"I feel stupid, so stupid to miss you like this

'Cause I told you to go and you went

So it's stupid, it's stupid, I know that it's stupid

To love you

But I can't help it"

✰

5 Seconds of Summer and their fearless manager sit on a subway that smells a lot worse than they ever imagined public transportation could.

Nobody had talked for a while, all of them staring out the window of the subway or looking at their laps. All five of them had always lived in their small town, expecting to grow up and go off to university or straight to work.

They hadn't quite figured out how to cope with the fact that their lives were changing.

Luke angles his body towards Arlo as she sits next to him, his blue eyes somehow still beautifully vibrant in the low lighting of the subway. "I didn't mean to pressure you back there." He mumbles, his cheeks tinted pink. "If you don't want to be our manager, you don't have to Lo."

Arlo shakes her head immediately, doing her best to ignore the man who had begun snoring loudly on the opposite side of the subway car. "Of course, I want to. I'm just worried that I won't be good enough. I'm not qualified for something like this."

Luke frowns, his hand rests on her thigh, fingertips fiddling with the rip in the knee of her light wash jeans. "This might be selfish of me to say, but I don't think I could leave town unless you were right there with me."

The fear had been in the back of Arlo's mind ever since she saw them perform- that the boys would strike it big and she'd be left behind. She wouldn't blame them, for Arlo didn't consider herself to be particularly memorable and she'd never want to hold them back, but it would certainly hurt.

Arlo couldn't even believe that out of everybody in their town, Luke had chosen to make her his girl. What would happen when they got big and suddenly millions wanted him? It wasn't that she didn't trust him, she just couldn't shake her own insecurities.

All of those fears suddenly seem insignificant after Luke's words.

"I'll stay as long as you want me around." Arlo promises, her much smaller hand resting over Luke's as he continues to mess with the hole in her jeans. "You opened the door. You're stuck with me, Lu."

Luke's stomach flips at the name leaving her lips. No one had ever called him that, Luke never even wanted a nickname, but suddenly he doesn't know how he ever lived without hearing it fall from her lips.

Luke doesn't even try to hide the shy smile on his face, his cheeks heating as he leans down to press a kiss on the tip of her nose. "Good. I wasn't planning on having to let you go. I'm in too deep now." He confesses.

The couple is so invested in each other in fact, that they don't even realize that Calum had managed to snap a picture of the exact moment Luke pressed his lips to the tip of her nose.

The three other boys all grin knowingly at the picture as the moment was captured perfectly. From the way Arlo was gazing up at Luke with pure adoration to the way Luke's eyes hard fluttered shut, the placement of his hands on her thigh and around her shoulders saying a million words.

As the subway arrives at its proper stop, all five of the teenagers stand. Ashton leads the way with a navigation system pulled up on his phone, Michael right by his side to ensure the boy doesn't walk into a pole or something while he stares at his phone. Calum follows after them and Arlo and Luke trail towards the back, the blond holding his girl close as they walk through the crowded city.

Despite the fact that they had a reservation for a hotel room, check-in time wasn't until later in the afternoon and it was only just about to hit noon. They had time to kill and none of them had been to the city except for Calum and Arlo.

"How does brunch sound?" Ashton looks over his shoulder at his friends. "There's a pancake house at the end of this block. The reviews look pretty good."

Michael groans. "I still feel like I'm going to throw up, but I also want a pancake." The boy holds his stomach, hunching over slightly. "I need to drown the nervousness in syrup and copious amounts of chocolate chips."

Calum stops suddenly, causing the rest of the group to nearly knock into him. The group of five now stands still in the middle of the crowded street. "What's wrong with us?" Calum frowns, throwing up his hands. "We just got the opportunity of a lifetime! Why are we sad?"

"We're probably going to have to move-" Michael begins, only to be cut off by Calum again.

"Fuck that town!" Calum shouts, completely disregarding that they were in public. "All we wanted was to get out! Well, we did it!"

