Not Warriors- Awsten Knight

Chapter 32

Claire takes a deep breath before walking onto Sonic Hero's bus. 

Awsten had asked her if she wanted to just stay with them for the day while they traveled to the next stop of tour, but she knew that she couldn't avoid the conversation with her friends for forever even though she would love to. 

The boys were all sitting around talking amongst themselves the moment that she stepped on the conversation immediately stopped as everyone's attention was brought on her. 

"Oh yeah guys sure, make it seem like I have 7 heads and committed a felony that makes me so happy to be back." she says sarcastically kicking her shoes off by the door. 

"Just didn't expect to see you back on the day off, haven't seen much of you lately in general." Chris says calmly. 

Claire rolls her eyes in response, "You guys see me every single day, I literally work for you what do you mean you haven't seen much of me?" she counteracts. 

"He just means you don't spend your days off with us anymore, you're with us when you work but that's really it." Collin says, defending Chris. 

She couldn't understand why all of a sudden these two boys were acting like she was neglecting them, she didn't think that she had been gone that often and they all knew that they were always welcome to spend time with her and the boys from Waterparks they just chose not to. 

"Can you guys please stop? I'm here now, I don't need you to act like I'm neglecting you." she pleads with them and is met with silence. 

"Okay great good talk." she says angrily, walking to the bunks and closing the curtain behind her. 

This is not how she had expected this to go, and while she sympathetic for the feelings of her best friends she couldn't understand why it had turned into a conversation. 

Maybe she had gotten defensive over the situation, and should of sat to listen to their feelings but it almost felt like they didn't care about her feelings. 

Putting everything aside, she decided to be the bigger person and hopped out her bunk making her way back to where everyone was sitting curling up on the couch. 

"Let me hear where you guys are coming from." she says softly, looking at her friends sitting around her with surprised looks on their faces. 

"I'm sorry for getting defensive." she adds in, hoping that her apology was enough for them. 

"It just feels like you've been a lot of time with Awsten lately." Derek speaks up, and Claire nods. 

"I have, does that bother you guys?" she asks, curious to hear where they were coming from. 

"It doesn't bother us to see you happy Claire, it's not that at all." Collin says quickly and the boys hum in agreement. 

"Okay then what is it?" she inquires, and all of the boys shoot glances back and forth at each other none of them wanting to be the first to speak. 

"We don't want you to get hurt Claire, we know you like Awsten. You don't have to deny that anymore we can all see it, and we don't think that he'll hurt you but there's a lot surrounding you both." Chris says honestly, and Claire nods. 

"You're right I do like him, in fact I love him." she says truthfully and watches the jaws of everyone drop around her. 

She figured that their reactions would be a mixture of shock, and maybe even anger but it was better to get it out in the open now than to sit and hide things from her best friends. 

"You love him." Tyler repeats dryly. 

"I do. I don't think I ever stopped, you guys said it yourself you've never even seen me date anyone in the last 6 years and you can think I'm making a bad decision if you want but this is what I want to do." she says confidently and is met with a small nod from Chris. 

"That's fair, you're a big girl we can't argue with that. We're just looking out for you." Tyler points out calmly. 

"And I'm letting you guys know now, that when we get to the Houston date in a few days I'm going to stay in Texas for the two days off afterwards and fly into Nashville. I haven't been home since I moved to Philly and I think it would be good for me." she tells them calmly. 

"Is he staying with you?" Chris asks her, and she hums a yes. 

"It was his idea, I'll get to see his parents and sister." she replies softly, knowing what the next questions she was going to get was. 

"Are you going to see your parents Claire?" Collin asks her, his voice barely above a whisper. 

She shrugs, not wanting to make a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be. 

"They don't want to see me Col, you know that." she replies dryly, attempting to mask the emotions that she's feeling at the moment. 

"Claire you don't-" he starts, trying to reason with her before she cuts him off. 

"I do know that, and so do you. They don't want to see me and there's literally nothing I can do that's going to change their mind. They aren't going to care that I'm in Houston okay?" she says, her voice filled with exhaustion. 

Collin knew better than to continue to push the subject, and that it was hard for Claire that she hadn't spoken to her parents in almost two years time. He desperately wanted to help, to see if he could fix things but the sad reality of it was there was probably no fixing anything. 

"Does Awsten know about your parents?" Derek asks curiously, and Claire laughs without meaning to. 

"Why would he know?" she asks in disbelief, and Derek nods realizing that she's right. 

"I just didn't know if you had talked to him about it, that's all." he replies before looking back down at his phone. 

"I'm sure he'll realize in Houston when I am making no attempts to go see my family that lives 3 streets over from his. It's not that big of a deal, lets not make this a bigger thing than it needs to be." she tells them, dismissing the conversation completely. 

"Well I'm happy for you Claire. It's good to see you happy, you deserve it." Tyler says lovingly and the boys all agree with him. 

But Claire can't help but notice that their body language tells her something completely different than their words.