Obsession

Ch 22 - Seconds

i am NOT in a relationship with anyone

This was the tweet, posted by Brandi, that Traci brought to my attention the next day, as I was driving us to West Palm Beach.

She said, "Wow. She's not wasting any time putting it out there, is she? But hasn't she been seeing someone else? And she's not in a relationship? Okay."

It was only a minute later when Ashton called me. I had my phone bluetoothed into the car, so the call could be heard through the car's sound system. Ashton's astonished voice came through the speakers when I answered. "Did you see that?"

I knew exactly what he was talking about, of course. "Sure did. Well, I'm driving, so Traci told me. Apparently she wants everyone to be clear about it."

"I think today would be a good day to stay off of Twitter." He sounded so heartbroken.

"I agree. I'm sorry you have to go through this, Ashton."

In the next breath, he sounded fine. It was almost funny. "Nah, it's fine. I'm already over it."

"I hardly think you can be in a relationship for over a year and just get over it like that."

"Like I said, it was over a long time ago. I don't really want to talk about it if that's okay, love."

I noticed Traci turn her head toward me. When I looked at her, she mouthed, "Love?" and cocked an eyebrow. I looked back at the road and tried to not giggle.

"Of course. But you called me, dude. So what do you want to talk about?"

"How about that girl you retweeted this morning? You gave her tickets?"

The emotionless girl had surprisingly posted a tweet thanking us for the tickets. When I stalked her other posts, it was obvious that she was a huge One Direction fan. But there wasn't a single post about 5SOS, not even saying that she was going to the show. We literally couldn't have picked anyone less excited than her. But what was done was done. I retweeted her "thank you" post anyway.

Ashton already knew how insane Traci and I were, so I told him the story of how Traci bought us the front row tickets after we'd already bought the sixth row ones.

He laughed at me and said, "You know I can get you tickets, right?"

"Yeah, but comp tickets are usually a few rows back." God, how unappreciative did that sound? "Besides, we bought all of our tickets long before we met you. I do appreciate the offer, though."

"But then you could post photos everywhere showing off your comp tickets," he mocked.

"No, thanks. We're not like those girls."

"That's one of the reasons why I appreciate you so much, you know."

"Well, it's just a matter of being respectful. Trust me, the last thing I want is for 'the fam' to find out you're hanging out with an older woman who has kids and an ex who's in jail. If they ever saw us together, or interacting at all, they'd eat us both alive, even though it's platonic. It's best that they never know I exist."

"You'd eventually learn to ignore it. And it would die down after a while."

"I don't know, man. Luke still gets so much shit over Allegra. And the way people talk about her is horrible. It's been over a month and I don't think it's dying down anytime soon."

He pointed out, "It died down with Brandi and me, when they saw she wasn't going to fight with them. But either way, you can't let something like that get to you. It'll drive you crazy. Besides, they'd see that you do cool shit like give away tickets, and there'd be girls all up in your ass trying to make friends with you, hoping to be next."