Rhythm || Ashton Irwin

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ashton’s POV:

“I swear you’re using the wrong chord Cal,” Luke huffed, running a hand through his quiff.

“No, I’m doing the exact same cords as you,” he groaned, shaking his head back and forth angrily.

“A minor?” Michael questioned as he strummed the guitar on his lap. 

Calum gave a look of confusion to Michael and Luke before, strumming his bass.  “Oh..”

“I told you, you were using the wrong chord!” Luke shouted, pointing his finger at Calum excitedly.

Letting out a chuckle, I situated myself on my stool before making my own beats.  “Are we ready now?”

“Yeah yeah, I got this,” Calum sighed, waving his hand at me.

“Sure you do,” Luke smirked as he dodged Calum’s attempt to kick him.

“I don’t have time for this guys, Lauren’s supposed to be here any second,” I huffed, slowly getting impatient with the three guys still bickering with each other.  As if on queue, the door to the practice room opened slowly, revealing Lauren standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“Hey,” she smiled as a chorus of ‘hello’s’ came from all of us.  Slowly closing the door behind her, she setting her bag down against the wall, finally looking over at me.  Her eyes fell onto my bare chest, widening just slightly as she tore her gaze away.

“Lauren, you okay?” Calum chuckled, clearly catching her staring.

“Wha- Uhm.  Yeah, I’m good,” she said as her cheeks flushed a deep red.

Grinning to myself I reached for my shirt that was hanging over the music stand beside me and threw it over my head.  “How was class?”

“Paige tried tripping me but ended up tripping herself in the process so, great,” she giggled, moving from her spot against the wall to sit on the stool beside mine.  “So what’s the deal with today’s meeting?”  She said, looking across the room at the other three boys, who were still messing around with their instruments.

“Well, Ashton asked us to help him show you the ‘importance’ of the rhythm section,” Michael said, putting air quotes around importance.

Rolling my eyes at him, I turned my attention back to Lauren who still seemed confused.  “Basically, they’re here to help prove my point that drums-“  Calum cough obnoxiously, cutting off my shit speech.  “And bass..” I groaned.  “Are what keeps everything else in sync, hence the whole rhythm section.”

“Alright, well get to it then,” she grinned, crossing her arms across her chest.  “Show me what you’ve got, drummer boy.”

I smirked back at her before turning my attention to the boys, nodding my head, signaling we were about to start.  “1, 2, 3, 4..”  And just like that, the four of us began covering Immortals by Fall Out Boy, per my request because it was an impressive drumming song.  She bobbed her head to the beat, closing her eyes as Luke started singing, followed by Calum and Michael’s harmonies. 

About a quarter of the way through the song, I stopped drumming while the boys continued, causing Lauren to open her eyes and look over at me with a questioning look.  After a few seconds of silence, I began hitting the drums again, only going faster than before, causing the boys to loose their beats, and fall apart until they refused to continue.

“Well you guys sounded amazing until Ashton messed it up,” Lauren laughed as the guys shot me glares from across the room.

“I was proving a point,” I shrugged.  “You noticed when I stopped playing.  Why?”