Coming Up For Air

0.2

You know that if you don't shut your mouth, she'll freak out
You better get your shit together, 'cause she's bringing you down
-Matchbox 20, 'She's so mean'

☂Ashton☂

"Hey, Liv!" Ashton grinned, jogging up to the cafe table where his girlfriend of five months was seated. Her eyes stayed fixed on her iPhone and she didn't make any move to acknowledge his presence.

"Liv?" He questioned more quietly, sliding into the seat across from her. "Olivia Maria Elise J--?"

"You're late." She said flatly, setting her phone down with a bang. The people a few tables away from them looked up, started by the noise.

"No--what, by like a minute? Two minutes? I had to walk from my house, you know." Ashton tried to stay quiet so he wouldn't disturb the peace of the restaurant, but he could already feel annoyance rising in his chest.

"You promised you wouldn't be late anymore." She flicked her cool grey eyes disdainfully across him and he clenched his fists in frustration.

"But I wasn't late and--God, is it really that big of a deal? Can't we just have a nice, civil dinner and then we can talk about this?" Then you can freak out about this, he thought to himself.

"No, Ashton. It is a big deal. You always do this, always put other things in front of me. What was it this time, huh? Dropping into the record store because you just had to pick up the last Fall Out Boy album on vinyl? Or hey, that's a new shirt. Did you go clothes shopping?" Livvy was talking loudly in the previously hushed restaurant. A concerned looking waitress started toward them, brandishing menus and waters.

"What? No, I--,"

"You what? Tell me the truth." Her cheeks flared an unattractive, blotchy red and Ashton though briefly about how much prettier she had been before she bleached her hair.

"I did stop somewhere. At the music store, but only to check out their cajóns because I need a new one. Thanks to you, I might add." Ashton immediately regretted the last part.

"Thanks to--thanks to me!? What the hell is a fucking cajón?!" She screeched, and the waitress froze in the middle of laying out their menus.

"I, uh--the box drum thing that you sat on sideways and crushed--,"

"Oh, so now you're calling me fat?!" She stood up violently, knocking her chair over onto the tiled floor. "I thought Australian boys were supposed to be sweet!"

"I have no idea what's going on." Ashton observed to nobody in particular. Liv was flapping her arms wildly and gradually looking more like a beet.

"God, Ashton, I--God!" She stomped her foot and then turned on her heel, storming out of the restaurant and into the twilight-drenched street. Ashton leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and taking a deep breath.

"She's cute, huh?" He said dryly to the room of onlookers who were gaping at him. "I'll just be going now."

-

"--then she said I called her fat and left." Ashton finished, peering out of the bus stop on the dimly lit street. His phone was clasped to his ear, and his jacket was wrapped around his body. It was cold, and the thin tee-shirt he had borrowed from the guy at the music store was doing little to fight off the frost accumulating in the air. London was cold at this time of year, and Ashton was really missing sunny south-of-the-equator winters in Sydney.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I did nearly the same thing to Louis, except he actually deserved it." Zayn mumbled into the phone, sounding a little drunk. "And he didn't call me fat."