As It Seems

Ch. 15- You Could Cut The Tension With A Knife

“Oh” I whispered, barely able to make out my words. “Um, Ok.” I tried my best to not sound like a stuttering fool, but I pretty much failed that. “What did you wanna talk about?”

“Ya know…” He gave his signature Ashton smile. “Stuff.” He looked down shyly.

“Right, yeah.” Again. You could cut the tension between us with a knife. “Stuff.” A very long, awkward silence followed. Instead of trying to find words to say, I sat there, looking down, playing with my lucky bracelet. I was still looking down when I felt Ashton’s eyes bore into me. I couldn’t quite pull myself to make eye contact though. I’ve always been really shy and awful at eye contact, especially when I’m nervous around someone.

“I really like you, Cayley.” He said, eyes still on me.

“You do?” I tried not to sound too excited, but I’m pretty sure my smile gave it away. But instantly my mind was brought back to my best friend, and to Harry. And besides those 2, if things didn’t work out between us… we’d still have like 3 months together for the tour.

“Yeah. I didn’t know how to tell you…. But, I know I needed to.” Again, there was an awkward silence between us. I was unsure of how to respond. Of course, how I WANTED to respond was to not even use words, and just kiss him… but I knew I couldn’t do that. It was much more complicated than that, of course. It had to be complicated.

I let out a heavy sigh. “Ashton, I-“ I froze. I didn’t know how to answer. He turned to face me with hopeful eyes and a smile that I just couldn’t say no to. But I knew I couldn’t say yes either. So I decided to say exactly how I felt in that moment. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” He said, sounding a bit disappointed. “If you don’t like me, I completely get it.”

“No, Ash, it’s not that I don’t like you. Cuz I do. I think.”

“You do?” He looked back up at me again, hope washed over his face. I let out another sigh.

“Maybe. I don’t know. It’s all…. Complicated.”

“How?” He asked, furrowing his eyebrows and tilting his head to the side.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel, or how I’m supposed to feel, or how… how… see, I don’t even know how to talk when I’m around you.” Ashton let out a chuckle, apparently finding my frustration funny. He leaned in closer to me and brought his hand up to my cheek, tucking a lose strand of my hair behind my ear. His eyes met mine once again, and he brought his face up to be inches away from mine.

“Forget everything else. What do YOU feel when you’re with me?” He whispered.

“I feel… like I never want to leave. When you’re around me, I want it to stay that way all the time.”

“Then that’s all that matters.”

“No, Ashton, it’s not.” I fought back.

“Well why not?”

“Because.” I sighed for a third time. I couldn’t straight up say why. I couldn’t say that my best friend likes you, and I may also like someone else. I couldn’t tell him about how I was still so unsure of my feelings. I couldn’t tell him any of that. Instead, I told him the truth. One of the reasons that was holding me back. “We’re on tour together!”

“Yeah, and? If anything, that’s GOOD for us. We get to be together a lot.” He smiled, resting his forehead on mine. I pulled away though to finish explaining.

“But what happens if something happens between us? We’re stuck together on this tour for a good 3 more months. And we still barely know each other. What if we’re moving too fast?”

“I’m not saying let’s get married, Cayley.” Ashton laughed. “What I’m saying is…” he then paused. Now it was his turn to struggle to find words.

“What are you saying, Ash? What do you want?”

“Since I love seeing that smile so much,” he pointed to my mouth, which had made its way to a smile, “I just wanna see it more. I want you to be happy. And if I could be the one making you smile, that would be… amazing. I want to be the one you share all your smiles with.”

I had never wanted to kiss someone more than I did in that moment. If I could just lean in and close the distance between us, I would. But I couldn’t. So I didn’t.

“Well,” I said, completely unsure of how to word what I was trying to say. “Maybe we could take this one step at a time.” Yeah, that sounded good. “You know… stay just friends, but only for now.” His facial expressions showed that he was clearly confused. It didn’t surprise me. I suck at explaining things. “What I’m trying to say is… let’s just take things slow. There’s no need to rush things.” I placed my hand on top of his, which was sitting on the concrete bench we were on. He flipped his hand around so that his palms were connected with mine, and we were holding hands. “We can start by hanging out more?” I flashed a hopeful smile to him.

“I’d like that.” He smiled back, returning his forehead back to mine. He didn’t kiss me though, like I thought he would. We just stayed there for a moment, in silence, admiring each other’s beauty. The wind blew, messing up my hair, which he would then push behind my ears. It started getting chilly on the roof, and I started shivering. With one of his hands still being connected to mine, he brought his free hand up to my shoulder and started rubbing it up and down my arm. “Cold?” He asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“A bit” I responded. Without saying another word, he stood up. I followed, since our hands were still together and I had no intentions of breaking them apart. He brought me back inside, where we sat at the top of the staircase that we originally entered through.

“So.” He said when we sat. “What’d you get at the mall?”

“Oh you would totally love it.” I giggled. “I got this sparkly tank top and these adorable heels.”

“Oooooh” he smiled cheekily, trying to sound as feminine as he could. “Sounds fabulous!”

“It is. I might even let you borrow them if you’re nice to me.”

“Dang it,” he laughed loudly. “I was planning on being a complete jerk to you. But now that you said that, I HAVE to be nice to you. I totally needed a sparkly tank top for our show tomorrow. So the stakes are really high.”

I laughed with him, hitting him in the chest. “Oh you better be extra nice to me. That shirt would look PER-FECT with your skin tone.”

We sat there laughing and joking about clothes, and then about our siblings, and then our weird holiday traditions, until I realized how late it had gotten. We had been sitting and talking for over 45 minutes. I hadn’t gotten a text from Alainey asking where I was yet, so she must not have been back from her walk. I figured it would be better if I got back before she did, that way I wouldn’t have to tell her where I was. I’d rather hold off on telling her about what’s going on with Ashton and me, for now… while I can still hold off.

I got back to my room after hugging Ashton goodbye and flopped down on my bed. 10 minutes later, Alainey sauntered in with a huge grin on her face.

“You’re looking extra happy” I smiled to my best friend. “Care to explain?”

“No reason” She blushed back as she laid down on her own bed.

We sat in silence, probably both going over today’s events, an unexplained huge smile on both of our faces.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: hehe I like this one.

Dedicated this one to @NimishaSharma as promised a long time ago :) again, sorry it took so long. Anywaysssss hope you all have a lovely day! I hate those writers who tell you to vote and comment and stuff. I'm always like ....pshhhh... don't tell me what to do!

So

Feel free to vote or comment if you liked, if not it's all good :) thanks for reading!