"I'm getting older, you're getting older

Never in touch, we gave up on that recently

Trash the hotel room, couldn't be closer

Making a mess ain't as fun as it used to be

At least there'll be no more destruction now we're apart

Life can't always be one perfect walk in the park

We grow up and we grow apart"

✰

"Are you going to do something?"

Luke lazily looks up from where he sits on the bathroom counter to drag his eyes over the girl standing across from him. Her chest was still heaving from the way they'd stumbled in the bathroom, kissing messily.

"No." Luke says honestly. He didn't want to fuck her, he didn't want to fuck anyone and he was still pissed about it.

"Why not?" She scoffs.

"Because I want someone to think we're fucking." Luke shrugs simply, pulling his phone out of his jacket pocket to find that it had only been five minutes. "Isn't that what you want too? A story to post on social media? Go around and say you fucked Luke Hemmings?"

Her face blanks and Luke knows he's got her figured out. It wasn't hard, that's all anyone wants from him lately anyway. Three years ago he thought he'd been overwhelmed by his fame but now that he's grown into himself and the band was on the rise, it was unimaginable.

"Well, how long do I have to stay in here?" The girl, who he didn't know the name of, cringes as she looks around the bathroom.

Luke rolls his eyes, for he'd been decent enough to bring her to the VIP bathroom. It sure as hell was a lot nicer than the one she'd be using downstairs if it weren't for him. "Until you look thoroughly fucked. Now come kiss my neck and do jumping jacks or some shit."

Meanwhile, Arlo Abbott is sitting at the VIP booth all alone.

Michael and Calum were getting more drinks from the bar considering they were actually twenty-one and Ashton was off dancing with a girl he met. Beck had been with her for a while but he'd gone to the car to get his jacket that he forgot, leaving her alone.

She didn't want to be there.

Arlo feels like a fraud with a tight red dress on that threatens to flash someone every time she walks and pretty makeup done on her eyes. As she wraps her lips around the straw of her drink she barely even cringes at the taste of alcohol, merely wiping away the lipgloss mark from the plastic and swallowing with a straight face.

But, Beck had been there for her through everything, he'd stayed through her lowest of lows and if he wanted to go out to celebrate going on tour, then she would too. It wasn't so bad at first considering Luke had avoided her like the plague, ignoring her presence. Then, he drug some girl to the bathroom kissing her neck, and combined with the fact that Arlo was alone, she was drowning in her own mind.

She didn't know how long she'd been sitting in that booth alone, but she knew she was drunk. So drunk in fact that she doesn't even notice that someone has sat down in the booth beside her until the cousin she sits on dips down with their weight.

With blurred vision, Arlo looks up to find a blond boy- and no, not the one she wanted to see deep down. Even if he was breaking her heart with every word and every hookup, at least she could see him and know he was okay.

"Why are you sitting alone?" His lips look like they're moving in slow motion to her inebriated mind and Arlo has to focus really hard on what he's saying in order to understand.

She shrugs, always one to be softer when she was drunk. "I dunno." Arlo says, leaning her head against the back of the booth and looking up at the pretty club lights blending above her. They looked like stars if she focused hard enough.

"Are you okay?" He asks and if Arlo would have been paying attention she might have noticed the way his eyes were hungrily taking in her body. Her dress had ridden up and Arlo was far too drunk to realize. "Why's a pretty girl like you all alone in a VIP booth?"

Arlo chews on her bottom lip, using the slight pain to ground her when her head begins spinning a little too much. "Free drinks... more drinks." She lazily gestures to the glasses on the table. "Why would I need to move?"

"You don't dance?" The blond asks. Her comprehension isn't very good at the moment but she thinks he's around her age, or maybe a bit closer to Beck's age. She was really too drunk to know for sure.

"I used to." Arlo pouts, a vague memory of her and Luke dancing around Calum's kitchen in the middle of one of his house parties suddenly hitting her like a bus. Her eyes water and a sharp pain radiates through her chest at the memory. "Now, I have to be really, really drunk to dance."

"Well, then let's get you a drink." The blond says, his brown eyes rimmed with a deep red color that makes Arlo think alcohol isn't the only thing he's consumed.

