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morningfears · 5 years

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Through the Lens

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Tour Photographer!Reader x Luke, set right after the Youngblood release. | You’re the tour photographer for 5 Seconds of Summer’s latest tour. This is the first tour you’ve done with them and you go from not really knowing much about them to falling in love with a certain lead singer a little too quick. Mentions of cheating, mentions of hate and really rude/awful comments, mentions of anxiety.

Word Count: 21k (Fuck if I know, man)

For the first time since leaving Los Angeles nearly a week ago, everything is quiet. There are no screaming fans, elated at seeing their favorite boys. There are no bustling crew members, setting up the stage or tuning guitars. There are no shouting band members, laughing and joking with one another as they celebrate the return of tour. There is only silence and its presence allows you to breathe, really and truly breathe, for the first time in nearly a week. The hotel room is still, undisturbed by the outside world, and the hum of the air conditioner serves as white noise, drowning out your thoughts, as you lie on top of the oversized duvet and take a moment to rest.

The beginning of any tour is always the hardest part for you. While everyone else celebrates being together again, carefree and anxious to get back on stage, you desperately search for your place amongst the chaos. You always aim to blend in, fade into the background, in an attempt to be as unobtrusive as possible. You’re painfully aware that most of the artists you work with have cameras shoved in their faces for a large majority of their time and you don’t want to make it any worse for them. You like for your photos to feel natural, captured in the moment rather than forced or staged, and your best work is done when your presence is barely felt.

In most cases, the first week is the one where the bands you tour with tend to get used to your presence. For the first few days, usually before the shows really begin, they’re painfully aware of the camera hanging around your neck. However, as soon as the madness of performing really starts walls begin to drop and you’re allowed a more intimate view of your subjects. Over the years, you’ve even managed to befriend several of the bands that you’ve worked with. Most of the tours you’ve been on have been with bands you’ve either worked for previously or were on tour with at one point.

Following your first tour, your jobs seemed to be varying degrees of relation. After your initial stint photographing SWMRS as they toured with All Time Low, you actually toured with All Time Low. Following your tour with All Time Low, you managed to photograph Neck Deep. Then, it was One OK Rock. And every time, you’ve felt at home. You’ve felt like you were among friends.

This time, however, feels a bit different.

For the first time in nearly three years, you’re on the road with a band that you’ve never worked with or around. Though you managed to photograph them at a festival months ago, you weren’t there primarily for them and you don’t count that among your experience working with them. Instead, this time you have Jack, All Time Low’s guitarist and a friend dating back to one of your first tours, to thank for your introduction to 5 Seconds of Summer.

When the boys decided to go in a different direction for their latest tour, he’d tossed your name into the running without a second thought. Your photography style suited their new era, he promised them, and he sang your praises as a professional and as a friend. He showed them all of his favorite photos from the tour you’d gone on with them, showed them photos you took of him at festival shows or just on a whim, and promised them that you would be an excellent addition to the tour. He even sent them all your Instagram account, not so subtly hinting for them to give you a follow, and had been more excited than you when they asked you to join them on tour.

It’s not that you’re not grateful. Quite the opposite, honestly. Of all of the artists that you’ve had the opportunity to work with, 5 Seconds of Summer are easily the biggest and will, hopefully, boost your career. But the task of settling into a new environment, surrounded by new crew members and a new band, is always a bit daunting. You never want to overstep with your photographs, you never want to invade their personal space, and the initial task of getting to know the boys and what they’re comfortable with takes time. And while other bands you’ve worked with have been a little less cautious about their image, more willing to just allow you to photograph them as you saw fit, you’ve noticed that things are a little more curated with your current bosses.

It’s not that the image you see of them is fake. They’re vulnerable and open, more so now than they ever have been, but they’re invested in producing a certain image. In the week that you’ve been with them, you’ve never seen them in anything other than their stage clothes (a marker that you extend to the clothing they wear when doing promos or meeting fans). You have yet to see Ashton in anything other than a leather jacket and a white t-shirt. You have yet to see Michael in anything other than all black, a hoodie tossed over it all and outfit completed with a hat. You have yet to see Calum without his silver boots and leather jacket. You have yet to see Luke without his boots and some sort of jewelry.

It doesn’t feel fake, not really, but you’re painfully aware that you have yet to see the real 5 Seconds of Summer.

You hope that, as tour drags on, you’ll be able to get to know them better. You’re spending six months on the road with them so you’re anticipating getting to know the real 5 Seconds of Summer. However, you’re never quite certain with unfamiliar artists and, as they’re a little higher up the celebrity food chain than any band you’ve worked with, you’re not sure just how well that’s going to go. Though Jack assured you that the boys are fantastic and that you’d get along well with them, the bundle of nerves that has resided in your stomach since agreeing to join them on tour has yet to dissipate. You imagine that you’ll feel this way, a little on edge and a little overwhelmed, until you really get into the groove of life on tour with them. Whatever the case may be, though, you can only hope that you’ll at least be given the chance to see them as they are, not as they want you to see them.

Based on the limited interaction you’ve had with them so far (an impromptu photoshoot before the first show, photographing the first three shows of tour, photographing the dressing room before the first show, and the subsequent presentation of the images for their approval after each), you genuinely like them. The guys are funny, lively and excited to be back on the road after a sort of hiatus, and you can only imagine that your fondness for them will grow as you get to know them.

The sound of your cellphone vibrating against the nightstand pulls you away from your reflections of the first week of tour, drags you out of your bubble of silent contemplation, and you reach blindly for it with a frown quirking your lips. The name at the top of the screen reads Noah and a photograph that you’d taken of him years, lifetimes, ago greets you. It’s the third time he’s called since you stepped off the plane earlier in the day and you know that you should answer him, that you should at least send him a text to let him know you arrived safely, but the mere thought of speaking to him ties your stomach in knots.

Once upon a time, you were in love with him. Once upon a time, you imagined a future that featured him quite prominently and laughed at anyone who told you that that vision might change. Once upon a time, you would’ve jumped at the chance to speak with him when he was halfway across the country. Once upon a time, the beginning of tour brought about an ache in your chest as you were forced to be away from him for months at a time.

But those days are long over.

Now, you feel an overwhelming sense of relief whenever you settle into your seat to leave for tour. Now, you screen his calls and speak with him once every few days, if not less. Now, you forget that he’s even a part of your life until you return home and are faced with the reality of sharing an apartment and a German Sheppard. Now, you relish in the fact that he’s at least a thousand miles away at any given moment and it all makes you feel like shit.

Noah has always been the better person in your relationship. He’s always been kind and loving, supportive and encouraging. He’s always been a rock, someone that you could count on to answer even if you were calling at three in the morning, panicking over something that he couldn’t even remotely begin to help with. You always imagined that you’d get married someday, have kids and settle into a life of editorial photography or maybe even teaching, but you’re a different person than you were when the two of you met. You’re no longer the person that he fell in love with and neither is he.

You just can’t bring yourself to end things.

You’ve tried, several times, to break things off with Noah. You’ve written letters, rehearsed speeches, and even called in friends for backup. But every time you try, something stops you. The one time you actually managed to get the words out, he spent two weeks wooing you with flowers and music and you took him back without really thinking about it because he’s the kind of person that you never want to see upset. You’ve been with him for nearly five years, though the latter year and a half of that has simply been you going through the motions of a relationship rather than actually playing an active role. The idea of hurting him, the idea of hurting the first person you ever loved and the first person to ever love you, hurts but you know that you’re going to have to rip off the bandaid sooner rather than later.

You know that it’d be easy to do it while you were on tour, send him a text or a letter or a phone call and tell him that you want out, but every time you attempt to say the words, they get stuck in your throat.

A part of you has always hoped that he’d get tired of you touring and break up with for someone who had a normal job and was at home more than three months out of the year. A part of you always hoped that he’d get jealous over your friendships with band members and give you a reason to break up with him. But no matter what happens, he’s understanding and kind, loving and supportive. And you think that might be part of the reason you’ve had so much trouble.

While Noah has done nothing but love and support you, you’ve missed so many milestones in his life. You missed his graduation, you missed parties and events for his work, you missed little things like seeing his favorite movie with him or spending Valentine’s Day together. You’ve been absent for a large chunk of your relationship and you feel like you owe it to him to stick it out, regardless of your feelings.

You feel indebted to him and like the end of the relationship should be on his terms, not yours.

You know, realistically, that that’s not a healthy mindset to have. You knew, the moment you started having those thoughts, that the relationship was over. But the guilt keeps you bound to him and it only magnifies tenfold as you listen to the voicemail he’d left in lieu of you answering his call. ‘Just checking in to make sure you got to New York safe. I’m sure you’re probably working but don’t forget to get some sleep. You deserve it. I’ll talk to you later. I love you.’ The words ring hollow in your ears and you feel the crushing guilt multiply in the pit of your stomach as you replay the message two more times before returning your phone to the nightstand and burying your head under one of the pillows.

You only get a brief moment to wallow in your misery before your cellphone is ringing once more. You almost don’t want to look, you know that you can’t ignore him a second time, but the realization that it could be work related forces you to reach out with shaking fingers and grab the device from the nightstand. A number that you don’t recognize fills the screen and you frown at it before you answer with a nearly breathless, “Hello?”

“Hey!” The cheery voice of Ashton Irwin rings in your ears and you frown, somewhat confused, as you roll over on your bed and listen to him explain, “It’s Ashton. I hope you don’t mind that I got your number, I forgot to ask you for it before we all went our separate ways.”

“Ashton! Hi, no, that’s fine. Sorry, I usually would’ve given it to you guys but it’s been a whirlwind week. I don’t know how you aren’t passed out right now, honestly,” you laugh as you settle into the pillows and allow yourself to breathe again.

“It has been hectic,” he agrees with a laugh, “but we’re actually getting ready to go out. We’re all running on beginning of tour adrenaline and vodka. I was actually calling to see if you wanted to come with us. It’s not going to be just us, a bunch of people on the crew are coming, too. Just a beginning of tour celebration, you know?”

As much as you desperately want to spend the night curled up under a blanket, watching some mindless television show and foregoing human interaction for the day, you know that you have to accept. You know that your only option is to agree to join them and get to know them a little better without a camera around your neck so that you won’t feel like such an obtrusive figure in their lives.

So, without really thinking too hard, you agree. “Sure, sounds like fun,” you nod, although he can’t see you. “Do I have time to not look like I just spent the last week running around like a maniac?”

Ashton laughs at this and the sound makes you smile. It feels familiar, comfortable, and you can only hope that the others will be so open. “You have time,” he confirms, “we’re not leaving for another hour but you look like you’ve barely broken a sweat running after us. You’re gonna outshine us all if you look any better.”

You hear a groan in the background and Calum scoff, “Stop flirting, man.”

You laugh at this statement as Ashton huffs. “I’m not flirting! It’s called being nice, Calum, you should look it up. Anyway, we’ll meet you in the lobby in an hour? It’s just a dive bar so you really don’t have to get dressed up.”

“Sounds good,” you nod as you glance at your suitcase and mentally begin preparing an outfit. “See you guys in an hour!”

