comment to prompt me aye haha and please continue to vote and subscribe as well <3
You're all awesome!
Until Next Update,
Much Love Always,
xxg
Please update! I just started the book(and finished it) and love it! Update as soon as you can please. :) <3
1/11/17