salt air and serendipity [lrh]

ten

The light that was peering through the window that I fell asleep to had turned to gray skies once I woke up a few hours later. It was a little earlier than my gaze usually meets the sun. My eyes fluttered open and I was still laying on Ashton's chest, hugging him tightly. He was already awake, I'm not sure for how long, and he was looking at his phone in one hand while the other was trapped under me. 

"You stayed?" I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

"I told you I would." He says, shaking out his arm that was surely numb due to my weight. "Did you get any good sleep?"

"Guess so..." I mumble. I wasn't really sure if I slept well. I couldn't remember any dream I had last night, but I don't remember lying awake in Ashton's arms. The entire time I spent sleeping was a blur, but I woke up well-rested so there was nothing for Ashton or me to worry about. I look over to the window and the sky was a light gray color, giving the outdoors this column, almost dingy, aura. "You really think it's gonna storm bad today?" I ask Ashton with a sigh.

He gets off of the bed and moves the curtains out of the way of the window. "Afraid so, Scouty." I groan in response and he looks back at me with soft eyes. "Sorry, I know you haven't been out in a while. But we could still go down there for a bit before it gets too bad if you'd like. Everyone can come."

"You text them. I'll go make us some breakfast." I throw the covers off of my body, finally standing to my feet.

"Scout, wait." Ashton stops me with his words. 

I turn around in the doorway to face him. "Hm?"

"Are you not gonna tell me what last night was about? I mean... I'm worried about you. It feels like you're getting-"

I cut him off. "I'm not 'getting' anything. I just needed some company..." I pause. "And I didn't want you to think I was mad at you from a couple of nights ago," I confess. Before he could respond, I speak again. "I couldn't be that upset, you're kinda right. I hung out with Luke and he is so much like Ricky, it kind of freaked me out, I guess. I knew trying to explain to either of the other boys would be too exhausting and I wasn't about to ask him to stay over to comfort me after I cried in his car."

"You cried in his car?" 

"Multiple times. No more questions, I could get mad again." I tease. "Now get dressed so we can get out of here." I throw clothes at him. I had a drawer in my room full of some of the boys' clothes just for times like this. He rolls his eyes playfully then there's a light clack on my window. It was Calum; I had almost forgotten. 

I run past Ashton to the window, doing my usual routine. He climbs up and rolls onto the floor, meeting eyes with Ashton and me. "Oh shit, did I interrupt some private time between you two?"

"God! Fuck no."

"It wasn't like that." 

We both speak at the same time, me with much more protest than Ashton. He almost quieted down once he heard my words. But, anything like that hadn't happened in quite some time I thought Calum would be smarter and use his context clues. We were fully clothed, not had disheveled looking, and the room smelled freshly cleaned. 

"Just get downstairs, pervert." I shove Calum out of the door. He's halfway down the stairs and I turn around to see Ashton rolling up the ladder for me and staring out the window. "Ash, what's wrong?" I ask, making my way back over to him. 

He sighs softly. "You think we're really never gonna do that stuff again?" 

I furrow my brows, quite surprised at his question. "You wanna talk about this now? Ash- you know how complicated this could get, can we please just not..." I tell him. I didn't want to be rude, but I had no idea where this was coming from. There was no answer coming from his lips. I get up and hold out my hand for him. "We can have a really good heart-to-heart later if you want to but come on. Breakfast. Beach. Friends. Let's go." He grabs my hand and I hoist him up, ending our conversation there. Calum was downstairs and we had two other boys to meet, I wasn't going to let this keep me from having a good day.