The Bookshop

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Anna’s POV

I was with Ashton in the music store that he used to work in when he asked me what I was doing in Jessie’s house. I told him that I was helping Jessie get ready for her little date with Calum and his eyes grew big.

“Wait. So, you’re telling me that the Calum Hood is on a date right now?” Ashton asks. I nod my head and he laughs. Why is he laughing? Did I say something wrong?

“Look, Anna, don’t get me wrong but Calum isn’t the type of guy to have a real relationship. I’ve known him for two years and his love life consists of many girls leaving after five months at the least.” Ashton says. “But he’s not a player. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that he doesn’t take things very seriously when it comes to things like this.”

I don’t really know if he’s even being serious about this so I just shrug and drag him out of the music store and someplace else because I didn’t want to stay in there all night until the shop closes. We stop by an arcade and I heard two very familiar voices.

I look at Ashton and he was looking around for where the two voices were coming from. We hid behind a game console and peeked out a bit to find Jessie and Calum playing some air hockey. From what I could see, Calum got hit in the face by accident since he was rubbing his forehead and Jessie was laughing her ass off. “Aw. Look how cute they are.” I say. Ashton doesn’t say anything and just nods his head.

“This looks like a fun game.” Ashton says, looking at the game console we were hiding behind. “Let’s play!” He inserts a few tokens in and hands me one of those really heavy fake guns for shooting games. He pushes the start button and we start playing.

10 minutes pass and we have almost sixty tickets. We ran out of tokens so we couldn’t continue the game anymore. Ashton gives me high five and we take a seat on one of the benches on the side. “So, what should we do with these tickets?” I say; looking at the pile of tickets on my lap. I nudge Ashton but he still doesn’t say a word. I look at him and he was staring into the distance. Or maybe it was just Calum and Jessie playing Just Dance.

I slap him on the arm and say, “Oi! I was talking to you!”

He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “What?” He asks.

“I was asking you what we should do with these tickets.” I say. He shrugs and I furrow my eyebrows.

“Hey, are you alright, Ashton?” I ask him. He’s been acting weird this whole night. He nods his head and says, “Yeah. I’m absolutely fine.”

To be honest, he doesn’t look fine at all.