20

                                    

                                          
To say the drive to the next 3 star hotel was intense would be an understatement. It felt like I was suffocating, that I was drowning in a pool of my own ridden guilt. There was blood on my hands for telling Luke's secret without his permission. He trusted me. He told me he had trusted me.
I spent the whole ride consumed in my own intrusive thoughts as I kept lifting and pushing the car lock up and down up and down up and down up and down. I was getting no relief, no ease. All I felt was panic swirling in my head and in my chest. It was like my own little fucked up punishment. 
We arrived at the hotel and it was pretty mediocre. Luke tried to bargain with Calum to try and switch rooms with him so he could bunk with Ashton but he was having none of it. He gave the reasons of how we had to sort out our own shit and that he had certain plans with Ashton tonight.
I placed the keycard into the hotel room door as Luke harshly shoved me away, "I can handle it." He said coldly. 
He held the door open for me as I took the bed furthest away from the balcony. There was nothing to fill the silence apart from my bag thumping on the bed. Luke rolled his suitcase next to his bed and huffed. I knew he was still pissed and I just allowed him to be. 
"You know," He turned to me, his voice slightly high-pitched like he was trying to disguise the fact he was mad. "You have no right to share my private business with anyone."
 I chuckled at the fact he was bringing this up now that we were alone. I turned to face him and crossed my arms over my chest. "They had a right to know, Ashton had a right to know."I spat.
He charged closer to me, flinging his arms up in the air. "You know nothing about me. I don't need help. I don't want help. I'm not going to stupid fucking rehab. There is nothing wrong with me."
"What about that one drunken night in the car, huh?" Tears brimmed in my eyes hoping he would hear me out, maybe I cared too much about his sorry ass. "You had mentioned that you wanted to get better - not for me, not for Ashton or Calum, but for yourself."
"I never said that I wanted to get better, I said I wanted to be better. There's a clear difference."
"For you to be better you have to get better." 
"I'm not going to rehab, and that's final." He gritted with his teeth and stepped away. It took a minute for him to calm down before he asked, "Can I buy sex off you tonight? I really need the high." He brought his hand up to his mouth and started nibbling on the tip of his middle finger. 
"No I'm not going to be your sex dealer, Luke." I argued, "I know that I am a sex worker, that it's my job to have sex with people but I just can't do that to you anymore. I can't be that for you anymore." 
"Why not?" He cracked, his eyes pricking with tears. He looked stressed and scared at the same time. 
"Because I care about you too much, Luke." I answered honestly, "I can't let you pay to have piss poor sex with me again because I know that I will probably freak out again and leave you again."
"Please." 
"No."
He started to sob as he collapsed back onto the bed behind him, his head falling into his hands. I couldn't help but feel bad. He was in an awful position mentally right now and I knew that I shouldn't feed into his cravings that easily. 
"Luke..." I trailed off, stepping in front of him and relaxing my arms to my sides. "Luke, I'm just trying to help, okay? I want to see you get better. I want you to get better. For your own sake."
Luke rubbed his face and sniffed, his cries softening and devolving into whispering whimpers. He wiped his snotty nose with the sleeve of his hoodie and looked up at me with those vulnerable blue eyes. 
"Can you help me get better?" He choked. 
I was taken aback by his request. Why did he want me of all people to help him get better when he got angry at me for trying to nudge him to take the first step and be more open about his addiction?
He must of read my silence and added context to his question. "I'm just so scared, Mikey. What is rehab doesn't work? What if I'm left in a rut like I was years ago dealing with other addictions? Please, Mikey, I don't want to go back to what I was like back then, I don't want to," He started to sob again before he finished, "I don't want to be like who I was back then."
"How long have you been struggling with this?" I asked him, hoping I wasn't stepping over sore or broken boundaries.
He paused for a moment as he took it all in, his face full of thought as he sniffled, "19." He replied, "I was 19 when Ashton helped me out of a really bad spot, but the thing I didn't tell him was since I had gotten over other problems of mine... I had moved onto other things to cope - one of them being sex." He paused again to recollect himself before continuing with a shaky breath, "I was struggling with accepting my sexuality. So to push all that internalised homophobia down I started to fuck anyone in reach. I didn't care who it was, I did it for the high. But I noticed that having sex with girls was starting to become so unsatisfying that the sexuality crisis I tried burying resurfaced. So I moved onto having loads of sex with strictly guys only. I was then hooked. It felt so fucking good that I couldn't stop. It was my safety net, my coping skill, my high."
I didn't bother to ask about the 'other' problems he had suffered with as it seemed like it was a sore spot for him. He looked wrecked, like he was battling with himself internally. His eye bags were prominent and I knew he hadn't gotten a lot of sleep. His insomniac brain couldn't get enough of eating him away.
"I will tell you what." I say as soft as possible as I brushed a hand through his dirty blonde locks, "I will help you only if you accept Ashton's rehabilitation deal and actually try it out. If it doesn't work out for you, then we can take another route." 
Suddenly he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him as he nuzzled his face into my sternum. "I love you, Mikey." he mumbled.
I held his head in that position as I rewinded those words in my head a thousand times. 'I love you, Mikey. I love you, Mikey. I love you, Mikey.' I didn't know how to respond, was I even ready to say 'I love you' back to him? 
"I like you too." I resorted to saying. 
We stayed there for what felt like hours, me cradling Luke's head until he stopped crying. My sweater was soaked but I didn't even care, it's good to cry every once in awhile.
He grabbed both of my thighs and pulled me to straddle him which shocked me at first but I soon relaxed on his lap. His head tilted up at me with a sad painted smile. I kissed his forehead and whispered, "You will get better," I kissed his temple, "I promise."
He moved his hands to grab my ass as I giggled, the nerve of this man. "Holding it for emotional support." His voice crackled into a half-hearted laugh. His lips then moved into a smirk as he ceased this opportunity to flip me over onto the bed, earning a grunt from me. He pinned my wrists down on the bed and straddled me as I raised a disapproving eyebrow.
"What do you think you're doing, Hemmings?"
Hit bit his bottom lip, taking in a moment of thought before speaking. "Just wanted to see how you'd look from a different angle."
"You want something more, I know." I say, knowing the reality of the situation. "But all I can offer is a cuddle tonight."
His mischief fell from his eyes as he slowly nodded with a small "Ok" escaping his lips. He climbed off of me as he laid on his side in his bed, patting the space next to him. I smiled, crawling over to him on the bed and laying down next to him facing the sliding glass door to the balcony. He pressed his body against mine and snuggled his head into my shoulder, big spooning me.
"Goodnight." He murmured before dozing off around my touch.
All I could think about in that moment was that even though his body warmth engulfed me, my heart still felt cold.