She knows she shouldn't let him drag her out of the booth, especially when he slings an arm around her waist and lets his fingertips travel lower. But, Arlo didn't care about anything but Luke and the jealousy flooding her veins from whoever he'd taken to the bathroom. Besides, the guy had to have VIP access in order to even get up here, so how bad could he be?

Arlo barely even registers that she's standing in front of the bar until there's a drink in front of her. She feels his hand on her waist and suddenly she's sitting on one of the barstools, his hands lingering.

"Finish this and we can go back to mine, what do you think?" A smirk tugs at his lips and he slides a drink in her direction, going as far as to hold it up to her lips for her. Simultaneously, his hand travels up her thighs until he reaches the hem of the short red fabric.

As if his touch is what is needed to bring her back to reality, a feeling of dread hits Arlo all at once. Suddenly, she doesn't want to be there, she wants to be as far away from the stranger as she can get and she wants his hand away from her skin.

Just as the man encourages the glass to touch her lips, the drink is snatched out of his hand. Arlo is far too drunk to process what's going on as it happens. All of a sudden Luke is there- one minute his hand is fisting the collar of the man's shirt and the next all she can see is black silk fabric as the sound of glass smashing echoes through the air.

Arlo's mind is reeling, her lethargic brain only able to focus on the golden curls in front of her and the way the muscles of his back flex under his shirt as Luke stands between her and the man, blocking her view of him.

She can hear glass shatter and see shards fly but that's the extent of it, for before she knows it she's being tugged down from the barstool, a familiar touch on her waist. His touch burns right through the material of her dress, robbing her breath straight from her lungs.

As Luke hurries them through the club, his own chest heaving with anger, Arlo can't decide if her head is spinning faster from the alcohol or the feeling of him slotted against her body for the first time in years.

There's no hesitancy behind his actions. Luke isn't thinking about how he's holding her or how natural it feels- how right it feels to hold her again. All he can think about is the possibilities of what could have happened had he not left the bathroom when he did.

He feels sick to his stomach. Luke was trying to hurt Arlo by making her think he was sleeping with someone else and that fucking guy was planning to... he couldn't even think about it. Everything after he saw him slip something in her drink and slide his hand up her dress was a blur of red hot anger, fear, guilt, and every emotion in between.

Luke walks straight out the back door of the club, hoping the night air will sober her up. He didn't think he could be in that fucking building any longer without killing that prick either. Luke finds a small bench where the workers must take their smoke breaks and quickly sits her on it.

Arlo's skin is practically buzzing as Luke tugs down her dress where it had ridden up. Especially when his eyes linger on her thighs, his fingertips just barely brushing the skin. "Did he touch you anywhere else?"

His voice is low, lethal even, but Arlo can also tell he's trying to soften his tone so as to not make her upset. She kind of wants to cry- the reality of the situation and having Luke so close again is becoming all too much.

"Arlo." His voice is more stern this time as he stands in front of her, crouching down until his blue eyes meet her own and his hands cup her jaw. His hands are trembling and she doesn't know if it's due to his anger or something else. "Fuck, I need you to answer me. Open your eyes more. Are you high? Did you drink anything that he gave you? Fuck, I fucking I hate-"

"I'm fine." Arlo croaks timidly, cutting off his frantic cursing. "I didn't drink anything, I swear-"

"Why the fuck would you take a drink from someone you don't know, Arlo?" Luke's blue eyes are wild, his hands still on her face, forcing her eyes to meet his own. "Why didn't you tell anyone you were leaving the goddamn booth? Why the hell were you alone?"

As he fires question after question at her, her eyes begin to water. The tears never spill over but her breathing increases and Luke's face drops at the sight. If Arlo was anything like she was when she was his, tears in her eyes meant something serious.

"I'm sorry." Luke apologizes hastily. "I'm not mad at you, this isn't your fault. I was just scared for you, okay?" Instinctively, Luke's thumb begins stroking her cheek soothingly, though none of them are strong enough to question the more than friendly action. "Fuck, I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life."

"I'm sorry." Arlo echoes desperation in her tone. "Luke, I've meant to tell you how sorry I am but-"

"Not right now." Luke flexes his jaw, shaking his head in denial. "Not right here, not like this." He pleads. He didn't think he was strong enough to hear her apology at the moment and quite frankly all he gave a fuck about at the moment was making sure she was okay after what happened inside

Arlo merely nods, taking her bottom lip harshly between her teeth as she tries to hold back a flood of emotion. This all felt too familiar- his hands on her skin, his comforting words, the way he stands slotted between her legs, the smell of his cologne- she feels like she did three years ago and it hurts worse than seeing him hook up with someone else.