Ashton bids his goodbye and you toss your phone onto the bed beside you before you push yourself up into a sitting position. You sit, cross-legged and frowning, and stare at the neon green suitcase perched on top of the dresser. You’d left it open when you entered your room with every intention of taking a shower and crawling into bed, your pajamas right on top for easy access, but you know that your dreams of an early night are dashed. There’s no way you’ll be making it back to the hotel before midnight, you imagine it’ll be much later than that, and you resign yourself to spending the night nursing a glass of wine as you attempt to get to know the band.

As you climb from the bed and dig through your bag for something suitable to wear, you remind yourself that this is for the best. You need to get to know them, you need to make yourself human and accessible rather than just a shutterbug out to document their lives, but as you style your hair and refresh the makeup you’d applied that morning, you find yourself wishing that they’d chosen a morning outing or a dinner rather than a trip to a dive bar.

It’s not that you don’t appreciate a good party, you’ve partied with the best of them on tours like this, partied even harder the summer you spent working Warped Tour, but the exhaustion you feel from flying across the country is unparalleled and the guilt bubbling in the pit of your stomach has you desperate to hide away from the outside world. You feel like you could’ve faked your way through a dinner, faked your way through a small sit-down, but sitting in a crowded dive bar, choking on cigarette smoke and too many separate scents is something you know that you’re going to find difficult to pretend to enjoy.

But, as you settle into an all-black outfit, something of a uniform at this point, and wander toward the elevator to join the others in the lobby, you try to tell yourself that it won’t be that bad. If anything, it’ll be enjoyable. And, if not, you don’t feel obligated to stay longer than an hour or two. You have an early morning, editing the first in a series of tour diaries, and you know that they’ll understand if you duck out before the party is over.

As you lose yourself in thoughts of the things on your agenda, thoughts of home and how to just rip off the bandaid (would it even be possible to change your phone number and just disappear at this point? Maybe, but that’s an insane plan and you chide yourself for even thinking it), thoughts of upcoming weeks and places you’d like to see if you get a second to yourself, you don’t notice a second person enter the elevator beside you. Too busy staring at the bright silver of the wall, you don’t notice them lean around you and press the lobby button nor do you notice them raise an eyebrow at your clearly contemplative state.

It isn’t until the elevator dings, hollow, robotic voice announcing that you’ve reached the lobby, that you return to reality and frown in confusion. You feel certain that you hadn’t pressed any buttons, a slip of the mind that’s left you stranded in an elevator before, but before you can question yourself or your sanity, an increasingly familiar voice explains, “You looked like you were thinking pretty hard. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Luke smiles sheepishly at his explanation, hands shoved in his pockets and bright eyes curious rather than accusatory. This is a look you have yet to see, you’ve grown used to swaggering Luke who owns the stage and has a certain strange charm about him that draws everyone in, and to see him look every bit the twenty-something that he is, so far removed from the rockstar he portrays, is endearing. You find yourself wishing that you had your camera, wanting nothing more than to capture the look on his face, but you’ve sworn off the job for the night and resign yourself to hoping that you’ll see this side of him again.

“Oh, thanks,” you laugh as you step out of the elevator with him close behind, “sorry, I space out sometimes. Never when I’m working, obviously, but, you know. After focusing for so long, spacing out feels necessary every now and again.” When Luke giggles at your rambling, an amused grin on his lips and blue eyes shining with mirth, you mentally chastise yourself and huff a sigh of defeat. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t worry about it,” he assures you with a smile, “the spacing or the rambling. Cal and I space out a lot, too, and Ashton never shuts up so it’s nothing we’re not used to.” Luke pauses for a moment, almost hesitant, before he adds, “At least it’s cute when you do it.”

You blink at him, unsure of how to take his comment, but before you can respond or he can backtrack, Ashton’s voice echoes through the lobby. “There you guys are! You’re the last ones down. Thought you both fell asleep on me,” he laughs, smiling brightly at you both as he gestures for you to move faster in joining the group in the center of the lobby.

Luke’s still smiling, a bit of mischief shining in his eyes, though his cheeks are tinted a pale pink as you stare at him for a moment longer. He waits for you to speak, waits for you to question him or for you to ramble about how inappropriate that is or maybe for you to return his compliment with a witty quip of your own, but you remain silent. He can see the gears turning in your head once more, can see you thinking a little too much, and it makes him smile as he gestures his head toward the group. As an amused, “Come on,” leaves his lips and he begins walking toward the assembled group, you tell yourself not to read into it. You’ve met his type before, you’ve been on enough tours to know that flirty band members are a dime a dozen, and they’re usually the last ones you want to get involved with.

The flirts are usually more trouble than they’re worth, although, as you catch yourself studying Luke, watching as he grins at Calum and shakes his head in the most exaggerated manner to some unheard question, you have a sinking feeling that with him, the good could easily outweigh the bad.

A nudge to your side breaks you away from your thoughts and you smile at a guitar tech, Blake, who had helped you climb on top of (and get down from) a speaker to get a better shot during one of the first shows. As you glance around, you spot several members of the crew that you’ve managed to get to know, others that you have yet to formally introduce yourself to, and members of the opening band that you’ve already managed to befriend. You’re glad to notice that your outfit falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, not too flashy but by no means the most casual (you spot a crew member in shorts and flip flops and imagine that Ashton must’ve dragged him out of bed to join you all for a drink), as you feel yourself being swallowed by the crowd.

There are plenty of you, enough people that no one would notice if you slipped out early, and the thought comforts you as Ashton announces the plan. It’s clear that he’s the mastermind of the party scene on tour, clear that he’s the unofficial leader, at least in moments like these, and you again find yourself itching to grab your camera as you watch him laugh. They all look so carefree, a world of difference from the masks they’ve worn during promotions, different even from the looks they wore when laughing and joking with one another in their dressing room, and the festive atmosphere pushes any thoughts of worry and exhaustion from your mind as you fall into step with one of the guitar techs and follow the crowd down the street.

Any thoughts of life outside of tour dissipate as you step into the bar. Worry about home, guilt about leaving Noah’s call unreturned, questions about your future; they cease to matter as you’re handed a beer that you know you won’t drink and are pulled into a game of Cards Against Humanity with a score of techs.

The group is, without a doubt, the most raucous in the bar. What had been a relatively quiet establishment (for a bar, anyway), only a few regulars perched on stools and nursing local craft beers, has become the liveliest spot in the city. Ashton and Michael have challenged a group of locals to a game of pool, some of the guitar techs raided the board game stash and have dragged the opening act into a game of Settlers of Catan, someone has convinced the bartender to switch the music to Nickelback; chaos has descended upon the place but you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Alright, the card reads, 'What does Dick Cheney prefer?’ Everyone, pass your white cards here!”

You strain to hear Calum over the blaring music, frowning slightly before he shows the card to the group and allows you to read it. With your frown deepening, you return your gaze to the cards in your hand and shuffle through them to pick an appropriate answer. In what seems like it’s going to be a recurring pattern in your life, you don’t notice Luke settle into the empty chair beside you. You don’t notice him toss his arm over the back of your chair or shift closer to you to glance at the cards over your shoulder. It’s not until you select the card reading, ‘John Wilkes Booth,’ that he mumbles, “I don’t get it,” and makes his presence known.

He laughs as you jump, startled by his sudden appearance, and grins when a pout quirks your lips. He knows that it’s not on purpose, you don’t seem the type, and it makes the action even more endearing. He really did mean it before, he thinks you’re cute, and seeing you flustered from his teasing is fun for him. He’s used to people behaving one of two ways around him; either being completely immune to his charm, opting to treat him like the dork he’s often remembered as, or they treat him like a king, as if every word he says is worth its weight in gold. You, however, he has yet to figure you out and he can tell by the way that you’ve been surveying him, by the way you’ve been surveying the entire band, you haven’t figured them out yet, either.

He imagines that it’ll be fun, keeping you on your toes when Jack told them that you’re often the calm one. He imagines that it’ll be a nice change of pace, keeping you flustered and dropping compliments or sneaking up on you. He’s become quite fond of this, of being able to fluster people instead of it being the other way around, and he plans on having fun with this for as long as you’ll let him.

“Dick Cheney was Bush’s vice president and he accidentally shot someone while hunting. John Wilkes booth shot Lincoln. I don’t know, it sounded funny in my head,” you explain, frowning when Luke scrunches his eyebrows and processes your words.

“That’s an awful answer,” he laughs as he shifts a little closer to you to see your hand of cards. “What was the question again, What does Dick Cheney prefer?"

You nod and Luke hums. He stares at the cards in your hand, mentally going over all of them, and you feel a little claustrophobic. With a shake of your head, you begin to push away from the table. “You know what, my cards suck. I’m gonna sit this round out and go get a drink,” you mumble as you move to stand.

“No, wait,” Luke laughs, reaching for your arm before you can fully stand, “what about this one?” He gestures to the ‘Harry Potter erotica’ card and giggles as he mumbles the sentence to himself. “That one’s funny,” he giggles with a nod that suggests finality.

If Luke notices that his hand is still on your arm, he doesn’t give any indication. Instead, he keeps it there for a moment to ensure that you won’t run off before he lets go and reaches for the cards in your hands. “Hey, no teamwork!” Calum shouts, pointing at the two of you as Luke plucks the card from your hands and shoves it forward. “We’re all alone in this world. You have to be in this game, too.”

“That got real dark, real fast, man,” one of the techs points out, barely biting back their drunken laughter as Calum himself giggles.

The entire group is wasted, drunk beyond belief, and you never touched the beer that was shoved in your hand upon your arrival. You’re sober, fully aware of each and every thing going on, but you don’t feel as overwhelmed or as out of place as you imagined you would. Usually, you drink at these first events for a bit of liquid courage, searching for something to help you make friends and join the fun, but you find that it’s not needed tonight. You haven’t let your thoughts stray from the game at hand, you haven’t checked your phone or even thought about it, really, and no one has commented on your lack of drinking (other than to ask if you wanted your beer and, if not, could they have it).

You were right in imagining that this tour would be different than all the others. The crew is beginning to feel like family, the guys are beginning to feel like friends, and there’s something magical about it all. You’re not sure if it’s just because this is the first time you’ve seen them dressed down and acting like they’re having fun or if it’s because you’re genuinely enjoying the company, but as you settle into your chair and let Luke help you pick cards for subsequent rounds of Cards Against Humanity, you don’t really care all that much.

You don’t notice the ticking of the clock, you don’t notice the hours rushing past in a blur of shouting and laughter, but before you know it, the lights are on and the bartender is all but shoving what remains of your group out the door. By the end of the night, you and Luke are the only two who can realistically pass for sober. You only had a few sips of that very first beer but that was hours ago, it almost feels like another lifetime ago, and Luke hadn’t left the table after sitting down for the first game of Cards Against Humanity. He did end up getting his own stack of cards, no longer partnering with you, but watching him play made you appreciate his sense of humor. Most, if not all, of his jokes were the lamest, most ridiculous things you’d ever heard but they made you laugh harder than anyone else. Whenever Luke put down a card, you knew that you were guaranteed to get a laugh.

