Promise » [cashton] √

3.9

[22nd of February]

Ashton

It wasn't often Ashton drank more than a beer or two, but with Luke being more than civil with Calum he was actually letting himself let loose. That and they didn't have the usual number of people that came to their little house parties. It was just Michael, Crystal, Luke, Sierra, Calum and KayKay at his place tonight. Andy, Lara and Lindsay had swung by earlier in the evening for a drink and left to go out not long after.

It was odd having KayKay in his house, she'd only been there once before when she worked for him. He wasn't sure if she knew how jealous he'd been, but he was too embarrassed to join Calum who was talking to her. So he was standing with Michael and Sierra, pretending to listen to them while he tried not to let his eyes linger on Calum and KayKay too long.

"You seem to know your way around here well," she said, and Ashton could tell it wasn't a polite observation.

He sipped his beer, nodding as Michael continued explaining whatever it was he was trying to tell Sierra about. He could tune out KayKay and Calum, that was none of his business.

Calum scoffed, "I'm allowed to stay at my boyfriend's place occasionally," Ashton wanted to smile, knowing Calum had rolled his eyes.

"You're not..."

"God, I get it, you think as little of me as everyone else," he did sound exasperated and Ashton's worry mounted, it sounded like they'd had this conversation before.

"That's not how I meant it, and you know that," she sounded just as annoyed with him as he was with her, and Ashton for the first time got the feeling that they were more like siblings than anything else. "You won't be able to forgive yourself, unless you've changed your mind,"

"I told you, I don't know, maybe- maybe I wanna maybe, one day get married,"

"Oh yeah, you should definitely have sex with him, I mean if you maybe, possibly, one day, might want to marry him,"

"You're drunk,"

"Yeah, and so are you! That doesn't mean I'm not allowed to remind you how much you'll regret having sex with him,"

"Can you be quiet, someone's going to overhear,"

"Ash," he blinked his eyes, retraining his attention on Michael and Sierra, "were you listening? Sierra asked if your parents had been by recently?"

He shook his head, "no, I keep telling them I'm busy, I'm afraid they'll realise Calum's been staying here and flip out," he admitted.

"Lu and I can be here if you want? Just sort of redirect them,"

Michael was nodding "You should tell them we're having a brunch, and they can come; Crystal and I'll come too,"

He nodded, "yeah, that could be good, I think something to take the attention off Calum, and if things go really shit can pretend we have plans after so they'll go home,"

"Have they visited at all since you and Calum started dating?"

"They haven't visited since I put a passcode on the gate," he laughed, he could hear though that it fell short of sounding genuine. His parents were hard work, he loved them, but the older he got the harder he found it to be in the same room as them. "They're not going to like Calum anyway, all that matters is if they're being awful we can get him out of there,"

"Does Calum know that though?" Sierra asked somewhat meekly.

He wanted to roll his eyes, he was new to dating but he wasn't an idiot. There was no way he'd set Calum up for failure like that.