Promise » [cashton] √

2.1

[3rd of August]

Hour 1 of 13

6:45 am Somewhere between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara

Calum yawned, reaching for his Starbucks cup.

"I could have driven," Ashton offered, and Calum could see him fishing through the trail mix bag. He had noticed Ashton had eaten most of the dried cranberries first and then started on the pumpkin seeds.

"I'll be alive in like thirty minutes, and then we can put on some amp-up music; we'll be cruising," he reassured, settling his coffee cup back in the holder and taking the opportunity to pat the younger man's thigh reassuringly, "plus I was desperate to get behind the wheel of this," he tapped the steering wheel, going to bring his other hand to join it when Ashton caught it.

He held Calum's hand in a way that said, 'this is mine for now, thank you,' and Calum let a small 'hmph' laugh leave him, "I didn't realise you were a car person,"

"I'm not, but Porsches are nice to everyone," he shrugged; he had seen Macan's driving around LA since the first day he'd moved there and had always wondered if they were as nice on the inside as they were on the outside. They were; the Macan was going to make their long day of driving a little more lush.

"Luke picked it," he said, another pumpkin seed disappearing into his mouth, "after my first album came out, I had like an influx of cash, and my mum and dad were like still driving me around; he knew I wanted a little more freedom, I didn't have my house yet, so he was like 'why don't we go find you a car'," he was chuckling now. "My parents weren't impressed; they don't really like Luke that much, love Sierra, but not Lu. I think the fact that I spent a small fortune on this car didn't help,"

Calum desperately wanted to know more about Ashton's parents; everything he heard made him inclined to dislike them. It felt like asking was too personal, which was crazy because they were currently driving to his parent's house. But so much of Ashton's image was calculated, and he knew that if they were as bad as he thought, that was something that didn't need to be public knowledge.

"You'll have to tell them Luke doesn't like me; maybe that'll make them more sympathetic," he offered instead, not feeling like it was the right time to push into that new frontier.

Ashton hummed, "they aren't too happy I'm driving all the way to Sacramento to meet your parents when 'he won't even drive to Pasadena to meet us'. I told them I was the one who wanted to hold off on you meeting them, but they've decided it's you," he finished his sentence with an eye roll. "I'm sorry," he added quickly, thumb rubbing over the back of Calum's hand.

He laughed, "believe it or not, I have actually played the role of the bad boy before,"

"I believe that," Ashton said quietly, and Calum's eyes left the windscreen long enough to see the coy smile on his face.

And he was laughing again, "you like it, don't you? Want me to show you my tattoos?" he squeezed the hand Ashton held. Who rolled his eyes but was still smiling, "if it comes to it, I don't mind playing up the bad boy angle, blame it all on me,"

"Whatever," he said, turning up the music; the soft crooning of The Pretenders filled the car. The conversation was over, but Ashton was wearing a soft smile as he kept eating his pumpkin seeds.

Hour 4 of 13

9:15 am The outskirts of San Luis Obispo

They'd stopped in Santa Barbara at Butterfly Beach. Held hands as they'd eaten stale croissants from a cafe, and then they'd slowly made their way back to the car, readying themselves to sit in the car for another two hours. Ashton had assumed the role of DJ in the car and was taking his job very seriously, playing Calum's requests, and when there were none, he would scroll through his Spotify, queuing things.