Toward the end of the night, it ended with you and Luke playing more with one another than with the group. The goal was to make one another laugh more than to amuse whoever chose that rounds black card and you feel a sense of ease with Luke. He still manages to fluster you, he’ll drop the odd compliment or smile at you in a way that he’s noticed makes you cheeks heat and your eyes drop involuntarily, but you feel like you’ve found a friend in him. If anything, you feel like he’ll be another friend that you keep contact with long after you begin touring with other artists.

As the cool night air hits you, a pleasant change from the stuffy bar, you feel a sense of ease wash over you. You still have yet to see the bad, you have yet to see the dark sides of the boys, but you feel like you’ve seen a glimpse of their true selves. Ashton, the sweetheart who gives compliments because he believes them, not to flirt. Calum, the fun-loving goofball who hides behind a mask of silence and stoicism. Michael, the earnest and loving soul who loves his friends and the family he’s made on tour. And Luke, the rockstar who has finally found himself, settling into his own skin and enjoying every moment of it.

You feel like you know them better now, even if you still barely know them at all, but everyone has to start somewhere. You know the little things to look for now, know the little things to keep in mind when deciding how to shoot them, and your heart is lighter than it has been in over a week as you fall into step with a guitar tech who can barely walk a straight line and giggle at Calum’s recounting of their time writing the new record.

As you wander down the sidewalk with what’s left of your group, Luke finds himself thinking the same thing as he stares at your back. You got his humor immediately and even when you didn’t, you still laughed just because he was laughing so hard. This tour is the first one back after a long hiatus filled with misery and heartbreak and he finds himself enjoying the lightheartedness that comes with your presence. He’s only known you for a week, only spoken to you at length in the few hours since stepping onto the elevator with you, but immediately he feels a sense of comfort around you. You feel familiar, comfortable, and he’s afraid if he thinks too hard about it, he won’t like the answer that he comes up with.

So, he decides to not think about it. He decides to have fun flustering you, decides to take joy in the rambling answers you give him after he compliments you or asks a question about why you took a certain photo. He decides to keep you on your toes and, as the tour goes on, finds that you’re able to do just the same with a witty retort or joke.

Three weeks pass before you get comfortable enough in your relationship with the boys to joke with them the way that they’ve seen you do with All Time Low. Three weeks pass before you tease Calum for his drunken repeated introductions in the Cocktail Chats taping, reminding him with a laugh that no one will remember who plays bass in the band if he doesn’t remind them. Three weeks pass before Michael jokes that he’s addicted to video games and you deadpan, “Well, there goes our plan for an intervention. Hope you’re happy with yourself, Michael.” Three weeks pass before Ashton leans into the fifties aesthetic he’s been experimenting with and you ask him where he’d left his time machine.

Three weeks pass before Luke manages to leave you speechless by jokingly asking if you were from Mars and when you stared at him as if he had two heads, finishing his pickup line with, “Because your ass is out of this world.” He was slightly worried that he’d gone over the top, worried that that had been inappropriate, and he looked for you to apologize but when he found his striped pants at the top of his suitcase with a note reading, “My ass has nothing on yours in these pants,” he realized that you recognized it as a joke and retaliated in your favorite way. And when he wore the pants to perform, he grinned at you and struck the most ridiculous pose he could for you to snap a picture.

Four weeks into tour and you feel as if you’re right at home amongst the chaos.

By week five, you’ve managed to become a permeant fixture in the dressing rooms. Sometimes you snap pictures, watching as the boys balance safety cones on their heads or use them to represent the Madonna cone bra, and others you sit in an unoccupied corner and edit photos from the previous show in an effort to keep up with the demand. Some nights, like tonight, you sit on the couch and lose yourself in your thoughts as you watch them banter with one another.

“You’re spacing on me again, honey,” Luke laughs, voice clearly amused and slightly out of breath from running down the hall, Calum hot on his heels, as he settles onto the couch beside you and leans over to place his head on your shoulder. “Oh, that’s a good picture,” he mumbles as he glances at the picture of Calum you’d just finished editing.

You startle, surprised at the feeling of Luke’s head on your shoulder, and shrug it lightly to jostle him before you shake your head. “You’re being nice to me,” you laugh, a teasing grin on your lips as you glance at him out of the corner of your eye, “what do you want from me?”

“Shut up,” he laughs as he reaches for your laptop and begins scrolling through the other photos you’ve taken, “I’m nice to you all the time.”

“He’s nicer to you than he is to any of us,” Michael agrees, sticking his tongue out at Luke as the latter flips him off. You laugh at this, amused by their banter, but before you can retort, Ashton chimes in.

“I thought I was your best friend, man,” he teases, a faux pout on his lips as he settles onto the arm of the couch beside you. “You dumped me, just like that. You never cuddle with me anymore!”

“You dumped me for Calum!” Luke defends, playfully indignant as he huffs and pointedly keeps his eyes on the photographs filling the screen. “You guys even have matching shirts! Do you think we should get matching shirts, honey?” he questions, glancing up at you with the biggest grin you’ve seen from him yet.

You’re still not sure why Luke insists on calling you honey, still not sure why he uses that more than your real name, but he does and it only serves to fluster you more. Every time the word leaves his lips, it stirs something in the pit of your stomach and any time you think about it, you send yourself spiraling down a rabbit hole of guilt. You don’t like thinking about why it makes you feel anything because none of the other nicknames you’ve earned from the boys have any sort of effect on you (except maybe when Ashton jokingly calls you creeper because of your ability to sneak up on them and capture pictures when they least expect it, and that’s a feeling of amusement or annoyance, depending on the day).

In recent weeks, he’s gotten friendlier, closer, flirtier, and all of it makes you feel inexplicably guilty. You’ve been this comfortable, if not more, with other band members. At one point during your most recent tour with them, you and Jack had a weekly routine of cuddling on the bus couch and watching movies (usually with an added Alex piled up somewhere close). You had band members hug and cuddle you, joke and flirt with you, but none of them ever made you feel guilty. You’ve been in a relationship the entire time and none of them ever made you feel like you were maybe venturing into dangerous territory.

With Luke, though, things are different.

You’re not sure why but every time he touches you, every time he tosses his arm over your shoulders or lays his head on your lap after a show, and every time he flirts a little more or calls you another endearing pet name, you feel a prick of guilt. You know that he doesn’t mean any of it as more than a friendly, fun, playful gesture. You know that he’s a flirt, having fun and just living the life he’s always imagined himself living, so you tell yourself not to read too much into it and, for the most part, you haven’t. But the guilt is always there, settled into the pit of your stomach and driving you just a little insane.

“You guys couldn’t pull them off like us,” Ashton retorts, bringing you back to reality, back to the conversation at hand. “I honestly think it’d be sad to see you try.”

“Don’t encourage him, Ash,” you laugh as you nudge Luke’s side and grin at the half-annoyed, half-amused sound that escapes his lips. “If you get us matching shirts, I’ll never speak to you again, Hemmings.”

“You promise?” Luke asks, a glint of mischief glimmering in his eyes as he glances up at you. “Because, I mean, you’re dominating my social life lately, honey. I’ve got to go my own way someday.”

When you stare at him, stone-faced and exasperated, Luke dissolves into a fit of giggles. His favorite reactions of yours are the non-reactions, the ones where you stare at him without indicating any feelings only for them to speak so much louder than your typical reactions. When you look at him like this, exasperated and blank, it cracks him up every time and he finds himself having to catch his breath as you keep the facial expression for as long as you can before his laughter sends you into a fit of your own.

Across the room, Michael stares at the pair of you for a long moment before he shakes his head and mumbles, “You guys are so weird.”

If either of you hear him, you don’t let on as you allow your giggles to run their course. The two of you are wrapped up in your own little world, wrapped up in one another, and that’s the way it’s become. You and Luke have become attached at the hip, you rarely find one without the other, and everyone has started to take notice. You were never a frequent social media user, you only really updated your Instagram with shots of the bands that you photographed and your website in order to maintain a digital portfolio, but you find yourself stepping away from it more and more the longer the tour progresses.

In the beginning, the comments didn’t really bother you. They were general, people commenting that they were happy to see a woman photographing the group or that they didn’t like the thought of a girl being on tour with the band. But the closer you get to Luke, the more noticeable it is that the two of you are friends rather than just colleagues, the worse the comments get.

Everyone, aside from the people who really know you, assumes that there’s more going on between the two of you than you’re letting on and while the comments have been brushed off as ridiculous, with Luke reiterating his single status any time the question is brought up in an interview, they’re getting more and more persistent. The comments on your posts of tour photos include complaints that you don’t have enough shots of the other boys, critiques about the photos of you they’ve managed to find, critiques about the way you interact with the boys (the number of people that have called you unprofessional for laughing at a joke Calum told during a tour diary has been unreal); they’ve gotten to be so overwhelming that you don’t even check the comments on your Instagram posts anymore. You simply upload photos to the band account and a few on your personal, just to keep it active, and log off.

But you imagine that has something to do with the guilt you feel. The insistence of everyone, the certainty with which they accuse you and Luke of being an item, has you on edge. You know that your friends have seen the comments and you know that Noah has to have seen them, too. You know that he would never accuse you of anything, you know that he understands how out of proportion things are blown online (specifically when it involves a band popular with people who can’t seem to draw a distinction between reality and fiction), but you find yourself wondering how the rumors make him feel. You don’t love him romantically anymore, you haven’t for a long time, but he’ll always hold a piece of your heart and hurting him is the last thing on your mind.

But as the tour progresses, as you and Luke grow closer and the online speculation surrounding you both turns more and more vitriolic, your worry grows. Seven weeks into the tour and you’ve spoken with Noah three times. The last time was almost immediately after Ashton uploaded a photo of you applying glitter to Luke’s eyes and cheekbones, grinning and standing just a little too close with Luke’s arm around your waist. You’d been afraid to look at the comments, afraid of what everyone would say, but you’d done it anyway.

Among the declarations of Luke’s beauty, the comments about the glitter, you found a few about yourself. There were a few comments about your looks, as was becoming standard practice, and a few about your seeming lack of professionalism. There were a few who declared with utmost certainty that you and Luke were an item, you were just waiting until tour was over to make it official (if you ever did). There were a few who questioned why Luke would be with you. There were some questioning why you dared get so close to him and threatening you for it.

Though all of the comments stung, none of them stung quite as badly as the awkward phone call you shared with Noah.

“Hey, I caught you,” Noah’s voice murmurs on the other end of the line, not sounding nearly as enthused as you imagined he would. “Looks like tour is going well.”

“Yeah,” you mumble, fingers absentmindedly tapping your thigh as you sit in the center of your bed. The tour bus is quiet for once, the boys are all showering after the show and the crew is finishing breaking down the setup, so you don’t feel quite so bad taking a call from the boyfriend no one knows you have. “It’s good. Fun.”

