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

Urgh.

"Sure."

The two of them walk down the stairs together and join Chel and Emily in the living room. Luca' sister and her friend sit on the sofa, scrolling on Chel's phone and screaming from time to time and chatting about incomprehensible stuff.

"Girls, we have to leave in a few. Are you ready?"

"OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!" Chel jumps up from the sofa and runs up the stairs, probably into her room. Emily laughs and also Alexis can't stop herself from laughing out loud. Only Luca stands in the room feeling dumbfounded.

What the heck is wrong with the youth of today?

It feels like hours till Chel comes running back into the room, dressed into a whole other outfit and with some Henry Shaw merch.

"Are you now looking like a blonde Henry Shaw double, or what is this supposed to be?" Luca asks his sister, pointing at her new clothes. She wears a white shirt with a flowery bottom up over it, black ripped skinny jeans, brown boots, a necklace saying 'Shawtie' and a fedora. She looked like some stupid hipster. No, actually she really just looked like a bad copy of Henry bloody Shaw. Maybe she looked slightly better than the pop star, just out of the reason that Luca couldn't stand Henry but loved his sister over everything.

"You look so cute!" Emily and Alexis say simultaneously. Chel blushes and then chuckles incessantly.

Wow, they aren't even in Manchester yet and Luca is already done. He has already enough of the three of them. How will he survive?

He shushes them all out of the house and gets into the car. When everyone is in and buckled up, he starts the engine and drives off towards Manchester. Chel and Emily are playing Henry Shaw' songs in the back seats, Alexis typing on her phone and chatting with Luca from time to time and all Luca can do is try not to freak the fuck out.  

Two hours later they arrive at the arena in Manchester. Luca has survived so far. God bless him!

They have listened to every single song of Henry annoying Shaw on the travel there and Luca doesn't know how he shall survive even one more song by this guy at the concert. He definitely declares 'What makes you unique' to the most annoying songs of all. How did this guy even get famous with such a dumb song? It's a mystery to him. Anyway, that guy's music isn't his type of music anyway. It's too much of teenage pop and the lyrics are just plain awful.

Nonetheless, that guy has three to four songs that are quite okay. Luca has googled that one song like a week ago. It's one of Shaw's best ones, called ‘Things'. He learned that one of his favourite artists has written it and he did freak out immediately. Of course, this has to be the reason he even liked the song.

Whatever, he stopped the engine when he found a car park near the arena and then all of them got out of the car.

"Damn I'm already knackered just from driving here."

"Shut up Luca, there's no going back anymore."

"There wasn't one eight months ago. You remember mum putting both our names on the damn tickets?" Luca groans. He adored all the woman and girls in his family but that day his mum went slightly too far.

"Yep, I remember. It was a great day."

They cross a street, turn left into another street, cross a zebra crossing and then they are there. Finally. At the arena. And it seems so… finally. So terrible like it's coming, the horror.

Luca feels uneasy again. The last time he felt that terrible, was the night eight months ago when his mum had announced that Luca would for sure attend this stupid concert with Chel.

No, actually he feels even worse than that. He feels like he's going to throw up.

The girls next to him on the other side are scarily excited, even overexcited. Even Alexis is a little hyper.

Oh my gosh, why can't Chel be old enough to go alone?

They walk up the few stairs up to the public open space before the arena. Luca looked up the time.

4:20 pm.

Just in time. The Meet & Greet will start in 10 minutes. They have to find the doors. It isn't easy to find anything here. They all haven't been at this arena before and there are so many people that you couldn't really make out the signs that were supposed to help find the way.

The four of them walked up to the long waiting line and found that there are actually two. The shorter one apparently for the VIP tickets which included the Meet & Greet. Chel said her goodbye to Emily and hugged her tightly.

Holy shit, you're not dying! You'll see each other again in two hours!

While Alexis and Emily stay in the long queue for the normal tickets, Chel and Luca walk up to the short line that just has around eight more people standing there.

At exactly 4:30 a woman came out of the front door of the arena and announced that the people with Meet & Greet ticket are now allowed to enter. More instructions will follow when all of them are inside.

Just a minute later all ten of the VIP people (all of them being girls except Luca) were let into the arena.

Wow, damn amazing and not weird at all, note the sarcasm.

The woman asks how all of them feel and lets us get in a line, with the person next to each other that where together here. They ended up in four groups, Chel and Luca being the last ones in line.

The first group is requested to follow the woman while the rest is watched by two broad-shouldered bodyguards.

