Keeping Real - Ashton Irwin

Chapter 21

After their little 'jam sesh' at the swim meet after party, the boys began to practice regularly. Now that swimming season was over, everyone was considerably less stressed out. Calum and I still had our private lessons twice a week but they were more relaxed and it was like I could finally breath again. I never saw Connor now that he attended that stupid military school and I spent almost all my time with Ashton.

Some days we'd meet after school and go to one of the boy's houses for band practice. They mostly worked on covers of other bands, but Ashton had told me that they were working on an original piece too. No one could think of a band name, so they weren't called anything. Yet.

Other days Ashton and I would go to The Park and talk about everything we'd lost. It wasn't often we did that, a lot of the time we'd just make out, but when we needed to we talked about the other  things. Like how it felt to lose a dad. We'd both watch our dad's leave. Mine had left the world, his had left through the front door.

On a happier note, Ashton was also teaching me how to ride his motorcycle. I enjoyed the thrill of going so fast and although I had almost lost balance on several occasions trying to go much faster than I should have, I had only come out with a couple scrapes and bruises.

Calum and I continued our weekly work out sessions and hung out almost everyday at school. It was so cute to see him go on about Leilani. It seemed he had finally come to his senses and asked her out. He was full of first-real-relationship questions and he was always asking me what he should do.

"Why is she pissed at me?" He asked me over the phone one day, sounding like he was close to tears. I wanted to laugh but I thought the whole situation was unbearably adorable. I made him recount his last few days until we came upon the time when they were walking in front of the student center and she had pointed out the prom poster.

"She wants me to ask her to prom?" Calum asked, surprise coloring his voice. I laughed.

"Of course she wants to be asked to prom, you idiot," I told him, laughing. Prom was three weeks away and however much Leilani and I tried to smother our girly sides with punk rock we could never quite cover it all up. We'd talked endlessly about prom and how it would be our one perfect night.

Calum and I talked for a long while until we decided to pick Leilani's biggest obsession (besides Calum, of course), Harry Potter. We made all the plans and arrangements for the next three days.

"Damn she better say yes because if she doesn't I might just Avada Kedavra myself. Can you even do that? Like wizard suicide..." Calum rambled on.

"She'll say yes, doofus," I told him.

After I got off the phone with Calum, I was giddy with excitement. Leilani would be so happy.  Then a feeling started forming in the pit of my stomach and when I tried to push it away it only felt worse. I had to think hard to come up with a name for it. Jealousy. Here I was making a perfect plan for someone else when my own boyfriend hadn't asked me yet. I couldn't help wondering if he was even planning on going to prom.

The next day Calum came over to my house and we sat on my rug. Calum blew up Hedwig balloons and I drew a replica of the Marauder's Map. We didn't talk much, and I thought it was just because Calum couldn't blow up balloons and talk at the same time (he's not very good at multitasking), but I guess he sensed something else.

"What's up with you, P? You're quiet. Usually you'd be talking about how sloths are going to take over the world or how Pigfarts is where you'll be going to college next year," he chuckled and I grinned but just shook my head at him.

"C'mon Paige. What's up? I know you've got something on your mind," he pryed. There were no secrets from Calum. He knew me too well. 

"It's ridiculous, Cal. I just want Ashton to ask me to prom. Of course I could just ask him myself because boy-ask-girl rules are fucking stupid but I just, want him to care enough to ask me," I vented to him.