"I feel like every time I see you, you're drunk." Luke confesses. "Did you grow up that much in three years? What happened?" Suddenly, nothing matters but her again. Not that night three years ago, not all of the girls and drugs, not even Beck- nothing but her.

Arlo's teary brown eyes connect with his own as she leans into his touch, reveling in the feeling of his skin against her own and the familiar butterflies in her stomach she hasn't felt in years. "It hurts to be around you when I'm sober."

Luke's face falls, devastation coacting with his angelic features to create something tragic. "Don't say that to me, Lo." He shakes his head in denial, his throat becoming tight. "The only thing that's gotten me through these last three years is telling myself you were better off without me."

Luke doesn't know why he admits this when he's spent the last few days trying to hurt her with his words. Maybe it's because there's a chance she's so drunk she won't even remember it in the morning- at least that's what he tells himself.

"I'm not." Arlo admits, her heart racing as she braces for rejection or even disgust to cross his features. "I'm not better off without you."

Luke gazes down at her, a pang of hurt running through his chest as he takes in the sight of his hand delicately cupping her jaw. His blue eyes drink in the image of the emotion her brown eyes hold, the freckles on her cheeks, the way the tip of her nose is red from the night air, and how her skin has a blue-tinted glow from the moonlight.

"Don't look at me like that." His voice is pleading, his tone wavering as Luke pinches his eyes shut, doing his best not to say fuck it and forget all the pain he went through for three goddamn years.

But, fuck having her like this again with no other distractions- nothing but her and her pretty brown eyes and her long hair and her goddamn lips- it was so fucking tempting.

Arlo's brows furrow and her lips part, her bottom lip brushing against his thumb and causing both of them to suck in a harsh breath. "Like what?" She asks in confusion.

"Like you used to." Luke grits out, his hand that's not on her waist unconsciously tightening its grip on her waist, the fabric of her dress becoming wrinkled under his touch. "Like you still give a fuck about me."

"I do." Arlo responds immediately, her voice barely above a whisper.

Luke pinches his eyes shut in grief, his heart clenching in his chest. Less than five minutes in her presence and he could already feel himself crumbling in the palm of her delicate hand. "You can't." He shakes his head. "I'm not who I used to be and neither are you. We aren't kids anymore Arlo-"

"I don't want to let you go." Arlo's voice is almost a whimper, her vulnerability fueled through her intoxication. "Luke, can we just talk-"

"I can't, Arlo." Luke cuts her off swiftly. He knew if he let her finish her sentence he'd end up giving her anything the wanted. "You let me go three years ago and we've got to live with it. I'm going on tour and you have Beck-"

"He's my friend, Luke." Arlo stresses, her hand covering his own as it rests against her cheek. "I haven't kissed anyone since you kissed me in that club, I haven't touched anyone since I touched you in the bookstore, I haven't-"

"Fuckin' hell." Luke curse slowly, dropping his hand from her skin. "You're drunk, I'm not doing this right now. I don't believe you, not for a goddamn second."

Arlo's ears are ringing, pain radiating through her chest at his words. "You don't believe me?" She asks in disbelief.

Luke inhales sharply as he slots his hand in her own, prepared to lead her inside. He couldn't be out here any longer without doing something he wasn't sure if he'd regret. "You're sorry?" Luke asks as Arlo stands in front of him, her eyes even with his chest as she tilts her head back to look at him properly

Arlo nods, her brows furrowed as she tries to distinguish the look on his face.

Luke flexes his jaw, his words coming out harshly. "Then give me a goddamn reason for why you did what you did. Not a bullshit one either, everything you said to me that night was a lie and you and I both know it."

There's a beat of silence between the two of them and as Arlo's lips part in shock, Luke quickly shakes his head. "Never mind, you're drunk."

"Luke?" Arlo's voice is laced with hope.

"Yeah?"

"Promise me you'll ask me again when I'm sober?" She asks, all of the warmth that had filled her body from his presence rapidly draining away, leaving her empty again.

Luke looks up at the stars, his chest expanding as he takes a deep breath, seeming to ground himself. "I'll think about it."