A smile tugs at Arlo's lips, pure pride washing over her. As nervous as she was for their lives to change, she knew all of that fear would be worth it once they saw their dreams come true. Almost everyone is scared of change, herself especially. But change was good.

Calum turns to face the busy street, cupping his hands over his mouth. "Hey everybody! We just got a record deal!" He screams at the top of his lungs. "Do you hear me?! We're going to make it big! We're gonna make a kick-ass album and play stadiums!"

"Shut the fuck up!"

A collective laugh leaves the group as Calum flips off the random stranger who'd yelled back to him, but his antics did the trick. Happiness settles over the group as Luke drapes his arms around Arlo, a small smile on his face.

Somehow, they were thinking the same thing.

All Luke ever wanted was to get out of that goddamn town that did nothing but chew him up and spit him out, the same town that left him on his own out in the cold. He was finally going to get out of the town full of shitty people who couldn't give a fuck if he lived or died and he was going to have the time of his life doing it too.

With the mood suddenly improved by a million, the group makes their way into the pancake house at the end of the block. They find a circular booth at the back of the restaurant and order a shit ton of pancakes because well, they were almost rockstars.

Michael hunches over the table, syrup still on his lips as he laughs so hard that a sharp cramp appears in his side. "Oh my god, do you guys remember when Calum was like; "Hey everybody!"

"That was like half an hour ago. What do you mean do I fuckin' remember?" Luke deadpans.

The look on Luke's face only sends Michael even further over the edge, howling with laughter as Ashton chokes on his drink while trying to hold back a laugh and Calum scowls. Not even Luke can keep a straight face as Arlo giggles, her eyes pinching shut.

"Fuck you guys!" Calum scoffs, popping a piece of his pancakes into his mouth. "If it weren't for me you'd probably be nervous puking in front of a family of pigeons Mikey."

"Hey everybody!" Ashton mocks once again, though this time, Michael's laughter ceases.

The absence of the red-haired boy's laughter catches the rest of the table's attention. Mikey sits with a concentrated look on his face, his fingers seemingly playing guitar chords in the air as he mumbles under his breath.

"What's up, Mike?" Luke asks, his brows furrowed. From the few writing sessions they'd had, Luke had learned to recognize when Michael had an idea.

"Hey everybody could be such a sick chorus." Michael says excitedly, looking around the table with a glint in his eye. He'd been having writer's block as of late when it came to songwriting and he was overjoyed at the mere idea that his thoughts were flowing again. "We make the song sound like what we would say if we were all brave enough to yell in the middle of the street like Calum did."

"Holy shit." Luke mutters, beginning to fish his familiar notebook out of the back pocket of his jeans. Arlo can practically see the gears turning in his head as he jots down a string of ideas quickly.

"I think you were right, Cal." Arlo smiles, nudging the boy next to her. "The blonde streak really did make you rockstar material."

✰

Luke Hemmings was beginning to panic.

After the five of them checked into their shared hotel room for the night, the three other boys decided they had too much energy to stay inside. They left to explore the city, leaving Luke and Arlo with the room to themselves for a few hours.

Arlo wasn't doing anything but sitting on the balcony of the hotel room with a book in her hand, her knees tucked up to her chest as she always did. She'd pulled her hair back and changed into a pair of sweatpants and stolen Luke's t-shirt.

Luke swallows thickly, as he takes in the sight of her. A perfect view of the New York City skyline could also be seen from the balcony but all he could look at was her. Arlo and the chipped red nail polish on her nails, Arlo and the way she fiddled with the edge of the pages of her book as she read, Arlo and her utterly fucking irresistible personality.

Luke Hemmings was panicking because for the entire time he was in the shower all he could think about was how fucking bad he wanted to kiss her. He hadn't been able to do so all day, not the way he wanted, and quite frankly he felt like was going through a withdrawal.

She was his girl, it was normal to want to kiss her. But not for someone like Luke.

Luke was an awkward preteen. Girls always chose Calum over him and he was okay with that because well, all a younger Luke cared about was books. He didn't have his first kiss until his freshman year of high school, but even then, he didn't really want to.

