I'll hear what you drank and if you danced at the party

I will know the details like I was at this party

I don't want to see your photos, you know it bores me

Calum's house is huge, probably the biggest one Luke's ever set foot in. Yet, the blonde boy is being swallowed by the feeling of claustrophobia. There are easily a couple of hundred people packed into the living room, hallways, and bathrooms and it unnerves him to the greatest extent.

Sure, Luke has probably spent more weekend evenings in the midst of Calum's party than his own house, but that didn't mean he enjoyed the chaos that went on inside. Everyone who knew Luke assumed he was just as much of a party animal as his best friend considering there wasn't a single party Luke hadn't attended.

The truth couldn't be more the opposite.

Calum's house is the only place Luke has to go, and even with a party raging on inside it's a better environment than his own home, or the lack thereof.

The bookstore is the only thing Luke rightfully owns besides a couple of tattered poetry books and a pencil with a large crack down the center of the wood that gives him splinters when he writes with it.

It could be worse he supposed. He had a beanbag tucked between the aisles and a mini-fridge behind the front desk and maybe if sales were good this month he might be able to invest in a coffee machine.

Calum had offered Luke a room at his house more times than he could count. Luke knew Calum meant well but every time he had to hear about how his best friend had five other empty rooms he couldn't help but feel jealousy and a little bit of embarrassment.

The thing about Luke was he'd always been the type of boy to reach for others, though he was born into a world that left him chronically alone. He wanted to seek solace in Calum and the home that he offered him, but he didn't know how to not be alone after being his own source of comfort for so long.

Luke had spent far too long figuring out how to survive on his own and change scared him, even if it might be for the better.

He brings a blunt to his lips, inhaling deeply. Weed wasn't something Luke smoked often, but when he did allow the drug to enter his system, he made sure to have his notebook nearby. Luke already never seemed to stop thinking- his mind never wanted to shut the fuck up and weed only intensified that.

Pushing his blonde hair away from his face, Luke balances the blunt between his lips and his pencil between the other. The guest room of Calum's house that Luke had claimed as his own for the night has a bay window with a perfectly placed bench shoved into the cutout in the wall.

Honestly, Luke is pretty sure the window seat is just for decoration because his ass is starting to hurt like hell, but anything is better than the crowd downstairs.

Maybe, he chose to endure the pain of sitting on a hard-ass wooden bench because he had nowhere else to go. Maybe, he was too high to care.

Maybe, It was because the window he's sat in allows him a perfect view of her house.

The bay window mirrors what he's assumed to be her bedroom. Across the street, her window is decorated with sheer curtains that do absolutely nothing to hide the silhouette of her body as she paces her room.

Luke is sure that if he was sober, he'd feel like a bit of a creep watching her in her room like this, but then again smoking weed always made him unnecessarily artistic. So, watching- no admiring her from afar was romantic, in his humble opinion.

She's walking frantically back and forth, her lips moving so fast that it makes him dizzy. For a moment he concludes that she's talking to herself. That is until he sees the phone in her hands. It's one of those wired phones that he's seen in his grandma's house. The type where the actual receiver of it is bigger than her face and every few moments she has to untangle herself from the cord.

Luke grins. He likes the phone and though he doesn't know her well at all, he has a feeling it matches her personality perfectly.

It makes him feel like he's in an eighties movie- Seeing her pace around with an outdated phone pressed to her ear and a slip dress clinging to her figure, her hair now falling down her back, unlike the claw clip he saw it in earlier inspires him.

The strobe lights coming from Calum's house reflect onto hers, painting her window and her silhouette a blue color. She's put the phone down now in favor of bracing herself on her windowsill.

Luke furrows his brows as she opens the window, allowing the party lighting to flood her skin as she holds back her long hair with one hand and grips the frame of her window tightly with the other.

He follows her eyes as Arlo looks down, seemingly talking to someone below.

