Underneath by V. J. Albert (great novels .txt) 📕

Luca I insist that you go. I'd be like a birthday present for Chel's 15th birthday!"

"I am 21 years old! I don't like that guy and I don't like his teenage pop music shit! I won't go!" Luca shouts and stands up from his chair. Chel chuckling, Fay stares annoyed onto her plate in front of her and the twins don't understand what the problem is, continuing to play clapping rhymes.

"Luca, it's your sister's wish and I understand that you aren't a teenager anymore and you have different interests than your sister and you might not like the artist your sister wants to see. But I refuse to let my, by then, 15-year-old daughter go alone to some concert, let alone Meet & Greet!" Luca lets out a groan.

Is she seriously?

Luca' home for his fucking Christmas holidays and he has to leave soon for London again and his mother thinks it's the perfect time to insist him to go to this stupid concert in September? He is freaking 21. He isn't even living at home anymore since he's at university in London, living in the dorms of the university with his roommate and best friend Stan.

He doesn't have to do what his mother says anymore. He just doesn't.

"I don't care if it's soon after my sister's birthday! It could be her 18th birthday and I wouldn't want to go. You can't make me!" Chel glares at him with a killer look and Luca doesn't care. Right now, he doesn't care.

"Okay, we’ll discuss that later. Maybe after dinner!?" Joan looks at him in a plea and he knows it's damage control. Luca's mum knows that the twins and Fay have nothing to do with this conversation and they would probably rather eat than listen to Luca shout at their mother. Besides, they all were hungry, too. "We eat now and then the both of us can talk about it in private afterwards. So, sit down again, please."

"Thank you but I'm not hungry anymore!" Luca says before he storms out of the room and runs up the stairs.

 

He calls Al. That's always making everything better. Alexis does listen. Al gives advice and is honest. Luca needs that right now.

The phone makes its usual ringing sounds – beep beep beep.

"Hello?"

"Alexis. God blesses!"

"Luca, what is it? I have dinner with Dean in like ten minutes!" Dean it was, right.

"Shit, was that today?"

"Yes, idiot! So where is the fire?"

"Chel!"

"What did she do now? Run into your room again without knocking?"

"That's not the problem. The problem is the thing she came in for in the first place!"

"Oh, and that is?" His best friend sounds bored, annoyed even. She doesn't really want to talk with Luca right now, Luca knows. Alexis's always like that before a date with Dean.

"HenryShawMeetAndGreetConcertTickets!" Luca lets out without one breath in between and he feels like having a huge panic attack coming.

"WAIT WHAT?" Alexis almost screams.

"She bought tickets from her saved money for Christmas. September concert in Manchester and mum wants me to go with my sister! It's a Meet & Greet and I don't want to go!"

"I'm so jelly of you, Luca. I'd take the damn ticket in a heartbeat!"

"Maybe I should get my mum to allow Chel to go with you!"

"Well, no thank you. I like Chel but I don't want to spend a whole freaking concert alone with a fifteen year old. I'd have too much responsibility."

"You suck!"

"And you suck dick." Alexis chuckles and Luca' close to do the exact same but he's not in the mood for chuckles or laughs or even a bloody smile.

"Very accurate return, Ms Berridge."

"Okay, listen, Luca. Dean's here. I need to hang up. Love you, bye."

"Bye", Luca says and gets greeted with the sound of an ended call.

Thank you very much for the concern though, Al!

 

Luca Goldberg (@TheGoldberg)

It's official now: I hate my sister for liking Henry Shaw! #fact

 

Jenna Miller (@JenJenMill)

@TheGoldberg why? oO

 

Alan (@AlanKelley)

@TheGoldberg also have a sister that loves that guy. I don't see why.

 

Luca Goldberg (@TheGoldberg)

@AlanKelley I'll second that! I don't know why either.

Two

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ 8 months later ~

 

"Why couldn't you just buy four Meet & Greet tickets at least?" Luca shouts at Chel. He tried so hard to get his mum to change her mind in the last eight months. To just allow Chel and her best friend Emily to go to the Meet & Greet together, but Joan had refused and even had put Luca' name on one of the tickets and Chel's on the other before he could go on with discussing himself out of this shit. He remembers how angry he has been. There was no way he could delete the name on the ticket now, so that the ticket was still usable. Luca was just fucked. And it wasn't in a good way.

God, I wished I was fucked in the good way.

Luca shakes his head. Where are his thoughts going?

Okay, that went off tracks.

"I didn't have enough money dumb-arse. And anyway, I didn't think I would have to go with you. I'd rather go with Emily to the Meet 'n' Greet. Glad she even could get a normal ticket before they were all sold out!"

"And I'm glad Alexis likes this idiot too and got herself a ticket as soon as I told her I'd have to go. Otherwise I would have killed you, Chel."

"Oh, shut up, you wouldn't. Anyway, I bet, deep within, you probably even like Henry. Maybe you even have a crush on him. I mean seriously who wouldn't?" Now she was kidding right?

"Just because he has a pretty face doesn't mean I like him or even have a crush on him." Luca sighs. "I care about something that is called personality, you heard about it?"

