Watercolour

Thirty One

Ashton's P.O.V

"Ash," a voice whispered as I stirred. I slowly opened my eyes, expecting the room to be bright but it wasn't. The only light was a thin stream of it coming from the landing and through the open door. "Ash?"

"Mhmm?" I murmured, recognising Luke's voice. "Do I need to get up?"

"Yeah, you probably should. The others are up already."

"Oh crap," I exclaimed. "Jace has left, hasn't he?"

"Yeah, Al took him to the airport a couple hours ago," Luke replied. "His flight hasn't left yet, though; you could give him a call?"

"Yeah, will do. Okay, I'll be down in a bit," I replied as Luke turned away, pulling the door shut as he went. But an inch away from closing it, he hesitated.

"Ash?"

"Mhmm?" I replied, swinging my legs out from underneath the duvet and round to the side of the bed.

"It's not a sudden decision, is it?" Luke asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed where I had just been sat.

"What?"

"Cal told me about last night," he informed me, providing a lot more context to his previous question.

"Oh," I said, nothing else coming to mind.

"So?" he asked. "It's not a sudden decision, is it?"

I shook my head in response.

"How long now? I had an idea a little while ago... but how long?"

"I don't even know," I admitted before we succumbed to silence. "Look, Luke... I know she's your cousin and everything, and I completely understand if you-"

"Mate, don't worry about it," he interrupted as he stood up again and opened the door. "And I'm sure Cal will come around soon enough."

Alana's P.O.V

"What time are you leaving for practice?" I asked as I joined the guys at the table.

"Half past," they answered in unison.

"You should come. If that's okay with you guys?" Michael said.

His question was answered with three enthusiastic nod as the others all had food in their mouth.

"Nah, I'll stay here. I don't want to distract you."

"As if you could distract us," Calum joked.

"Heyy..." I said slapping him on the arm.

"Well actually, I'm only speaking for myself when I say that," he teased, quite obviously raising his eyebrows at Ashton but the other two didn't see.

His cheeks suddenly became slightly rosey and in response Ashton immediately looked down at his bowl to avert his gaze, now finding his cereal particularly interesting. For some reason it took me a moment too long to work out what Calum was hinting at and it was only once Ashton's gaze briefly met mine, that I realised Calum must've known about what happened on the beach last night - causing me to very quickly join Ashton in being overly-interested in the food in front of me.

"Come, otherwise you'll be alone all day," Luke pointed out, looking up from his phone and giving me his infamous puppy-dog look. Thankfully he hadn't been paying attention to the looks exchanged across the table around him.

"I'll be fine," I insisted, hastily welcoming back the original topic of conversation.

"We could do with an audience," Ashton murmured, looking up; his cereal had obviously lost the appeal it had a moment ago.