When Luke finds Calum standing at the edge of his yard, his head angled up at her window as he shouts to her, that same ugly feeling from earlier fills his body. He doesn't know what they're shouting about and quite frankly he doesn't care.

Luke snubs the blunt out on the windowsill, no longer needing the drug to aid him. She, Arlo, has inspired him to write more than anything or anyone he can remember. He feels as though he could fill entire notebooks about the scene playing out in front of him.

Black jeans, white tee, black converse

He scribbles the words down after glancing at his own outfit, wanting to paint the picture of the moment perfectly. Luke pauses in frustration, his brows furrowing as he tries to think of a word that could possibly rhyme with converse.

He knew poetry didn't have to rhyme, but still, he preferred his did. Luke was a perfectionist.

Deciding to skip a few lines in his notebook, he begins describing her. Luke allows for the drug in his system to guide his mind as he leans his head back against the windowsill behind him. He paints a picture in his mind, one where she's drenched in that blue light once again.

The lighting on her skin reminded him of the concert he went to with Calum last summer. He remembers how everyone seemed to be drenched in the lighting, their facial features mere shadows.

It was a good memory. Luke fucking loved music and he loved it even more when it was live.

Calum knew that. He also knows that Luke couldn't afford a concert ticket if he wanted to. That's the very reason why he makes sure to drag Luke along to every concert he goes to, no matter how many times his best friend protests.

Blue hair, blue eyes, I saw her

I couldn't help it I was like

The words look kind of odd on the paper to his eyes, but Luke knows that once he's sober he'll go back and make it make more sense. This was his process- he kind of word dumps onto the paper and then later, the real structure comes along through careful editing.

He absolutely could not carefully edit in the middle of a party. That part would come while he sat alone in the bookstore pretending to be busy. It's not like the shop was getting very many customers in the first place

Luke allows himself to take in the moment once more. He thinks about how he felt, the things he saw.

Everybody's gonna go big tonight

That line makes him think of the party and the things he's forced to hear while hanging around Calum's. No matter the fact that this sort of thing was an every weekend event, everyone seemed to think that this party would be the biggest one of the year. All of the annoying ass people downstairs just swore that tonight would be like no other and then proceed to say the exact same thing the following weekend.

The next time Luke looks up from his notebook he finds her window empty. Her lights are still on but he fails to find any signs of the girl. Until he looks a little bit lower.

Arlo stumbles out of her front door in nothing but that goddamn baby pink slip dress and an oversized cardigan. She's got her same bag from earlier slung over her shoulder and her feet look to have been haphazardly slipped into a pair of slippers.

Luke furrows his brows in confusion and slight worry. Where could she possibly be going so late at night? He knew she didn't have a car.

Instead of turning down the sidewalk, Arlo makes her way across the street, her eyes barely scanning the road for oncoming traffic before stumbling across the pavement. Luke abandons his notebook, marking his place with his pencil before closing the notebook rather harshly.

Calum is waiting for her at his mailbox, a sway in his step that reeks of intoxication.

Luke rolls his eyes, a scoff leaving his lips. If he was going to make her run out of her house in the cold in nothing but her pajamas he could have at least had the decency to be sober for their conversation.

Instead of sitting in the windowsill with nothing but his tattered notebook and a snubbed-out blunt to keep him company, Luke decided to go downstairs and get a drink. Not an alcoholic one, just something to keep him busy and drag him away from the window.

He wasn't quite sure why he was so entranced by Arlo.

There were plenty of girls flooding Calum's house, throwing themselves at him and trying to get him to take them to the bathroom for a quick fuck. Luke felt a certain temptation to give in to those girls, but he never actually went through with it.

Maybe It was the fact that Arlo was the first customer to come into the store in weeks. She looked so genuinely interested in the store that it caught Luke off guard.

But, no matter how many poems Luke scribbled down about Arlo in his notebook, he knew they didn't mean anything. She seemed to belong to Calum. Not in the possessive sense that chalked her down to being a sort of object, but in the sense that not once did her eyes steal a glance at Luke while they were alone.