Noah is quiet for a moment, almost hesitant, before he breathes, “You and Luke look close. That’s good, you know, making friends.” He doesn’t outright accuse you of anything, doesn’t tell you that he’s seen the comments or that they bother him, but you know that’s what he’s implying. Noah has never been jealous, never been the type to throw wild accusations about, but he’s always had an uncanny ability to read you and what he sees in the photos of you and Luke is what he used to see in photos of the two of you.

“Yeah,” you mumble, quiet as you stare at the polaroids decorating the wall of your bunk. “He’s nice. They all are. They’re cool, you know?”

Noah hums his acknowledgement, letting you know that he heard you, but doesn’t respond for a long moment. “Good,” he finally hums, “I’m glad. It’s good that tour is going well.” The words sound hollow to you, they ring hollow in his own ears, and even though you can tell that he wants to be sincere, that he wants to be happy for you, something about this tour is weighing on him more than any other. So you remain quiet, waiting for him to continue. “You know I love you, right?” he finally asks, the tone of his voice cautious as he does so, not wanting to upset you even though he’s not sure you’re emotionally invested enough to be upset by anything he says anymore.

“Yeah.” You wish you had more to say to that, you wish that you could tell him that you love him, too, or that you never doubted his love for you but you don’t want to. You don’t want to comfort him, you don’t want to give him the wrong impression, so you settle for as vague an answer as you can and wait for him to continue speaking.

Noah breathes a deep sigh, an exhale that tells you he’s stopping himself from saying whatever he’d been planning on saying, before he repeats, “I’m glad that tour is going well. Europe is up next so I’m sure it’s just going to get better.”

“Yeah,” you nod, glancing at the list of tour dates you have written onto a sticky note at the head of your bed. “It’s gonna be great.”

The conversation is awkward, forced, and neither of you say the things that are on your mind. You don’t tell him that you don’t want to do this anymore, that you don’t want to force conversations and pretend that everything is alright. He doesn’t tell you that he’s jealous, that he’s heartbroken because he knows (even if you don’t yet) that you’re falling in love with someone else. Neither of you say the things that are on your mind so the only logical choice is to end the call.

When you hear the door of the bus open, you use that as your escape. “Everyone’s on their way back and I have to go over the photos with the guys now,” you mumble, voice quiet as you hope to avoid any questions about who you were chatting with.

“Sure, yeah,” Noah agrees readily, “have fun. I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”

You hum an acknowledgement, breathe a quiet, “Talk to you later, bye,” before you end the call and that’s all he needs to hear. You’re not even pretending anymore, not even giving him the illusion of love, and as much as he wants to let you go, he naively clings to some semblance of hope that this is just a phase, that you’re just out of it because you’ve spent so much time away from home.

But as he opens Instagram once more, catches sight of the photograph of you and Luke that’s dominating his ‘Explore’ page, he feels that hope dissipating. He knows that you loved him at one point but looking at this photo, he knows that that time has passed. The look in your eyes is brighter than it ever has been with him, it’s brighter than he’s ever seen you, and it hurts.

You, across the country in a tour bus filled with a myriad of other people, sit in your bunk and stare at the curtain. Even though he hadn’t directly implied anything, even though he hadn’t accused you of anything or even said more than is usual for him, Noah’s allusion to your relationship with Luke struck a chord in you. It’s made you feel guilty and you feel even guiltier for hoping that this will be the last straw, the thing that will push him over the edge and make him break up with you because you still can’t bring yourself to do it.

And that’s the worst part of it all.

Now, eight weeks into tour, the comments have hit a peak of vitriol. After being spotted out at a bar with the boys, sitting beside Luke and laughing at another dumb joke with his arm around the back of your chair, the names have gotten meaner and a few of them have even started dragging Noah into the mix. You can only assume that the guys haven’t read these or that they haven’t put too much stock in them because no one has asked you about him. A few people have commented, mentioning that you have a boyfriend and that you’re either just friends with Luke or cheating on Noah. Others speculated that you and Noah broke up, you must’ve for you to be out openly flaunting your relationship with Luke. You imagine that the guys, if they’ve read the comments, assume the latter and just leave it be.

Whatever the case, when Ashton called to ask if you wanted to go to a bar with them, you turned him down. You gave the excuse that you wanted to stay at the hotel and get some work done, you told him that you needed some time to edit and get the newest tour diary ready, but he didn’t buy your explanation.

“If you really want to stay in and work, that’s fine,” he begins, voice gentle as he weighs each of his words, “but if this is about the comments online, about the people being assholes, you can’t let them dictate your life. You have to live for yourself, not for them.”

“I know,” you nod, even though he can’t see you. “I know. But I really do need to get some work done. Plus, I have a hotel room to myself. I don’t have to share a bathroom with any boys. I can just sit in the tub and drink wine if I want. I’m going to take advantage of that.”

Ashton laughs at this and even though he’s still not convinced, even though he knows that you’re only taking advantage of the amenities because of the comments, he lets it go. He doesn’t push, he doesn’t pry. Instead, he tells you that he’ll text you the address of the club in case you change your mind. And true to his word, the moment you end the call, Ashton sends you the address and reminds you that you’re always welcome to join them, regardless of what anyone else might believe.

Although your thoughts are scattered and your stomach is churning with the guilt you’ve felt since Noah called, you attempt to get some work done. You sift through photographs, searching for the best ones for Instagram and the best ones for Facebook, you pick and choose which ones to edit and which ones to leave as raw files for the time being. You settle into the groove of working, of scrutinizing photographs instead of letting your thoughts consume you, and you almost miss the quiet knock at your door as you focus on the task at hand.

With a confused frown, you abandon your laptop on the bed and cross the room just as a second quiet knock sounds. You should’ve expected it, should’ve realized that it could be no one other than Luke, but you still feel a mild tinge of surprise as you catch sight of him. He looks soft, sleepy, and it makes you smile as you take him in. His hands are shoved in his pockets, sweatshirt and sweatpants covering him, and you find yourself enjoying this side of Luke.

You’re not sure what’s changed in the past week but after nearly two months together, Luke has gone from swaggering, confident rockstar who flirts with you any chance he gets to blushing and quiet. He’s more cautious about the way he touches you, more careful in choosing his words, and he blushes a pretty pink every time you call him sunshine or rockstar, your two favorite nicknames for him. The change felt sudden to you, almost abrupt, but you managed to roll with it. Luke, on the other hand, still feels a bit disoriented whenever he thinks about why he’s now acting like a fourteen year old with a crush around you.

“So, when are you going to tell her that you’re in love with her?”

Luke frowns, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he glances up from his notebook to watch Ashton take a seat beside him on the couch. He isn’t sure what he means by that, isn’t sure who Ashton is talking about, and he tells him as much. “Who am I in love with?”

“Really, man?” Calum asks as he passes the pair of them to grab a bottle of water from the fridge. He breathes your name, says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Luke immediately shakes his head.

“No,” he laughs, reaching for his pen once more. “I’m not in love with her. We’re just friends.”

“Denial isn’t healthy,” Ashton reminds him with a grin as he glances over Luke’s shoulder to get a glimpse of the lyrics he’s been working on. “But it’s good for the songwriting process, I guess. You writing her a love song?”

Luke opens his mouth to issue a denial, to tell Ashton that he’s not writing a love song for you, but as he thinks about it, as he really considers the motivation behind the lyrics he’s been working on so diligently, he realizes that Ashton is right. He’s had the idea for a while, had it months ago when he couldn’t sleep, but the inspiration never came to him. The inspiration for the lyrics eluded him until he spent a day with you, giggling and watching ridiculous YouTube videos and conspiracy theory documentaries, uninterrupted by the outside world. That night, after returning to his bunk with a heart full of joy and a clear head, he found himself scribbling lyrics until well into the hours of the early morning.

Now, as he refines the lyrics and works them into a better song, he realizes that the person he’s describing, the feelings he’s portraying, they all lead back to you.

He isn’t sure when things changed. He knows that he found you attractive when you joined the tour but it wasn’t his intention to fall for you. He’d only been meaning to joke around, maybe make a friend, but he’d never intended to be anything more than friends with you. But, as he really thinks about it, he can see that there’s been a hard truth at the core of every flirtatious remark he’s made. He can see that every compliment he’s given you, every tough you’ve shared, every minute of quality time, it’s all been motivated by his desire to get to know you better and to woo you. The butterflies he’s felt since first meeting you, the ones he’s desperately ignored because he doesn’t want to get hurt again, now feel like they’re swarming in the pit of his stomach and he can’t help himself as he breathes this revelation aloud.

“I am writing it for her.”

Ashton giggles at this, laughs at the look of confusion and slight awe on Luke’s face, and shakes his head. “Yeah, man. We know that. Glad you finally realize it, too. You gonna tell her or are you just going to keep pretending that it’s just friendship?”

Luke falters at this question. He knows that he should say something, that he should tell you before he gets in too deep, but he’s afraid. He feels the fear gnawing at the pit of his stomach, the fear of getting hurt again and of loving again, but he likes to think he knows you fairly well at this point. He likes to think that you wouldn’t hurt him, not in the way he’s been hurt before, but he thinks back to the comments he’s seen online. He thinks back to the name he’s seen tossed around, Noah, and the speculation from fans. He’d written it all off as people reading too much into a situation but, as he thinks about it, he realizes that his motivations and feelings have been obvious to everyone but himself.

He wants to tell you, but the comment that kept popping up and the latest source of debate among the fandom has him pressing pause. “I know it’s dumb,” he begins, carefully selecting his words, “but have you seen the comments online? The ones that talk about her boyfriend.”

“I feel like people are speculating,” Ashton shrugs as he reaches for his own bottle of water. “Maybe they saw an old picture from a previous relationship. Maybe she mentioned it a while back. She hasn’t said anything, though and, in my opinion, she seems just as into you as you are into her. I mean, if you really want to confess, you could always ask her. If, by some weird chance, she says she does have a boyfriend, you could just back off, you know? Keep it friendly. But if she’s single, go for it.”

Luke thinks about the nights the two of you have spent bantering with one another, laughing and joking and enjoying one another’s company. He thinks about the flirting that the two of you have done and the ease with which you accept his affection. He thinks about the way that only he seems to be able to fluster you or that you only respond to his flirting with flirting of your own.

“You’re right,” he nods, blinking as he looks up to glance at Ashton. “She would’ve mentioned it by now,” he shrugs. He pauses for another moment, hesitates, before he quietly admits, “I haven’t felt like this in a really, really long time. I’m afraid, Ash.”

“That’s normal,” Ashton nods, smiling encouragingly at his friend as he reaches out to pat his arm. “Putting yourself back out there is tough but you’ve been happier than I’ve seen you in a long time since you started hanging out with her. The two of you are good together and I think that you should go for it.”

Following his talk with Ashton, Luke decided that the best course of action would be to confess his feelings. He decided that, despite his terror, you were worth it. He knows it’s a bit naive but he’s built you up in his mind, built you to be this person that won’t hurt him just because he feels a comfort he’s never known around you. He feels at ease whenever you’re around, comforted and lighthearted, and he thinks back to the first week of tour when he first realized that something about you made him feel at home. He’s never met someone with that instant of an effect on him and he reasons that there has to be something there, there has to be something other than just his mind playing tricks on him, so he decides that you have to know.

