Eve's POV:
After Ashton and Luke left, everyone scattered into their own rooms. Except for my dad, who stayed on the phone outside. I grab a jacket off the hook and join my dad outside.
"Hey," I say as I watch him ponder around the front yard.
"Hey." He hangs up his phone.
"You okay?"
"Yea, yea. Your boy's nice." He says, sitting down on the steps by my feet. I sit down beside him.
"Yea. He is. He was really worried about you liking him. He values your opinion a lot."
"Well it was a pleasure having him here tonight."
"Honestly? Or did Jane ask you to say that." I snort.
"No no no, that's all me." He says honestly, I laugh.
"You um… You guys say the L word, don't you?" Dad asks
"The L word?"
"Love."
"Oh…" I knew he heard us. "Well, yea… I mean, I love him, Dad."
He surprisingly smiles.
"I remember when I told your mother I loved her for the first time… She was just so happy." I listen intently to the stories I've never heard of my parents.
"Well, you see, your dad was a huge wimp growing up. Biggest coward you'd ever meet, so it's obvious that she told me she loved me first."
"When did you tell her you loved her?"
"Four months after that…"
"Four months?! Dad, that's crazy."
"I know, I know. But to be honest, I fell in love with Melanie the second I laid eyes on her. She said Hello and it was like I knew her my whole life."
My dad drapes his arm over me and I rest my head on his shoulder.
"I fall hard in love, Evelyn. And so do you." He kisses my head. "It's in your genes."
Yea… He's right.
"Michelle didn't get those genes, and Britt never had them. But you and me, we love with everything we've got…" He says. "But when it doesn't work, and you start breaking, Evelyn." His voice is quieter. "You're gonna take it a million times harder than the rest of them…"
I turn to him and he kisses my forehead. "I just don't wanna watch you break."
I wrap my arms around his torso. "I won't daddy." I whisper.
"I won't."
***
Ashton's POV:
I drop Luke off and then drive home.
My apartment is dark and lifeless when I walk in.
But it's always like that when Evelyn's not around.
I turn on some lights and peal off my shirt, throwing it to the floor as I make my way towards the bedroom.
I flick on the light and dig around in my pocket, pulling out a piece of wrinkled up paper I had received that night.
687-3345 - Jessica xx
It reads. I can't believe she would give me her number, I mean, I hardly know the woman. Her words still echo in my head.
"Meet me in the bathroom and I'll show you everything under this dress."
It doesn't make sense. I crumble up the paper and throw it in the trash, I don't want Evelyn to know anything about that.
As soon as I'm about to jump in the shower, my phone rings. I answer it immediately.
"Hey baby," I answer.
"Hey sugar cakes." Oh. It's Calum.
"Sorry Cal I thought you were-"
"Yea, yea. Anyways man, so I talked to Harry."
"Uh huh,"
"And he said he thinks we should go with them on tour… And I swear I'm not just saying this."
"What did Niall say?"
"Niall said something that got me thinking…"
"What'd he say?"
"Hold on, let me get Luke in the room."
I wait patiently for Calum to get his roommate. They put me on speaker phone and we discuss our options.
"So what did Niall say?" Luke asks.
"Well. For you guys… He said…"
"He said what?"
"Well…"
"He said you should just bring the girls…"