Her heart seemed to belong to Calum.

Luke would never overstep that boundary, not even if Calum wasn't his best friend. He'd done that once before and it earned him nothing but a shattered eye socket and a cup of liquor thrown in his face.

Despite the pain in his eye and the burning of liquor seeping into his cuts, Luke also felt pretty shitty mentally after the fact. He was younger then and as much as it fucking sucked, he was thankful for the lesson he earned in a way.

Speaking of that night, the very man who'd dealt the deserved punch that shattered his eye socket sits on the couch, a red solo cup in hand. Michael Clifford looks far different than he did the last time Luke saw him.

Luke almost spills the Coke he's pouring into a red solo cup as he sneaks a glance at Michael. They hadn't spoken since the night Luke accidentally fucked his girlfriend in Calum's upstairs bathroom, so he's not too sure how Michael feels about him.

Michael takes a sip of his drink, a snapback turned backward on his head and his arm around a girl that couldn't be more different than his last girlfriend. Well, Luke shrugs to himself, I guess that relationship didn't last.

Luke quickly finishes pouring his drink, his teeth working to tug at his lip ring as nerves flood his system. He knew people saw him as a party animal just like his best friend, but Luke fucking hated the crowds.

Especially in Calum's crowded ass kitchen.

Just as Luke begins making his way back towards the main staircase to hide in the bedroom he was in, he hears his name being called over the song blasting through the living room.

"Luke! Over here!" Calum calls, frantically waving his hands in the air to be seen through the crowd. Though it's not like he needed to, the crowd seemed to part for him like he was royalty.

Beside Calum stands Arlo. Her dark hair is slightly messy and she has her arms wrapped tightly around herself in a way that screams uncomfortable. Luke clenches his jaw at the sight. The girl is obviously in her pajamas and had not been expecting to be in a house party of all places.

Her face somehow seems pale even in the blue lighting of the party, causing Luke to curse under this breath. With long strides, he pushes through the crowd and makes his way over to them.

"There you are!" Calum slurs, slinging his arm over Luke's shoulder in a way that causes the taller of the two to narrow his eyes. "Arlo was looking for you, so I brought her." He says proudly, a lazy smile on his face.

Luke's lips part in surprise, a strange feeling stirring in his stomach. She was looking for him? Though, before Calum can say anything else he's being dragged back into the midst of the party by his adoring fans, a shot glass being practically shoved into his hands.

"I wasn't looking for you" Arlo practically spits the words out, though when she sees the way Luke raises his brows in slight shock, she quickly backtracks. "Not like that! I just mean that-"

Suddenly, Luke leans closer. So close in fact that her lips nearly brush his ear. Arlo's breath catches in her throat, her eyes going wide at their proximity. She can smell his cologne and his breath is brushing her bare collarbones in a way that causes goosebumps to arise on her skin.

"I can't hear you." Luke says, close enough that he doesn't have to yell over the party to be heard. "Do you mind coming upstairs?"

Arlo swallows thickly, her hands shaking slightly simply because she's never been close to someone quite as beautiful as Luke and quite frankly, he terrifies her. "Yeah, that's- that's okay. I mean if it's okay with you."

"Why wouldn't it be okay with me?" Luke asks, sensing her nervousness. Like an animal out for its prey, he picks up on her nerves clear as day and thrives off of it. Her wide eyes and shaky breaths are fueling his ego in the best way. "I'm the one who asked, didn't I?"

"I dunno." Arlo says quietly. "Just making sure."

Luke nods, turning his head away so she doesn't see the smile forming on his face. She's so goddamn cute. Just as the thought crosses his mind Luke shakes it, cursing himself. She's also Calum's.

If Calum trusted him enough to leave Arlo alone with him in the middle of a party, he certainly wouldn't betray that trust by thinking of her in any nature other than a friendly one.

Wordlessly, Luke cocks his head towards the staircase, urging her to follow. Though, they don't get more than two steps in the direction of the staircase before Luke is reminded of the large crowd. Surely, he'd lose her in it if he wasn't careful.