He doesn’t want to tell you in front of everyone, doesn’t want his confession to be the gossip of the tour (even though he’s since learned that your relationship is a topic that everyone, not just fans, speculate about). So, he waits. He waits until he knows that he can get you alone, waits until he knows that you’ll be in a setting where a confession won’t embarrass either of you, no matter how it goes, and his time comes when Ashton sends him a text that reads, “She’s not going out with us tonight. I’m guessing you’re staying in now, too?”

When Luke replies in the affirmative, Ashton sends him a text wishing him luck and advising him to follow his heart. And before he can think too much about it, before he can talk himself out of it, he finds himself wandering down the hall to your room and knocking quietly on the door.

When you answer, dressed in a tour sweatshirt and shorts, he feels his heart melt at the sight of you. You look comfortable, at ease and dressed down, and it makes him smile. He knows that the gesture must read as lovesick, as too deep into his own feelings to really be conscious of how he looks, but when he sees the same smile reflected back on your face, it fills his chest with a warm hope. It makes him happy, puts him at ease, and he brushes past you with a quiet, “Thanks,” as you open the door wide and gesture for him to enter.

Luke settles at the head of the bed, settles against the mountain of pillows, and grabs your laptop. He smiles at the photo on the screen, a look of awe on his face as he takes in the picture of him that you managed to capture. He truly means it when he tells you that you’re his favorite photographer they’ve taken on tour, he truly means it when he tells you that you manage to capture the best photos of him, and he truly means it when he breathes, “I don’t know how you do it. You always make us look so amazing. You make me look so amazing.”

“You make my job too easy, Hemmings,” you compliment, a smile on your lips as you watch him scroll through the photos. “You’re a natural born rockstar,” you continue as he pauses on a photo of himself, looking every bit the rockstar he had felt in that moment.

Most of the time, whenever the two of you are together, everything feels simple. There is no underlying tension, no pauses or thought or intentionality put into the words that spill past your lips. However, there has always been an underlying sense of sincerity in each of your statements. Though everything is usually accompanied by a joke or said in such a tone that implies your amusement, you know that the other truly means what they say when sharing compliments. You’ve been complimentary almost the entire tour. You’ve never been shy about telling them when shows were fantastic or when they looked particularly good for a shoot, but the banter between the two of you is always light.

Even when your words come from places of utmost sincerity, they’re often masked with a thin, protective layer of humor. When the two of you are complimenting one another’s looks, even though you both sincerely mean your compliments, you mask the flirting under the guise of joking or lightening the mood. When you tell him just how good he is on stage, just how much of a rockstar he is, he knows that you’re sincere but you usually mask it with a joke or an over-exaggerated, “Let me live, Hemmings.” When he compliments your photography, even though he wants to gush that you’re the best photographer they’ve ever had, he disguises his compliments under a layer of flirting and innuendos that you’ve come to associate with him.

Although you’re easily the closest to Luke out of anyone on the tour, there’s still a protective layer of whimsy, a protective layer of lightness, that keeps you both from sharing anything more too deep. When he really thinks about it, he doesn’t know much, if anything, about your life outside of tour. He knows that you have a dog, knows that you’ve been photographing bands for almost as long as he’s been touring. He knows that you like the color green and that you hate waking up early. He knows your favorite movies, knows the things that irritate you or the things that make you happy. But he realizes that it’s all superficial, realizes that it’s all surface level, and he wants to know more. He wants to really know you, wants to know the person behind the camera, the girl behind the humor, and that’s how he knows that he’s in too deep.

Luke falling silent isn’t a feat that you manage much anymore. Since deeming you comfortable, since deeming you a friend, Luke has kept the conversation lively and the atmosphere light with you. Though he’ll sometimes sit with you in a comfortable silence, he never looks like he’s lost in thought or concerned about something. With you, he always seems at ease, content, even happy. But as you study him, watch him stare at the same photo for more than a minute, your own smile falters.

You hesitate for a second, wondering if you’re reading into his expression, but you like to imagine that you’ve gotten fairly good at reading Luke. You like to imagine that you can detect the little things, the little traces of uncertainty or confusion, the little traces of hesitance or fear, and you can see a little bit of all of those things swirling in his eyes. So, without too much of a pause, you ask, “You okay, Lu?”

“We’ve spent every day together for the last two months and I just realized that I don’t know anything about you,” he breathes, almost surprised by the fact. “We’ve gotten so close and I don’t even know if you have any siblings.”

You stare at him for a moment, surprised by his answer, before you giggle. “That’s it?” you question. “You could always ask, you know,” you laugh as you nudge his shoulder. “You had me worried. I thought something was wrong. You’re never quiet.”

“I am, too,” he defends, smiling slightly as he shifts to hand you back the laptop and moves to place his head on your shoulder. “But that’s not important. Do you? Have siblings, I mean.”

“Yeah,” you nod, almost absentmindedly as you return to editing your photos. This is the routine for the two of you, Luke sitting with you as you edit, usually him rambling about a new band he’s found or a movie he’s seen, but you imagine that this time, your night will consist of him questioning you about your life and you answering as best as you can. “I have an older brother. He has kids, in case you were wondering. Two little girls. I get to play aunt whenever I go home and visit.”

“Do you get to see your family often?” he asks as he watches you adjust the color on a photo.

“Not as often as I’d like but probably more often than you get to see yours,” you shrug. “I FaceTime my mom a lot, though. Her best friend moved away when I was young but they’ve kept in touch and on my first actual tour, I ended up going through the town that she lives in. My mom mailed a care package to her house and had her bring it to me at the venue. I didn’t get any of the cookies, the guys ate them all, but it was a nice gesture, you know?”

Luke smiles at this, turning his head to glance up at you. He can see the small smile on your face, can see the fondness in your eyes, as you talk about your family and it makes his heart swell. He loves his family, they’ve always been one of his biggest priorities, and it only serves to further solidify the feelings he’s been harboring for you knowing that you’re as devoted to his family as he is to his.

“Why photography?” he asks after a beat of silence. He’s always wondered what made you choose photography, always wondered what made you consider a life on the road, but he’s never really thought to ask before now. But, as the two of you sit in the quiet, nearly freezing room (he briefly thinks that, should the two of you end up together, he’s going to have to buy a few more blankets for his place because he knows that you love to be cold and wrapped in a blanket), he takes the opportunity to delve into your life.

“My mom’s one of those people that’s had a million jobs. She’s good at everything. She was a cosmetologist, a baker, a painter; she’s done a little bit of everything. But photography was always the thing she loved the most. She took a lot of freelance gigs, doing photos for people around town, graduation photos and weddings and things. She always had this really nice camera, my first one, actually, and she let me play with it. My brother was never allowed to touch it because he broke anything he put his hands on but she let me take photos around the house, in the backyard, at my brother’s football games. And I just fell in love with it. I loved capturing moments, memories. I loved making people feel connected to the people in my pictures even if they didn’t know them. I loved being able to tell a story with a still image, you know?

My mom realized how much I loved it and she recognized that I was good at it. So, she gave me her camera. She let me do some of her freelance gigs and that’s how I got started. My brother’s band was the first one I ever photographed. They were awful, like, the worst band you’ve ever heard. But everyone said I made them look really cool. They said that I made them look like a real band in my pictures so I kept at it. I photographed any band that would let me and then I ended up moving to Los Angeles to keep doing it. And I’m lucky, it’s my life now. And I really love what I do.”

You’re not sure you’ve ever shared that reason with anyone. You told Noah that you moved to Los Angeles for school, told him that you only really started music photography when you moved to the city, because he was always so successful. He was always the one who had a bright future, a set career path that was determined by the most sensible option, and you felt silly for following such a frivolous dream. You were afraid that he would judge you.

But with Luke, you know that he would never. He, too, had followed a frivolous dream. He, too, had risked it all to make the impossible happen. You know that he understands and you don’t filter your thoughts as you share the reasoning behind your career with him.

“I think our moms would get along,” Luke muses, a small smile on his face as he shifts his position and moves to lay on his side and rest his head on the pillow at the head of the bed. The small smile on his face remains as he watches you continue to work. “My mom was one of our first supporters. She went on tour with us for the first few years.”

“That’s honestly the cutest thing I’ve ever heard,” you laugh as you glance down at him. “That’s a really cool mom.”

“Yeah,” he laughs, “it was a weird time but I’m really grateful for her.” The pair of you lapse into a short, but comfortable, silence as Luke thinks about his next question. He already feels like he knows so much more about you than he did upon entering your room and it’s only serving to rouse the butterflies in his stomach into a frenzy. But he swallows them, bites back his feelings, and asks, “What’s your favorite tour you’ve been on?”

You think for a moment, chewing your bottom lip as you mentally run through the list of tours you’ve been on, before you answer, “Warped Tour. It was insane. I got to photograph so many people and I got to meet bands I’ve always loved. I went in a really good year and it was the most fun I’ve ever had. But every tour I’ve been on has been a favorite for one reason or another. I’ve been really lucky and have had a really good run.”

“Even with us?” he asks, teasing smile on his lips as he glances up at your face.

“Even with you guys,” you confirm, laughing as you reach out to nudge him. “This tour has been a different experience for me. This is my first time in years coming into a tour where I didn’t know anyone. I’ve been touring with the same bands for the last few years and it’s been fun but this tour kind of reminded me what else is out there, you know? I’ve had so much fun photographing you guys because it’s new. It’s different. It feels refreshing.” You pause for a moment before you shrug and add, “And, I mean, you guys aren’t bad company, either.”

Luke laughs at this, his nose scrunching as he does so, and it makes your own smile grow larger as you glance down at him. You feel giddy every time you make him laugh, you feel accomplished and like you’ve managed an impossible feat even though Luke is one of the most easily amused people you’ve ever met. But making him laugh feels good and you find yourself thinking that you wouldn’t trade hearing that sound for the world.

“I’m glad you’re with us,” he confesses as he shifts to sit back up. “We weren’t sure, when Jack suggested you, but you’ve been the best photographer we’ve had so far. And, I mean, you’re not bad company, I guess,” he teases, a small smile on his face as he watches you light up at the compliment.

“You really know how to make a girl feel special, Lu,” you laugh with a shake of your head. He knows that you mean it, knows that his compliment flustered you and that you’re deflecting by making a joke out of it, and the smile on your face is so endearing that he really can’t help himself.

He feels the overwhelming urge to just confess to you, to tell you that he’s got feelings for you, but the moment he says, “Hey, honey,” and you turn your head to look at him, he goes with his gut and leans in to press a chaste kiss against your lips, instead.

You freeze at the action, both taken entirely by surprise by his sudden affection and not surprised at all. Deep down, you know that you saw this coming. You know that you saw the underlying affection, you know that you felt the same butterflies that Luke has all along, but you convinced yourself that reading the comments online from people who were absolutely convinced that you and Luke were in love had just gone to your head. You convinced yourself that you were reading too much into it because they were reading too much into it. You convinced yourself that nothing would happen and that neither of you felt anything.

