figure my heart out // muke

16

This time, I was the one driving us to our next pitstop on this roadtrip that didn't really have a point. Calum was supposed to be directing me but he fell asleep with his elbow leaned against the door and head in his hand. He looked too peaceful to be woken up as soft snores left his parted lips.

Ashton was in the back seat complaining about how Luke didn't settle for him to be his footrest as it 'wasn't that same' and Luke had his legs curled up on the middle seat between them.

"Come on Lukey," Ashton cooed, "Come rest your feet on papa's lap." He gently tapped on his thighs as Luke whined.

"No fucking way, not after you called yourself papa. You and your weird daddy kink or whatever."

"HEY!" Ashton yelled, smacking Luke's legs which earned a wince and Luke smacking Ashton's arm even harder.

"Can you kids quiet down? Calum's sleeping and you know how much of a bear with a sore ass he is when he's awoken." I interrupted their play fight and they both listened, I decided to change the topic. "So, Ashton. How was the concert last night?"

I kept my eyes on the road, we were still travelling on the highway and there was barely any traffic. Although I didn't know where we were going. I didn't even know if we were supposed to take a specific turn-off as our GPS was asleep.

"It was amazeballs," He reminisced, "It was truly one of the best nights of my life. Seeing this fucking band that we barely knew and barely knew any of the words to their songs while being so close to the barricade was dream-like."

"How did the lead singer look up close?" Luke asked him.

"Lukas Hammington?! Well he was definitely hot! But I was more into the drummer, he was so cool. I think name was Arnold Irwing or something. He was so muscular and sweaty. But Calum thought the bassist was more hot, I can't really remember his name. Pretty sure it was Colin Hat or some weird shit like that. The only member we could agree on attractiveness was the guitarist. Fucking fire-truck red hair. His name was Mitchell Cleffo and anyone called Mitchell is hot in my opinion." Ashton gushed.

"Lukas and Luke hey?" I teased, "Ship name could be LuLu."

I glanced in the rear view mirror to Luke staring me down. I could see the corner of his lip twitching into a smirk like he was entertained by my remarks. I then directed my sight back onto the road in front of me.

"LuLu is a cute ship name. We will have many cute babies together."

"Oh god, I hope not." Ashton scoffed. "Please don't turn this into some weird mpreg fanfiction fantasy."

Luke giggled out loud and I couldn't help but smile at it. "I was joking, I don't want any crotch goblins running around my feet."

I shook my head at the 'crotch goblin' comment, "What the hell is a crotch goblin?" I cackled.

"It's what Luke calls babies for some odd reason. He doesn't want any children like ever."

"Me either," I say, hoping Luke was listening to me. "I think there are too many crotch goblins in this world already, definitely no need for more."

After a moment of silence Luke snorted, "Sorry, I'm already taken by the lead singer. There's no vacancies available."

"No you're not," Ashton exclaimed. "He doesn't even know you exist and plus I don't think he'll fuck you Luke."

I could feel the tension in the car building up. Bringing up the suggestion of sex around Luke now felt weird. I couldn't shake that funny feeling from my bones. The way he was still so afraid to open up to his Bestest Friends in the whole wide world about something that internally troubled him, and yet all they kept doing was taunting him about it. Maybe it was because of pure naivety, that because Ashton or even Calum weren't even aware of Luke's addiction that was why they thought joking with him about it was okay - when I knew deep down it wasn't okay. Was this why he put up this attituded facade? To disguise the fact that deep down the jokes and teasing hurt because it was linked to something he needed to recover from?

The drive made me analyse every single detail about Luke and the conversation from last night. It was all starting to make sense in my mind and clarity had came to reassure me that the only solution to his problems was to reach out to the people who cared most about him. But that was the conflict, that was the road block. How do I get through to him that he needs to reach out for help?

Luke was a stubborn man, I could tell. But under all the rocks and rubble was a genuine and caring soul who just wanted to be set free from this curse. I bet he blamed himself for this. I bet he blamed himself for a lot of things. I bet he blamed himself for becoming addicted to sex, like it was his own fault and not the addictive nature of the euphoric high. I could relate to him in so many ways. We were two different people but our minds shared a common ground - we both had some sort of obsession with repetitive motions, whether that be sexual or not was what separated us.

Oh me and my selfish appetite, always relating it back to me. I can never get enough of my own ego.

Somehow as I got lost in thought, we ended up near the coast and now were driving on a road next to the beachfront. Calum stirred awake, blinking his eyes and furrowing his eyebrows at me. "Where the fuck are we?"

"Welcome to Kansas!" Ashton fooled.

"We're in fucking Kansas?!" Calum panicked and turned to me, "How the fuck did you drive us all the way to fucking Kansas?!"

I couldn't help but to burst out laughing at Calum's half-asleep idiocy. "We're not in Kansas you idiot."

"Then why are we at the beach??"

"Fucking I don't know?" I shrugged my shoulders at him, "You were asleep and you were supposed to give me directions!"

"So great. Michael got us lost." Luke rolled his eyes, or at least that's what I imagined by his immature tone.

"Oh so you're now going to blame me, huh?" I argued. "None of you fuckers in the back wanted to tell me where we were going so now we're here, at the beach. Whoop-de-doo!"

You could cut the tension with a knife in here. I knew the majority of it was playful but I couldn't help feeling some aggression directed towards me. It wasn't my fault that I was the back-up designated driver and didn't know where the hell I was travelling too.

"Well, I guess we're at the beach." Calum sighed, accepting our fate as he stared out the window.

"A beach day doesn't sound too bad." Ashton chirped.

"And where are we going to stay?" Luke asked, thinking more logical.

Ashton ummed in thought, "We could sleep in the car?"

"Sleep in the car?!" I cried out. "We are four giants already cramped in this tiny moving box. How the hell are we supposed to sleep comfortably in here?"

"Ash has a point Mikey. We can stay in the car for one night until Ashton and I are fully rested and then we can take the wheel." Calum concluded.

"The only person who should be taking the wheel is jesus." Luke commented and it made me smile.

"Shut up, you're not even religious Luke" Ashton nudged him earning a small 'ow' from him.

"Well I'm going to park the car," I responded, trying to search for a vacant car park that was near the beach front. Luckily there was a free spot underneath a tall palm tree. We had a straight view of the ocean and it was almost like we had stepped into a painted portrait. The waves overlapped each other like they were pearl drivers. It was truly breath-taking.