Before he can decide against it, Luke extends one long arm behind him, gently gripping Arlo's wrist and pulling her in front of him. She gasps at the contact and he almost does too, though he's better at hiding it.

His hands ghost her waist, though they never make contact with the material of her dress as he allows her to lead them upstairs. This way, Luke can keep an eye on her, ensuring that they make it up the stairs safely.

Luke knew for a fact that Calum wasn't friends with bad people, but when parties get this large you can't exactly keep track of who all finds their way inside.

He leads her to the bedroom he'd just been in, careful to make sure his notebook is still tucked firmly under his arm, out of sight. He closes the door almost all of the way, leaving it cracked so he doesn't accidentally give off the wrong message.

Luke knew he wasn't a good person. He was cruel and didn't give a shit about anyone but himself most of the time, so he wasn't too sure why he felt the need to pay attention to the little details such as how far the door was cracked.

"You wanted to speak to me?" Luke asks, his voice raspy and low.

A shiver nearly runs through her body. Now, without the distraction of the party, she's forced to focus on everything about him that frustratingly made her palms sweat. Like his voice, for example.

"Well, I was going to talk to Calum so I'm not bothering you but-"

"Does it look like I'm bothered?" Luke interrupts her, enjoying the way her lips part and she fumbled over her words. When Arlo merely shakes her head no, Luke narrows his eyes. He doesn't like that. Not one bit. "What was that?"

Oh, god. Arlo's hands fist the hem of her dress in nerves. "No, you don't." She says hesitantly, mentally hoping she'd given him the answer he was looking for. In fear of passing out if she stays in the room for much longer, Arlo reaches into the side pocket of the bag on her back and produces a twenty-dollar bill.

"Here." She extends her hand out to him, not daring to come any closer. "For the book."

Luke's lips part in shock. That was the last thing he expected to hear fall from her lips and if he was being honest he didn't like it. He didn't know if she knew about his living situation, but he couldn't help but be defensive of the subject of money.

"I gave it to you." Luke says lowly, his eyes daring to eye her figure. The little pink slip dress she wears clings to every dip and curve of her body causing his mouth to go dry, best friend's girlfriend or not. "I don't need your fucking money."

Arlo stumbles back slightly at his tone, only causing a wave of guilt to flood through his body. He hadn't meant to be harsh, especially not to her, but the topic was too sensitive of a subject.

She scrambles to explain, her hands fiddling with one another. "I know you don't need it but I just feel bad-"

"Well don't okay?" Luke scoffs, his jaw beginning to ache from the pressure he's put on it. "It's my fucking shop and if I want to give you a book I'm going to do it."

With her heart practically beating out of her chest Arlo nods, only to be met with a stern look from the blonde boy in front of her. If the venom in his blue eyes wasn't enough, the way his lip ring glints in the low lighting, unintentionally bringing her attention to his lips is almost too much.

"If you want to give me a book you'll give it to me." Arlo echoes, nodding. "Got it."

"Anything else?" Luke asks cockily, his back leaning against the wall of the room. He enjoyed how flustered he could make her with his words, no matter how wrong it felt to do so.

"No." Arlo says quietly, suddenly feeling as though Luke was fed up with her presence.

He wasn't. He actually kind of hoped she would stay so he wasn't alone at the party.

"I'll uh." She exhales shakily. "I'll see you around, I guess."

Before Luke can blink, she's gone out of the door in a blur of pink silk and dark hair. He felt uneasy about her walking through the party alone, but he knew enough about her to know she was a smart girl.

That, and she had Calum for that. Luke Hemmings certainly wasn't anyone's boyfriend and he sure as hell wouldn't act like one.

Instead of following her downstairs and walking her to her door, Luke takes a seat back in the windowsill, opening his notebook to the page he'd been on earlier and bushing the discarded blunt to the side.

MONEY, he writes at the top of the page.