But the moment Luke’s lips touch yours, every feeling you’ve repressed out of a sense of loyalty to a relationship that no longer exists bubbles to the surface. Every feeling that you’ve ignored, every sign that pointed to you having feelings for Luke that you overlooked, every butterfly and every fluttery heartbeat crashes over you like a wave and renders you motionless. You know that you should push Luke away, you know that you should ask him to leave and bite the bullet, ending things with Noah before you confront Luke about your feelings, but as Luke begins to pull away, you find yourself slipping. You find yourself reaching out to cup his cheek and hold him in place. You find yourself settling into the kiss, your mind blanking of anything that doesn’t include kissing Luke.

You find yourself pretending that this is where you’re supposed to be and that everything is right with the world.

As the kiss deepens, as you move your arms to wrap around his neck, Luke closes your laptop and moves it out of the way in an effort to get closer to you. He finds himself flush against you, chest to chest, as you tangle your fingers in his hair and his hands move to your hips. There is nothing frenzied about this kiss, there is nothing inherently lustful or indicative that it will lead to anything other than a kiss. This kiss is the confession he’s been waiting for, his way of telling you everything he’s been hiding, even from himself, and it’s a confirmation that you feel those things, too.

The kiss is the culmination of weeks of flirting, of weeks of repressing feelings and lying to yourselves, but the moment he pulls away to speak those words aloud, to tell you that he’s got feelings for you and that he wants to explore them, that he feels like you do, too, the violent vibration of your cell phone against the nightstand tears you both out of your fantasy world. It reminds you that the world still exists, even though you often forget that fact when you’re together, and he reaches blindly for it, thinking that it’s Ashton or maybe even your mother.

But when he sees the name Noah, the one that’s been filling the comments of every picture of him that’s been taken by you, and when he sees a photo of a smiling man, looking just as lovesick as he’s felt these past few weeks, he realizes that he should’ve listened. He realizes that he should’ve listened to the comments, should’ve taken them as more than just jealousy and speculation. He should’ve asked, should’ve trusted that if something could go wrong, it would.

But he didn’t. He trusted his heart. He was seconds away from handing it to you on a silver platter and, as he stares down at the screen, he feels a sense of betrayal filling the pit of his stomach. He feels bile rising in his throat and he wants to give you the benefit of the doubt, wants to believe that maybe it’s a coincidence or you’re still friendly with him, but when he sees the look of horror on your face, the look of guilt and panic, he knows. He knows that Noah is, indeed, your boyfriend and he hates himself for even thinking it but he can’t help wondering what would’ve happened had he not seen the call.

He did, though. He saw the name flash across the top of the screen, saw the look on your face, and he doesn’t hesitate to scramble off of the bed and cross the room. He hears you asking him to wait, hears you running after him, but he doesn’t slow down. He doesn’t stop or look back, he rushes down the hall and slams his door behind him. He waits, back pressed against the cool wood, for you to knock but you never do. He wants to look through the peephole, wants to see if you’re still in the hallway, but he doesn’t let himself. Instead, he slides down and sits at the door, knees pressed to his chest, and thinks about what could’ve been.

You, on the other hand, return to your room on shaking limbs and stare at the cellphone lying on your bed. The screen indicates a missed call with no voicemail and you don’t know if you’re relieved that he didn’t leave a voicemail or if that frightens you. No matter the situation, though, you know what has to be done. With trembling hands, you grab the cellphone and call him back, afraid that you’ll start sobbing the moment you open your mouth.

You hadn’t meant for this to happen, you never intended to hurt him in this way, but you know that you have to confess. Even if you don’t love him anymore, you owe him an explanation and you owe it to Luke to finally cut ties.

So, immediately after Noah gives his greeting, you breathe, “I’m so sorry, Noah. I really, truly am.”

He doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, doesn’t want to believe it when his mind immediately goes to the worst place, but he knows. Without you telling him explicitly, he knows that it has to do with Luke. But he also knows that you’ll torment yourself until you confess so he remains quiet and lets you speak the words you’ve been trying to speak for nearly a year.

“Luke and I kissed. It just happened, it’s the first time something has happened, but it happened,” you confess, your words catching in your throat as you realize that you’re confessing to cheating on him. Noah, having expected far worse, releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He was expecting you to confess that the pair of you have been having an affair, that you’re madly in love, but he knows that you never would’ve been able to handle the guilt of cheating on him. However, the next words out of your mouth, even though he’s known for a while, are still enough to knock the air out of his lungs.

“I don’t know when I fell out of love with you but I did. I don’t know when I stopped wanting to be with you but I did. I don’t know when this relationship became a habit rather than an actual relationship but it has and I’m so sorry. I should’ve said something sooner, I should’ve tried harder to tell you that I didn’t want to be with you anymore, but I tried and you looked so hurt that I just couldn’t do it again. But no matter what happens, I know that it’s going to hurt. I know that, no matter what, the end of a relationship is always painful and I’m so sorry that I just kept stringing you along. I loved you for a really long time and you made me so happy and I’m so sorry, Noah.”

Noah is silent for a long moment. You almost wonder if he hung up, if he’s just left you rambling into thin air, but a heavy sigh tells you that he’s still there. You wait, biting back a sob that you know you have no right to release, and give him time to think.

It shouldn’t have felt like a punch in the gut because Noah realized a long time ago that you fell out of love with him. When you broke up with him, he thought that it was just because you were afraid of what would happen when you were on tour. He thought that it was a normal reaction and that you were protecting your heart. But now he realizes that that was you attempting to protect his. He realizes that you were trying to get out before things got to this point but he hadn’t let you and you hadn’t tried again.

He doesn’t blame himself but he also doesn’t blame you. And he’s sure to tell you as much.

“I know,” he sighs. “I think I’ve known for a while but I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted us to be forever, you know? But you can’t force forever. I should’ve let you go when I realized that things were over. We both made mistakes but it’s okay. And I know you didn’t have to tell me about you and Luke but I appreciate the fact that you did. The two of you clearly have something and I really hope it works out for you.”

“How are you this understanding?” you question as you fall onto the bed and settle at the foot of it, your head in your hands as attempt to control your breathing. “How are you still so good?”

“You were right when you said this felt like habit more than a relationship. I was distraught at first, when I realized, but I think that I’ve come to terms with it now. If you’d told me this a few months ago, I might’ve been more upset but I really do understand. And I think I might’ve met someone, too. I don’t know. I haven’t really spent any time with her but maybe now I will.”

“You should,” you nod, “you deserve to be happy, Noah. You’re a really good person.”

“You are, too,” he assures you. “It’s not your fault that you didn’t feel it anymore. You wanted to spare me and I get that. One mistake doesn’t make you a shit person. It gives you something to learn from. It gives us both something to learn from. It’s a shitty lesson,” he laughs, “but it’s a lesson, nonetheless.”

“I’m sorry, Noah,” you repeat quietly. “I really, truly am.”

“I know,” he promises. “And I forgive you. I’ll always support you and I’ll always love you. Maybe not in the way that I’ve loved you in the past but I’ll always have a special spot in my heart for you. Besides, we’re co-parents. We have to keep it civil for the kid’s sake.”

You forgot how easy it was to laugh with Noah when things were good. You forgot how easy it was to just enjoy talking to him. But you agree. You’ll always have a place in your heart for him, too, and you tell him as much. “Be happy, Noah. Get to know that girl and enjoy yourself. I’ll come get my stuff when I get back to the city. We have a break in a few weeks so I can grab it then.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he laughs. “You’re in the middle of tour, you don’t have time to apartment hunt. You’ll only be in town for, what, a few days? You stay here, I’ll go visit my parents. When you get done with tour, then you can worry about it. Just take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah,” you nod, continually surprised by his graciousness, “yeah. You, too, Noah. Take care.”

It feels strange ending the call without hearing an ‘I love you’ but he does. He bids you a goodbye, promises to keep you updated on your dog, and just like that, a relationship that’s spanned your entire adult life is over.

You imagined that ending the relationship would give you a sense of relief. You imagined that ending the relationship would make you happier or ease the burden you’ve been feeling for so long now. You were hoping that the ending would carry with it some magical release, some sense of freedom, but it doesn’t, not now. You hate that this happened, you hate that you betrayed Noah even if you’ve long since stopped loving him, and you hate the sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you think about Luke.

You know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he won’t want to listen to you. You know that he likely feels betrayed, you know from his reaction that he’s seen the comments online and that he’d ignored them, only for that to come back and bite him in the ass. You’ve heard the interviews, heard him talk about the songs he’d written for the album and the feelings that put him in such a dark place. You know that it had to have been so incredibly hard for him to put his heart out there like that again and you crushed it almost immediately. You know that you’ve been sending him the wrong signals, you know that this is all your fault, and it makes the tears fall a little faster.

You feel selfish, you feel guilty, but you you can’t help it. The sobs wrack your body, shoulders shaking and heart pounding, and it’s only made worse as you think that you have no right to cry. The harder you try to stop, the harder you try to pull yourself together, the harder you cry. It gets to a point where you feel like you can’t breathe and you find yourself standing from your spot at the foot of the bed and stumbling into the bathroom to splash some water on your face. You have no one to call, not anymore, so you let yourself sink onto the bathroom floor and bring your knees to your chest as you focus on regulating your breathing.

The one thing that you said you’d never do, the one thing that you swore you’d never do, is cheat on a partner. Though you were emotionally checked out of the relationship, though the relationship was over in every way but officially, you still feel guilty beyond measure as you stare at the tile floor.

And the next morning, when you venture into the lobby to join the group in heading to the venue, you feel as if everyone is staring at you. You know, realistically, that no one glances twice but the whispering (that you would’ve usually attributed to the massive hangovers you’re certain everyone has) and the laughter (typically at those suffering from hangovers) sets you on edge. The only people that you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that know are the ones who won’t even look at you.

Instead of the warm greeting you’re used to getting from Ashton and the nod and quiet good morning you get from Calum, you receive silence. Neither of them even look at you as you step into place behind them, camera around your neck to capture the day. Luke doesn’t join the group until the moment you leave, lagging behind as far as he can so as to avoid you. He doesn’t look at you, not even when you breathe his name, and you deflate as you stare at his retreating back.

You don’t want to push, don’t want to insert yourself somewhere you’re not wanted, but you’re forced to ride with them to the venue to capture some of the drive for the tour diary. You film small clips, hoping they look like candids of them staring out the window or closing their eyes to get some rest, but you know that they’re all just avoiding looking at you. You ended up in the very back with Michael, Luke took the passenger seat and no one fought him for it.

You want to beg him to talk to you, beg him to let you explain the situation, but he doesn’t slow down as he steps out of the car and enters the venue. He doesn’t wait for the others, doesn’t stop for fans, and you do your best to hide your face behind the camera as you take pictures of Ashton, Calum, and Michael meeting fans. They play it off as Luke not feeling well, play it off as him needing to rest before the show, but you can see the way that some of them look at you. You can feel them staring at you and it feels as if they’re looking into your soul as they scrutinize you.

You do your best to ignore it all, do your best to pretend that it’s fine, but the moment you step inside the venue, you reach out and grab Ashton’s arm.

