24 Hours.

1.7 - tips

12:12 PM

"It was really nice of you to give her a tip like that." Skylar said as she sat across from Luke, taking a bite of her sandwich.

"She looked like she was having kind of a bad day." Luke shrugged, looking over his shoulder at the girl standing behind the cash register.

"Do you always carry that much money around with you?" Skylar asked curiously, staring down at Luke's sandwich. He hadn't taken a bite of it yet, because it looked like it ha mayonnaise on it and Luke didn't like mayonnaise. He could easily get up and ask for a new sandwich with out it, but he didn't want to cause a scene, so he stayed put.

"Most of the time." Luke answered, "I don't know, Sky, why?"

"Look at you, rhyming. I didn't know you were a poet." Skylar laughed, which put that weird feeling back in Luke's stomach. The moths, the manly moths.

"Shut up." Luke blushed again, gently kicked Skylar's foot under the table.

"Luke," She groaned, fidgeting in her seat.

"Sky," Luke mocked her, shoving his sandwich away from him. He was just going to throw it away, he couldn't handle eating that.

Luke's phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out, seeing a new text message from Calum.

Calum: mate, you fucked up big time.

He attached a link to a news article, and Luke opened it right away. The first thing he saw when the page opened was a picture of him and Skylar, holding hands as they spoke to each other earlier that morning, before Luke tried to get Skylar to leave the airport. The article described Luke and his new "mystery girl" that he was spending the day with at the airport. They were actually calling Skylar his girlfriend, though nothing was really confirmed yet.

Now was the worst part, where the article included tweets from fans, voicing their opinions. Usually Luke was able to handle the hate because it was about him personally, not anyone that he was associated with. He didn't know how he was going to feel about mean tweets directed towards Skylar.

"She's not even that pretty, I don't understand what Luke sees in her..."

"I don't care that she's probably hooking up with Luke, he'll drop her after a day anyway."

"What makes me mad is that Luke left a group of fans to go talk to her when everyone knows he'll just fuck and leave her"

"Oh look, another one of Luke's hookups. Why doesn't he ever choose pretty girls?"

Luke felt a huge knot in his stomach and he his fists clenched together, suddenly becoming angered at the hateful comments towards Skylar. She didn't deserve to have anyone say those things to her, especially when they didn't even know her name. It was so rude of them to say things like that, calling her ugly and just another one of Luke's many hookups.

She was pretty, beautiful, even. And she wasn't just a hookup, at least that's not what Luke wanted anymore. He hated to admit it, but he had taken a great liking to her personality, despite what he had previously believed. It turns out personality did matter, and Luke really liked Skylar's. But his fans didn't even know her or her personality, they had no right to be so mean.

"Hey," Luke said quietly, reaching across the table and taking Skylar's hand in his. He ran his thumb over the top of it, staring at their hands as they rested on the table. "You don't have a twitter, do you?"

The last thing Luke wanted was for Skylar to see what was being said, because he knew that the comments she was receiving would absolutely crush her. She didn't deserve to be hurt like that, and she definitely didn't deserve to have Luke be the cause of her pain.

"No, why?" She asked, smiling back at Luke. He felt awful, she was completely oblivious.

"No reason." Luke shrugged. He picked his phone up from the table again and opened the twitter app, quickly composing a new tweet.

"Stay out of my business and hers, thank you."

He knew that it was only going to bring more attention to the matter and ultimately make things worse, but Luke honestly couldn't help it. He needed to say something about it, and hopefully stop everyone from assuming things and being so mean without knowing the entire story. Luke knew his fans, and they would listen to what he said.

"No reason." Luke said, and then quickly snapped a picture of Skylar siting across from him. She was looking up with a confused expression on her face, and in the corner of the picture you could see that they were holding hands. "Just wanted to know if I should tag you in the picture I'm about to tweet," He laughed.

"You're posting a picture of me? Wait, let me see it first!" Skylar protested, standing up just a little and leaning over the table. She grabbed Luke's phone from him and examined the picture for a moment, tilting her head to the side.

That was another thing Luke liked about Skylar, that little head tilt.

"Won't your fans be upset?" Skylar asked, passing the phone back to him. He quickly typed a caption about having a great time at lunch with his friend and then hit send on the tweet before answering Skylar.

"I'm kind of mad at them." Luke said, and Skylar tilted her head again.

"Why? They're your fans, what could they possibly do to make you mad?" She chuckled just a little, her grip on Luke's hand loosening as he continued to rub his thumb over her skin.

"Sometimes they don't handle things very maturely." Luke said, biting down on his lip. He wasn't exactly doing it to try and win Skylar over anymore, it was more of a nervous habit now.

"Maybe they get it from you." Skylar said blankly, but she wasn't trying to be mean. She genuinely meant that, and though it might have hurt Luke's feelings in the past to hear that from someone like Skylar, Luke was glad that she had said something. She was being honest with him, which is something that not a lot of people ever did.

"I'm not a very good role model, am I?" Luke asked, laughing under his breath.

"From what I've seen and read," Skylar said, picking up her phone for a second and waving it around, "it doesn't seem like it."

"Huh." Luke nodded, understanding what Skylar was trying to say. The fans were mean to him because most of the time Luke was mean to the fans.

Skylar shrugged, "Don't worry, Luke, I believe in you. I still think that you have time to change."

-

Part of me is like "aw Luke you cutie" and the other part is like "aw Luke you dick"