How To Play The Game.

seventeen - michael

A few days later Michael was back in New York. The rest of the trip was fine, Michael made sure to be in a good mood for Lily and she tried to stop complaining so much. They didn't fight at all, which was good. Michael hated when they fought because Lily always ended up getting her way.

Lily was at her own apartment now and Michael was at his, trying to unpack.

"So!" Calum yelled loudly, walking in to Michael's room without knocking. He sat down on the edge of Michael's bed. "How was Paris?"

"Uh, it was fine." Michael said, rubbing his eyes. He was trying to stay awake so he could finish unpacking his suitcase, but with the time change and all Michael felt like he was about to fall asleep.

"I've never been to Paris. Luke said he would - " Calum stopped himself, shaking his head. "I was going to try and invite myself to go with you guys but then I didn't want to leave Ashton behind."

"I don't think Ashton would have cared." Michael shrugged.

"Yeah, I mean, he probably would have been find but I'd feel so bad about leaving him alone..." Calum trailed off, running his fingers through his hair. He chuckled, "Whatever, it's cool, I'll go to Paris some other time."

"Yeah, it's a cool place." Michael nodded slowly. He wasn't sure if Calum was actually trying to get at something, so he was trying to be polite, but Michael really just wanted to take a nap. "Lily loves it, she goes to Paris all the time."

Calum shrugged again, looking down at his lap. Michael continued unpacking his things. He didn't mind Calum in his room as long as he wasn't being too obnoxious.

"Were you and Lily fighting?" Calum asked, breaking the silence.

"That's kind of a random question..." Michael trailed off. He knew that it was because Luke had probably told Calum about what was going on with Michael and Lily. "Not really."

"Really? You seemed kind of pissed off when you came home." Calum said skeptically, raising an eyebrow. "Like, I know Lily can be kind of annoying sometimes and you come home all mad but you seemed even more agitated than usual."

"Agitated, that's a big word." Michael scoffed. He shrugged, "I'm just tired, it was a long plane ride."

"Are you sure?" Calum questioned, not believing him.

"Yes, Calum, I'm sure." Michael groaned, he didn't understand why Calum thought that it was so important. "Even if Lily and I were fighting, you would be the last person I'd tell."

"Alright, alright." Calum said, backing down for now. Michael knew that he'd probably bring it up again later. He paused for a second before speaking again. "I saw Lily's post on Instagram."

"Which one?" Michael chuckled, because for their whole trip to Paris Lily had walked around taking pictures of everything and posting them online. Luke did it too. Michael thought that since they'd both been there so many times they didn't really need to take so many pictures, but he was wrong.

"Well, there was one of you sleeping that was really funny, Ashton and I laughed about it for hours - "

"She posted that one?" Michael groaned, grabbing his phone off of his dresser and opening up Instagram, going to Lily's profile. Sure enough, there was a picture of Michael sleeping, for all of her millions of followers to see. It had a really cute caption, though, so Michael decided that it was okay.

"Yeah." Calum nodded. "And there was a picture of that necklace you gave her. You know, the really fancy one."

"Oh, right." Michael nodded. He knew what picture Calum was talking about, Lily had shown him before she posted it. She wanted his opinion on what filter to use for it.