“Ashton, please let me explain myself. It’s really not as simple as you think.”

Ashton stares at you for a moment, facial expression unreadable, before he shakes his head and gently brushes your hand away from his arm. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” he shrugs as he nods toward the dressing room. “It matters what Luke thinks. And he thinks that you were going to cheat on your boyfriend with him and he feels like shit.”

You open your mouth to respond, to tell him that things between you and Noah have been over for a long time now, but before you can, the tour manager calls your name and pulls your attention away from Ashton. “We wanted to get some shots of the set up and then a few of soundcheck. I think we have enough dressing room content for right now so let’s make this priority,” he calls, gesturing for you to follow him.

You go to tell him that you’ll be right there, to just give you a minute, but Ashton shakes his head. “Just go,” he sighs as he runs a hand through his hair, “you have a job to do.”

The biting sting of rejection hits you hard as you watch Ashton walk away. The one person you thought would listen to you, the one person that you imagined would understand and help you reach out to Luke, won’t even listen to your explanation. It almost feels hopeless at this point, feels hopeless to try, but as you follow the tour manager through the winding maze of backstage, you tug your phone from your pocket and type a message to Luke. “I really need to talk to you. I promise it isn’t what you think. Please.”

You don’t know what you expect from sending the message. It’s not like you expect him to magically forgive you, it’s not like you expect him to magically drop whatever he was doing and come running to you, but you don’t expect to be left on read. You don’t expect to be ignored. But, when you really think about it, maybe you should have.

Luke is the type to shut down when he’s upset. He goes quiet, loses himself in his thoughts, protects himself as best as he can. It hurts to know that you’ve pushed him to this point, hurts to know that you’re the reason he’s shutting down, but that’s the way he does things. He feels betrayed and you understand that. He’s been cheated on, knows how it feels to be on the other end, and you can only imagine that he’s feeling a strong sense of guilt himself. You know that he would’ve never kissed you had he known about Noah and you know that he’s beating himself up for not listening to the fans.

As you wander the building with the tour manager, snapping half-hearted shots of the crew preparing for the show, the venue itself, the fans waiting outside, Luke settles into a corner of the dressing room and grabs his guitar. He strums without really thinking about it, without any sort of meaning or sense of direction, and stares at the wall in front of him. He feels almost numb now and it surprises him. He’s gone through a roller coaster of emotion in the past twenty-four hours and he doesn’t think he likes settling for feeling nothing.

And he tells Ashton as much as soon as he asks Luke how he’s feeling.

“I should’ve just fucking asked,” he breathes, laughing without any trace of humor. “If I’d asked, we wouldn’t be here.”

“You didn’t ask, but she didn’t say anything,” Calum offers as he takes a seat on the coffee table in front of Luke. “None of us knew.”

“I don’t think she would’ve said anything,” Luke muses, voice quiet as he loses himself in thought. “I don’t think she would’ve told me. He called and when I saw the look on her face, I knew.”

Ashton hesitates, he doesn’t want to sound like he’s taking your side when it’s obviously wrong if you kissed Luke while having a boyfriend, but he asks, “Did you ask her if they were together? Maybe it isn’t so straightforward.” When Luke glances at him, brows furrowed and mouth agape, Ashton shakes his head. “I’m not defending her,” he assures Luke quickly, “but you can never be sure of anything if you don’t ask, right?”

But Luke doesn’t want to ask. He doesn’t want to hear confirmation that you’d played along with him, that you’d felt for him what he felt for you, when you had a boyfriend. He doesn’t want to hear confirmation that he was the other man, a feeling he never wanted anyone else to experience. He doesn’t want to hear confirmation that you wouldn’t have told him if he hadn’t seen the photo for himself.

So, he doesn’t. He doesn’t ask and you don’t tell him.

You try, for nearly a week, to get him to speak with you. You try, for nearly a week, to get Ashton or Michael or Calum to speak with you. You try, for nearly a week, to get anyone at all to listen to what you have to say but it’s as if you’ve suddenly become invisible.

Everyone knows that something is up with you and Luke, they know that something had to have happened, and the comments are inescapable. On every social media platform, you see comments asking what you did to Luke and why he’s so upset. Around every corner, you hear murmurs of techs speculating about what happened or wondering why the two of you have suddenly gone cold. Every time you step into the dressing room, camera in hand to get a few shots for the tour diary, you’re greeted with a chill.

The world seems to have stopped and it all hurts.

You try, desperately, for a full week to get Luke to talk to you and it’s only when you overhear the boys pondering finding another photographer for the European leg of the tour that you realize just how fucked you are. It’s only when you hear them tossing out names, mentioning that they’ve been in touch with friends, that you feel your lungs constrict and your eyes fill with tears.

But when Luke agrees that, yeah, it might be a good idea to find someone new, you find yourself retreating to the nook you’ve carved out for yourself in the backstage set up and hoping that no one manages to find you. Although you feel guilty beyond belief, upset with yourself for handling everything so badly, you also feel that this is all being blown out of proportion. It was a single kiss, a single mistake, and you know that the boys are just trying to protect Luke because the past year has been so rough on him, but you’re being battered with vitriol and your job is being threatened and your world feels as if it’s crashing to the ground.

“Whoa, hey, are you okay?”

You try your best to wipe the tears, try your best to pretend that you haven’t just been caught sobbing behind a speaker, but you can’t do much more than nod your head when Emma, Ashton’s girlfriend, crouches down to your level. “I’m fine,” you nod quickly, clearing your throat as you wipe your hands on your jeans and reach for the camera you’d placed on the floor. “Fine. I just had something in my eye.”

Although you don’t know her that well, she’s only recently joined the tour, Emma has been the nicest of anyone to you in the past week. She hasn’t stopped speaking to you, hasn’t gone out of her way to pretend that you don’t exist, and you appreciate that. But you’re not sure how she’ll react to seeing you this way and you don’t want to give her any reason to either pity you or hate you. However, she clearly does not buy your lie and moves to sit beside you, her back pressed to the wall as she meets your eyes.

She pauses for a moment, weighing her words, before she asks, “Do you want to tell me what happened?” When you stare at her, confused, she elaborates. “I’ve heard from Ashton and I’ve heard the guys talk about it but what about you? What happened, the way you see it?”

You stare at her for another long moment before you drop your gaze to the camera in your lap and shake your head. “I fucked up,” you breathe, voice quiet and shaking with emotion. “Noah and I were together for nearly five years. I don’t know when I fell out of love with him but I did. I tried to break up with him but nothing ever worked and I didn’t push because I didn’t want to hurt him. Our relationship hadn’t been a relationship in months before this tour started and when I left home, that was the end. We only talked once or twice the entire time and I didn’t even realize I was falling for Luke until we kissed. And it was a moment of weakness, a mistake. I should’ve told him, I should’ve broken up with Noah a long time ago, but I didn’t and I feel so fucking awful because I hurt both of them.”

Emma doesn’t speak. Instead, she realizes that you have more to say and remains quiet as she waits for you to catch your breath.

“I deserve it, but everyone is just making me feel so much worse about it. It was just a kiss and I know that’s still bad but the number of comments I’ve gotten in the past week telling me to kill myself for upsetting Luke are insane. And the guys won’t even look at me. I’ve tried so hard to get Luke to talk to me. I’ve tried so hard to get him to at least look at me. But he won’t and I feel like I’ll never get the chance to explain myself. I don’t think it’ll help any but I don’t think it’ll hurt that much, either. And now they’re talking about getting a new photographer for Europe and that’s a good idea because I don’t think I can handle this anymore.”

By the time you finish speaking, the sobs have returned and the ache in your chest feels magnified tenfold. Emma feels for you, she feels her heart break as she listens to your side, and she doesn’t hesitate to move to sit by your side and bring you into an embrace. She feels for Luke, she knows how much it hurts to be cheated on and knows how bad he must feel to have been the other person, but she also realizes that it was a kiss. A one time action that doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment. She also knows how it feels to be on the receiving end of the negative fan attention but this attention, the kind of comments she’s seen you get, are far worse than any she’s ever received and her heart breaks for you.

She doesn’t attempt to speak for a long moment, doesn’t really know what to say. She keeps you in a hug, keeps you close to her, as she thinks about her words. After weighing them carefully, she finally sighs. “It was a mistake,” she agrees as she allows you to pull away. “It was a mistake and you clearly have learned from it. The boys are being childish and I’ll talk to them,” she offers but you immediately shake your head.

“Please, don’t. I don’t want them to think any less of me. Getting you involved would just be a bad idea. They’ve made up their minds,” you breathe as you wipe your eyes and bring your knees to your chest. “I’m just wondering who they’ll get to tell me I’m fired.”

“You’re not getting fired,” she assures you as she reaches out to squeeze your hand. “You’re staying on and everyone’s just going to have to deal with it. You’re the best photographer they’ve ever had. They’re being overdramatic,” she huffs as she shakes her head. “As for the fans, I know it’s the most redundant advice you ever could get, but don’t read the comments. Don’t read you mentions on Twitter. Don’t look at any of it. Post your pictures and log off. Wear headphones when you’re photographing the boys meeting fans or just don’t do it.” When you open your mouth to respond, to tell her that you can’t just not photograph these things, she shakes her head. “Sometimes you have to make boundaries and this can be one of them. Turn off your comments if you have to, stop photographing the things outside the venue where fans are concerned. But don’t let it get to the point where it makes you question yourself or think about listening to one of them, okay?” When you nod at this, she nods. “Good. You should go wash your face. I know you want to pretend that everything’s fine so take a minute, take a deep breath, and come back and shoot the show.”

You nod at her suggestion and allow her to help you stand from your sitting position. As you grab your camera, slipping it around your neck once more, you hesitantly ask, “Can you please not say anything to the guys? They clearly don’t care about my side and I feel like it’ll just be a problem at this point.”

“Sure,” she nods, “I won’t say anything.”

However, the moment you disappear to wash your face, the moment you step outside to get a breath of fresh air, Emma is telling Ashton everything you just told her.

“You guys made me think she murdered his whole family. It was a kiss, Ash, and it was the only kiss. I know that it’s still cheating and I know that she should’ve told him about Noah but don’t you think she deserves a chance to explain herself? Don’t you think that she’s being punished enough online? And you guys are talking about firing her! Luke kissed her! At least let her defend herself before you send her packing.”

As Emma shoves her phone into Ashton’s hands, your Instagram open with the comments clearly displaying just how upset fans are at you, Ashton feels a pang of guilt settle in his stomach. He knows that he should’ve given you a chance to speak, knows that he should’ve heard you out, but he’s been so desperate to keep Luke from going back to that dark place that he didn’t think about how it would’ve affected you. He didn’t stop to think about you at all, really, and he feels like shit as he reads through the multiple comments calling you names (and far worse that makes him feel nauseous to even look at).

