Pieces || c.t.h.

Sixteen || (Does This Mean We're) Alone Together?

Previously on Pieces:

I couldn't help the half laugh, half sob that escaped my lips when I turned on my car stereo and 'Beside You' started playing. How fitting.

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Sixteen || (Does This Mean We're) Alone Together?

"How are you guys coping with tour updates?" I asked Max during one of my routine Skype calls to the team. "Sorry I couldn't be much help. This job is kicking my as$."

It was about two weeks since the boys had left for LA. Their feet had barely touched solid ground when they were being pushed back on stage to perform for thousands of people. Calum made good on his promise and called me every after a show. But given the time difference between Australia and the United States, most of it went to voice mail. We were playing phone tag on opposite sides of the globe.

"It's fine, Ate. Alanna and I can manage. Did you hear about Louis?"

"My poor Tommo," I sighed. I've met Louis Tomlinson and the rest of the 1D guys a few times when I was still regularly visiting London. We weren't close, but the girls back home didn't even know we were acquainted.

"Do you think it's true?"

"Probably?" I shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, they've got groupies hanging around them all the time. Someone was bound to make a mistake at some point. I always thought it would've been Harry or Zayn."

"Hey!" Max protested. Whoops, I forgot she was a Harry girl. "Well, in that case, I think the most likely to get a girl accidentally pregnant in 5SOS is Calum."

"I doubt it," I laughed. "We haven't-"

I was about to say that Calum and have haven't hooked up since that night in London. I shut my mouth before I slipped, remembering Max had no idea about how close Calum and I have become recently. She didn't even know we've already met much less slept together!

"Haven't met yet?" Max smirked at me. I let her believe that. God, I'm such a bad friend.

"Yeah. Just wait till you meet me, Calum Hood. I'm so gonna rock your world!" I laughed, a little too stiffly in my ears.

"So they're going on live TV after the first half of the US leg," Max began to explain. I knew about the show. Calum told me about it during one of the times we actually managed to catch each other on the phone.

"On the tenth," I nodded. "They're going on a morning show, so that'll be six in the evening on this side of the world. Plus two hours from your timezone to mine."

"Yeah," Max was checking her 'fangirl calendar'. "Alanna and I are covering an event that day. I'm not sure what time we'll finish. Could you possibly do the update on that?"

"Sure. It's the least I can do."

"Awesome! Thanks ate!"

"No prob. So Alanna tells me you've been going to Starbucks quite often recently," I teased Max. She blushed the whole time she was telling me how Sean managed to worm his way into her affections.