maybe + a.i [slow updates]

[three]

February 2014

Sophie

-

Sophie spent the rest of her week constantly in a loop of familiarity and awkwardness between herself and Ashton.

Although they had been texting pretty much constantly since the first day, as soon as they saw each other at the studio, not one of them could form a sentence. They relied on group conversations between them and the rest of the group to finally speak amongst themselves.

Whether it was being a little starstruck or feeling just plain nervous, Sophie knew that this was different to any of the boys she had talked to before. Normally, (thanks to a little dutch courage) she was quite confident in her ability to have guys in the palm of her hand. Maybe it was just because she knew how easy boys back in Manchester were to manipulate; how to make them hers. But there was something so alluring, something very different about Ashton that she couldn't pin-point it exactly, so she chose the second best option - ignore him as best as she could without appearing rude.

And man was it hard.

Even though they would hardly speak when they were in the room together, Sophie would constantly get texts from Ashton, asking why she looked so upset or angry. And that was scary in a sense for her. She had never acted like this around someone before - was what she was doing the right way to handle things? She wasn't entirely sure.

Even though Jake was, for the moment, her best friend, she couldn't necessarily tell him about this. Who knows how he would have reacted?

Sophie done her best to push aside any strange feelings in the pit of her stomach when she noticed Ashton catching a glance at her, or how fuzzy her mind went when she saw his name illuminate her phone screen. Only after five days, Ashton Irwin had an affect on her that no other person had done before. And in three days he would be out of the country.

On the last day of recording, instead of Jake going with her to get lunch, Ashton volunteered. Jake accepted the request - his service was needed in HR to tackle some sort of computing issue.

After an awkward 30 minutes of total silence in the walk to Earl's Court, it was finally Sophie who managed to break the air of tension between them.

"So, where are you going after here?" Sophie's voice broke after she asked the question, her throat had been acting up a lot lately, especially around him.

"Uhm, probably back to the studio." A soft smile broke through his tight, peach lips. He pushed his sandy blonde hair out of his eyes and laughed softly to himself, not even casting a look towards Sophie, who seemed to a ball of repressed sexual feelings.

"No asshole, I meant when you leave on Monday. What country are you heading to next?" a man from the counter handed Sophie their food and she politely thanked him as Sophie and Ashton headed out of McDonald's and over towards Wagamama's for some take-out ramen (something Michael had been craving for all week).

"Oh, right. Uhm, I think it's LA. Yeah, think we got some last minute meetings set up for the album, but we're back next month for the BRITs." Sophie thought about how easy life seemed to be for Ashton, he didn't even know what country he was heading to next whereas Sophie knew exactly where she would be sat next Monday morning at the same time Ashton was sat on a plane seat.

"That's cool. Me and my best friend, Rachel are going to the BRITs as well! Olivia managed to get us on the backstage list." which was true. It took a lot of bargaining and a little begging for Sophie to get Olivia to add their names to the backstage crew - all she had to do was work a little whilst she was there but it gave Sophie the chance to rub shoulders with some of the most prestigious names in the British music industry.