He knows that he has to help fix this, has to at least help the two of you find closure, so the moment that Luke steps into the dressing room, Ashton is encouraging him to find you. He’s nudging him back toward the door, shaking his head at every step. “I know,” he reiterates, time and time again. “I know. But everyone deserves a chance to defend themselves. Before we go with another photographer, maybe we should at least hear her explain herself. Maybe you should hear her explain herself. Even if it doesn’t make things any better, at least we’ll know for sure that we need a new photographer,” Ashton reasons as he nudges Luke out the door. “Just listen. You don’t even have to talk. And if it’s still bad, we’ll do whatever we can.”

Luke doesn’t want to hear you out. He doesn’t want to listen to your excuses and he doesn’t want to know why you didn’t tell him that you had a boyfriend. He doesn’t want to know you spent two months flirting with him, why you spent two months making him believe that you were falling just as hard and just as fast as he was, but he knows that Ashton won’t give up until he does. So he looks for you, searches the backstage area and comes up empty. He looks into the empty dressing rooms, glances behind speakers and in any small enough nooks that you might be hiding in, but when he fails to find you, he realizes that you must be in the one spot he hadn’t thought to check.

Sure enough, Luke finds you sitting on the roof of the venue, camera in hand as you take shots of the city skyline. You always told him that you wanted to take a moment and do this, that you wanted to get a few shots of each of the cities from the roof of the venue, but when you were following them around and documenting their every move, you hadn’t had a chance to do so. Instead, you’d settled for getting shots of the scenery surrounding the venue, sneaking in shots as you waited for everyone to pile onto the buses or as everyone settled into the hotel. One night, the closest you came was sitting on the balcony in his hotel room, attempting to shoot the city in the dark. But now, as he watches you fulfill the one dream you’d had for this tour, he feels his heart stutter.

This is the first time he’s really looked at you in over a week, the first time that he’s really paid you any significant attention since the kiss, and he hates that his heart is beating just as fast as it had before this. He hates that the butterflies are swarming in his stomach, hates that his palms are sweaty and that his knees are weak. He hates that he still feels strangely calm despite the flurry of emotions you stir in him, hates that your presence is still just as soothing as it had been in the very beginning. He hates the effect that you have on him.

But more than anything, he hates himself for not talking to you sooner.

He knows, more than anything, that communication is key. He knows that for any relationship to work, there has to be a dialogue. He knows that there has to be some give and some take but, in this case, he hasn’t given any. He knows, realistically, that you would have understood his reasoning for reacting so badly and he imagines he would’ve understood yours, maybe. Even if he doesn’t know what high school you graduated from or the name of the small town you grew up in, he knows you. He knows who you are as a person and he knows that you would never hurt him intentionally.

Sometimes, mistakes happen.

With that thought firmly in his mind, he crosses the short expanse to the edge of the roof and takes a seat beside you. You’re sitting cross-legged, camera in hand as you focus on the scenery, and he settles beside you, drawing his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them as he stares at you. He doesn’t speak, not yet, and you don’t acknowledge his presence. He knows that you’re aware of him, knows that you’re aware of who is sitting beside you, but he imagines that you don’t know what to say. You’ve been trying for a week but now that he’s sitting beside you, he imagines that nothing you’ve thought up feels right.

He knows how your mind works, knows that you overthink everything just as badly as he does, so he waits. He waits for you to weigh your words, pick and choose each one carefully, and as he stares at you, skin illuminated by the golden glow of the later afternoon sun, he realizes that he’s willing to wait however long it takes. Something about you, something about your presence, has greatly affected him and he knows that he can’t let that go.

Yes, this is a mistake that needs to be talked about and one that he’s half-certain he’ll always remember, but it was just that. A mistake. And that’s what you assure him of as you open your mouth and finally begin speaking.

“Noah and I were together for almost five years,” you tell him, your voice quiet and barely audible over the wind. Luke shifts a little closer, moves just enough to hear you, but you seem not to notice as you stare into the distance. “He was always good, you know? He supported my photography and forgave me when I missed all the important things in his life because I was off, chasing rockstars. And I loved him for that. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I ever really loved him, you know? Romantically, I mean. I loved him because he was good and kind and supportive but I love my mother because she’s good and kind and supportive.”

You pause for a moment, frowning at something he can’t see, before you shrug and place your camera in your lap. He watches you tap your fingers on your thighs, a nervous habit you’ve picked up from Ashton, and waits for you to continue speaking.

“For a while, I felt like I just woke up one morning and stopped loving him but I don’t think that’s the case. I think it was a long time coming. Maybe I never felt as strongly for him as I thought I did but, whatever the case, I checked out of the relationship about a year ago. We hardly spoke when I was on tour, not for his lack of trying, and I kept myself busier than ever even when I was home. I tried to breakup with him. I actually did, once. But he was so crushed, so heartbroken, that I took him back despite my heart telling me that it would only hurt worse when I finally stopped being such a bitch and broke up with him.

Before I left for this tour, we hadn’t really kissed, nothing more than a kiss you’d share with an elementary school boyfriend, in at least a few months. I don’t know if he thought it was because of our work schedules or if he realized something was wrong and just didn’t want to let the end come but it was over for a while before I even came on tour with you guys. I feel like everyone in my life just figured we were done, you know? And if they thought that, then maybe I would have the courage to break up with him. And I should have. I should have broken up with him a long time ago and just let it go and moved on. But I didn’t want to hurt him.”

Luke watches, his eyebrows furrowed and heart hammering in his chest, as you shake your head and lower your gaze to the roof. “I felt like I owed him, I guess. He was always so good, so supportive, that I felt like I had to stay until he wanted it to be over. He never complained, never got jealous or openly insecure. He was just a really good person and I felt guilty for even thinking about ending things.” You pause for another moment, weighing your words once more, before you breathe a deep sigh and continue. “When I came on this tour, I think that’s when he realized it was over. I think we spoke maybe two or three times before the night you and I kissed and none of those conversations were long or even more than a confirmation that I got to wherever we were headed safely. It was over, in all ways but the one that really mattered, and I’m sorry.”

Luke waits to hear you confirm his suspicion, waits to hear you say that things are officially over, and he doesn’t know if he feels joy or sadness when you do. “I broke up with him. After you left, I called him back. I told him that we kissed. I told him that I fell out of love with him at some point and he wasn’t surprised. Even in the end, he was one of the most understanding people I’ve ever met. But he met someone else and he’s going to see where things go and I hope they go well. He deserves someone who will love him just as much as he loves them. He deserves someone good and you do, too, Luke.”

Luke feels his heart slamming against his ribs as he hears your voice crack. He can see the tears lining your lashes, can see the genuine guilt and the utmost sincerity in your eyes, and he wants to reach out and grab your hand. He wants to assure you that he gets it, that he still feels hurt that you didn’t tell him but he understands that you wanted to spare someone you believed deserved better, but he doesn’t. He can tell that you have more to say so he allows you to continue speaking.

“You deserve better, Luke. You deserve someone who would never hurt you and I’m sorry for this. I should’ve told you about Noah before things got too far. I shouldn’t have gotten so close to you, anyway. It was unprofessional and I’m just really sorry. If you guys still want to find a new photographer for Europe, I can recommend some people. I have a friend that just finished a tour and hasn’t booked anything yet. She’s really good, better than me, and her style is fairly similar so there won’t be too much discontinuity. But I know the fans would be happy to have her. She’s a married lady and her wife is more badass than all of you put together.”

As you continue to speak, Luke realizes that you overheard the others talking about the possibility of getting another photographer. He realizes that you’ve been reading the comments online, the ones that are so vile he contemplated responding on your behalf before he thought better of it. He realizes that this has taken more of a toll on you than he thought it would and he finds himself shaking his head.

He reaches out this time, grabs your hand and squeezes it between his, as you stop speaking. Your words die off, whatever compliment you were giving to your friend fading into thin air as he meets your eyes for the first time in a week.

“We’re not replacing you,” he assures you, his voice just as quiet as yours had been. “That was dumb and I’m sorry it was brought up. I should’ve asked you about him. I saw the comments online and I should’ve asked. But I know you didn’t mean for things to happen this way. I get that, honey.” Luke pauses for a moment, searching for the right words to convey his thoughts, before he breathes, “For the past year, I’ve been learning to feel like myself again. I’ve been trying to feel whole again. I do, now, and this hurt but it wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t the same feeling that made me feel like a stranger in my own body and that’s how I know it’s not the same. What happened in the past was a nightmare but this is just a mistake. It was a kiss that shouldn’t have happened when it did but I’m glad it happened at all.

You’re a good person, honey. One fuck-up doesn’t make you an awful person. I understand feeling like you owe someone. I understand staying because you feel like you have to. Do I wish that you’d left before we kissed or that you’d told me about the relationship? Yes. But I get it. I know that you feel guilty and I know that this isn’t something you’ve done before. You’re not that kind of person. I wondered, that night, if things would’ve gone any further if Noah hadn’t called but I don’t think they would have. I think you just got caught up in the moment.”

“Before that kiss, I don’t think I realized I felt anything,” you confess as you squeeze Luke’s hand. “I don’t think I even realized that I liked you as more than a friend or that our flirting was anything more than fun. I felt something, I know I did, but it didn’t register as romantic until that moment and when we kissed, it just felt right. It felt like that’s where I was supposed to be.”

Luke nods his agreement and smiles softly at you. “I didn’t realize I felt anything until a few days before that. Ash caught me writing a song about you and that made me realize that it was more than just me liking to see you flustered.”

“Do you think that maybe we can start over?” you ask, voice small as you glance at him from beneath your lashes. “That maybe we can try again?”

Luke stares at you for a second, smile growing, before he removes his hand from yours and straights up. “I’m Luke,” he offers, hand outstretched to shake yours. When you offer him your hand, your name falling from your lips in a slight laugh, Luke nods at you. “It’s nice to meet you.”

The pair of you sit there for a moment, hands still clasped, before Luke, with pink cheeks and a bashful smile, teases, “I know we’ve just met but I really want to kiss you.”

“Crazy,” you mumble, a slight smile on your lips as you shake your head, “I was thinking the same thing.”

Luke stares at you for another moment, smile growing, before he removes his hand from yours and reaches out to cup your cheeks. His palms are warm against your cool skin and you can feel his breath fan across your face as he leans in close. He lingers for a moment, smiling at the way your eyes flutter shut and your hand rests on his knee, before he leans in to press a soft kiss to your lips.

This kiss, though not as intense as the one you shared a week ago, is more meaningful. It conveys everything you both wanted to say but couldn’t find the words for. It conveys every feeling of forgiveness, every feeling of assurance that things will be alright. It conveys the peace you now feel, the happiness and the butterflies fluttering in the pit of your stomach, and it makes you both happy.

Though you both know that there are still things to talk about, there are still discussions to be had and secrets to be learned, you feel a sense of peace. As Luke wraps his arms around you and pulls you into his side, both of you staring out at the sunset painting the city in hues of pink and orange, you think that everything is going to be alright.

The flirts are always trouble but with Luke, you find yourself thinking that he is more than worth it.

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Author’s Note: I thought about just not posting this because it’s long and rambly and, like, who’s going to read this. But I put in days worth of work on this so. Someone enjoy it. What am I writing next? How can I make it complicated and too long? Tune in later to find out.

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