Five minutes later the next group is called in and again five minutes later the third group.

We're next, help!

"Oh my god, Luca, please tell me I'm not dreaming. I'll meet Henry bloody Shaw in a few."

"Shut up, Chel. I don't even know why I am here. What am I supposed to do in there?" One of the bodyguards ogles him strangely. He obviously wasn't used to people at concerts that didn't even like to be there, especially when they're about to meet the famous star personally.

"Last group!" The woman shouts out of a room to their right.

"Lu, just in case I shall faint, can you please kick me or throw water on me and if it doesn't help can you tell Henry I'm his biggest fan?"

"Yeah, sure", Luca answers annoyed and pushes his sister towards the ajar door.

As soon as Chel enters the door, she starts to cry and murmur and she's close to screaming. She's overwhelmed by her feelings and Luca knows she has to comprehend herself to not immediately storm into Henry, hugging him. He'd love to take her into her arms right now and sooth her down but that would probably be the last thing she wants right now, being comforted by the big brother.

Luca follows his sister slowly into the room, all eyes on him too now.

Damn, nothing's even close to this feeling. Every damn presentation in uni feels easier to handle than a damn meeting with someone I don't even like!

He looks around; there are four more men in the room, watching them cautiously. They're probably all bodyguards, although one of them is dressed in a too nice-looking suit to be a bodyguard. Besides he's holding a clipboard in the one hand and a walkie-talkie in the other.

He lets his glance wander and then his eyes land on a tall figure. A person dressed similar to his sister: black ripped skinny jeans, weird bottom up shirt with flamingos on it, buttons open almost to the belly button, exposing two birds tattoo. He's wearing his usual brown boots and his hair is put back in a men's bun.

And then his blue eyes stare into green ones and the world seems to stand still.

There he is, Luca's Friday the 13th, the horror on two legs – Henry Shaw.

It’s a weird feeling for Luca. He doesn’t really know Henry, not really at least and still all he knows about the curly lad in front of him, makes him dislike the younger guy so much. Luca can't quite place the feeling he just has. It's just plain weird. It really feels like the world has stopped, so the both of them can stare at each other everlastingly.

Although, Luca doesn’t even want to look at Henry bloody stupid Shaw, doesn’t even want to be in the same room with him. But here he is because his little sister isn’t allowed to go alone and he's kind of forced to be here today.

Now, can Chel get her hug and her picture or whatever and then can we fucking get out of here again?

“Hi, oh my gosh. Can I hug you?” Chel shatters the awkward silence and somehow breaks the spell that holds Luca in its ban (that did make him stare at Henry Shaw and stare and stare). Luca looks away at the same time as Henry looks at Chel. The tall guy smiles at Chel and nods frequently.

“Yeah, of course, sure”, the pop star stutters and Luca chuckles.

Did Luca intimidate Henry? Well, he wouldn’t know with what exactly. Maybe Henry Shaw isn’t used to boys coming to his Meet & Greets? Or just maybe it’s because Luca just looks so damn sexy, too sexy for such a damn meeting and Henry thinks Luca is some mega gay fan and feels intimidated by that fact? Just because he’s as straight as a ruler or even a homophobe?

Okay, he can't really stand that guy but it’s pretty much obvious that Henry isn't homophobic though. Isn’t Henry friends with Sara Lavigne who’s bisexual? And also, Nicholas Giles, radio host for BBC1 radio and kind of one of Luca’ biggest gay idols?

Luca sees a flash of light and looks up from the spot on the ground he was looking at for the last few seconds after staring and staring at Henry Shaw.

One of the guards is holding Chel's phone and apparently has taken a picture of Chel next to Henry, Chel hanging on the celebrity's arm as if they met at a club and now were leaving to head home.

Funny that.

Luca groans and Henry looks over to him.

"Do you want a picture too?"

"For sure not, thanks." He fishes his iPhone out of his pocket and looks up the time. 4:45. The doors open at five, then he finally can sit down next to Alexis and chat with her about other shit, anything but Henry stupid Shaw. "Chel, are you done? Can we go?" He asks his sister eagerly.

Luca really doesn't want to be in this room for just one more second. He'd love to leave this room, this arena and if he's honest he doesn't even have to stay in Manchester for any longer.

"You aren't here for a picture or an autograph?" Henry asks perplexed, obviously he can't believe that someone would buy a VIP ticket with Meet & Greet and then not want anything from the star.

To be honest, it is a tiny little bit weird.

Okay, well. When Luca thinks about it, it really seems odd, doesn't it? But it wasn't