When Luke was fifteen he met a girl at the basketball court outside his school. Calum always dragged him along to keep him company while he would shoot hoops for hours. Luke would sit waiting for him to finish for the day. Luke hated basketball, so he preferred to read.

One afternoon, a girl approached him. She was nineteen and she had pretty green eyes and long blonde hair that made Luke wonder how long it took her to grow all of it. Her name was Molly.

It started with her sitting down beside Luke on the park bench and telling him how pretty his eyes were.

It ended a week later with him losing his virginity to her in the back of Calum's car.

Luke didn't really want to have sex with Molly because well, he wasn't really interested in having sex with anyone. But he did it because the older girl said all the right things, she made him feel special and wanted.

Luke also didn't know how to say no at the time.

The blond wasn't always the person he is now, he never used to fuck a different girl every night just for the fun of it. But after Molly, he couldn't quite stop. He hooked up with her several times and she taught him more than he knew existed.

Eventually though, Molly wasn't enough. Luke began to crave the validation he got from making girls' legs shake because that was the only sort of praise he ever got. School wasn't his strong suit and his parents had already begun to figure out that he'd never go to Law School, but when he was fucking some random he felt good.

Luke resorted to sex when he felt anything- when he was sad, when he was angry, when he was bored.

As Luke stands in the middle of the hotel room, his hair still dripping from his shower and a pair of sweatpants hanging low on his hips, his chest begins to heave. Luke Hemmings is panicking because after today's events, the boy felt too much emotion and he had no outlet to release it.

He panics because for once, Luke doesn't want to fuck the girl in front of him and throw her to the side. Luke didn't know how to feel and he didn't know how to cope and his chest was really fucking starting to hurt.

Suddenly, Arlo stands from her chair on the balcony and stretches her arms over her head, a small yawn leaving her lips as she stumbles back into the hotel room. "Are you hungry, Luke? The boys are going to get snacks" She asks as she closes the sliding glass balcony door.

In an instant, Luke is in front of her, his hands on her waist as he turns her to face him. Arlo gasps as her back is pressed against the glass door, her eyes going wide as Luke looms over her.

"Can you kiss me?" Luke asks lowly, his hands neatly trembling as they rest on her waist.

"Luke, what's wrong?" Arlo asks worriedly, the tone in her voice only filling Luke with more guilt.

He clenches his jaw, his eyes pleading. "Please. I need you to kiss me, Lo."

Arlo swallows nervously, the pure intensity in his eyes shocking her right to her core. "Okay." She whispers breathlessly before pushing herself up onto her tiptoes and pressing her lips to his own.

The nature in which Luke kisses her back is feverish, frantic even. He takes control of the kiss immediately, his hands traveling down until they reach her thighs. In one swift movement, Luke hoists her up. The feel of his lip ring sends a shiver down her spine as she clings to him.

Arlo's legs instinctively wrap around Luke's, her breath hitching as Luke's body presses her back against the glass. With the city skyline behind them, Luke kisses her like his life depends on it, pouring every ounce of his pent up emotion from the day into it.

The difference is this time, his hands don't dare leave her hair or the soft skin of her cheek. As passionately as he kisses her, he's still gentle. And for the first time in his life, Luke isn't trying to fuck his emotions away. He's learning to cope, and it's all because of the remedy he's found in her- Arlo.

By the time Luke pulls away, Arlo's lips are swollen and she's breathless, her cheeks tinted pink. "What was that for?" There's a small smile on her face, one that comforts Luke to no end.

The blond boy shakes his head, the feeling of her legs wrapped around his waist and the sight of her back pressed against the glass door with the city serving as a backdrop is almost too much for him.

"You make me feel so much, Lo, and I don't ever want to stop." Luke's voice is barely a whisper "It's terrifying and trust never got me anywhere, but I trust you." He admits, blue eyes shining with emotion. "How fucking terrifying is that?"