"Fuck you, Luca. Don't forget that you have a dumb twitter about your gay life. It's not better than my Henry twitter account!"

"At least I don't spend 24/7 drooling over someone I'll meet at a Meet & Greet for two seconds, maybe get a picture and don't ever see again."

"And I don't spend 24/7 complaining about my pathetic non-existing sex life, thank you very much."

"You don't even follow me!"

"No but I was curious, okay. I wanted to know what you're even writing about. All there's to find are tweets about your parties and complains about your sex life or your stupid uni and I really don't understand why so many people even follow you!"

"Because of the tweets I sent about Henry bloody Shaw I got annoying Shawties following me. It's just your fault."

"I didn't tell you to tweet about Henry! See you seem quite obsessed with him yourself when you complain about him for eight months straight."

Shit!

That was kind of true, though, wasn't it? He had spent so much time to complain about how he has to attend that stupid concert and how much he dislikes that Henry Shaw guy that he seems a bit obsessed in his own way. It has been eight months now and the concert was this Friday. It was Friday, the 13th and well how fitting was that? It was like a damn horror movie, wasn't it? At least for Luca it was.

He could think about spending a Friday evening more efficient than going to a Henry Shaw concert with his 15-year-old sister and her best friend. Gladly, Alexis was with them as well. Luca literally had begged her to come with them as his personal support. He'd for sure need it.

Alexis and Emily couldn't get seats directly next to the tickets from the Meet & Greet but they found two seats a few rows behind. Alexis would sit with Luca and Chel could sit with Emily and fangirl as much as she wanted.

That was the compromise Luca got. It was better than nothing, he thought. It meant he didn't have to be first row at a concert he didn't even want to attend, like at all. The seventh row should be survivable, he thinks.

"No, you didn't", Luca murmurs and stalks out of the living room to go change into some very comfortable outfit but still perfect enough to go clubbing after the concert. That was his own little compromise to make this day not a complete waste of time while staying in Manchester. Emily's mother has promised to pick the girls up after the concert, so Luca could go clubbing with Alexis as long as they wanted. That was the deal. That was why he agreed to go through the horror. Maybe also because the tickets already had the Goldberg siblings’ names on them and so he couldn't really back out anymore but really, now he at least had a little of a reason to even drive to Manchester.

He opens his closet and picks his outfit. It takes him like forever to go for the right thing to wear.

What are you fucking wearing to a Meet & Greet you don't want to go to, but you want to club afterwards?

Maybe he should bring spare clothes for after the concert? But where the hell is he supposed to change? He doesn't want to shift in some ugly arse restroom of the arena or some public one.

 

 

Luca Goldberg (@TheGoldberg)

Today will be like the worst day of my life. Have to go to a Henry Shaw concert! Oh, and it's not the worst… it's a Meet & Greet!!! #help

 

Jenna Miller (@JenJenMill)

@TheGoldberg OMG I HAVE A FANGIRL MOMENT!!! I TOTALLY LOVE HIM!! YOU NEED TO KISS AND TELL LATER!

 

PHAN<3 (@phanisreallife)

@TheGoldberg I can't even imagine what would be bad about meeting Henry to be honest! YOU'RE SO LUCKY!

 

Luca Goldberg (@TheGoldberg)

Do I have to thank my sister now that I get all you Shawties following me because you want all the details?

 

Luca Goldberg (@TheGoldberg)

I just don't like Henry Shaw. I'm not going to apologise for saying that I don't want to go to a concert nor a Meet & Greet! #sorrynotsorry

 

Al (@EleanorBerridge)

@TheGoldberg babe, calm your arse! I will be there too!

 

Luca Goldberg (@TheGoldberg)

Bless @EleanorBerridge for saving my arse! Really appreciate it. Love you very much xx

 

Al (@EleanorBerridge)

@TheGoldberg now shut up before people wonder if you're gay or not. Love you, too, though xx

 

PHAN<3 (@phanisreallife)

@TheGoldberg @EleanorBerridge you two are so cute! If we wouldn't know Luca' gay, I'd totally ship you guys!!!

 

Luca sighs and shuts the twitter app.

Bloody wonderful!

Now he had stupid more and more Shawties following him. He shouldn't have tweeted about Henry Shaw. Not at all!

He had like 2K followers eight months ago. All of them are mostly interested in his gay life. And now? Now there are two thousand more followers. All of them having Henry, Shawtie or Heresa in their name, username or their bio, some even had it all.

Urgh.

He didn't plan on getting into that crap. It was a wonder he didn't get hate tweets yet. The Shawties were such a huge fandom. They basically ruled twitter and when you got them on your bad side, you were just plain fucked.

Okay, better don't go there again.

He knows the Shawties fandom is split into two groups. The one believing in Heresa being real, the other group believing Theresa Rhodes is some cover up for Henry Shaw's homosexuality.

Laughable!

"Now did you finish tweeting, or what?"

Right, they had to leave soon. Manchester. Stupid Henry Shaw concert. The Meet & Greet