Caffeinated (Colton)

7. New Friends

Max was sick, Dana was on a trip with his family, Will and David were in the next town over until tomorrow, and Dalton was incredibly bored. It was a week after finding out that his best friend's new boyfriend's best friend was the same person he had pranked for weeks previous. Cole hadn't come in since and Dalton wasn't sure if he should be happy about that or not. But he guessed he should have been nonchalant about the entire thing, it wasn't like he was in love with the other man or anything.

But right at the moment, Dalton was extremely and utterly bored. He had even called that girl he met when he was helping out Will and David but she couldn't hang out either. It was at this moment that Dalton realized he probably needed more friends. Especially if David and Will kept going on adventurous dates into other cities for whole nights. And the fact that a good half of his friends were still in high school couldn't be too good either.

Dalton had just finished his shift at work an hour ago and had resorted to hanging out in the coffee shop on his phone. He'd probably have to stay here until closing since he had nothing else to do.

Carlie and Luke always ended their shifts later than Dalton did, so he didn't notice when the next shift of workers came in to replace the two. He had his earbuds in, listening to music, as he scrolled through twitter, so he also didn't notice when Luke walked up to him. He visibly jumped when he felt the taller blond's hand touch his shoulder.

"Sorry about that, Dal. I just thought you might want to hang out with me and my friends, Carlie told me that all your other friends were out of town or had a bug," Luke said, "It won't be anything big, I'm just heading to mate's flat with three of my other friends and we're going to play some billiards. If you're not busy that is."

Dalton smiled internally, it would be nice to get to know his coworker some more, he didn't even know Luke's last name. Plus, Will would be so incredibly happy that he was making friends, and maybe the Asian wouldn't bug him about it now.

"That'd actually be great Luke, I was just gonna lounge around here for the rest of the day but pool sounds fun right about now," Dalton grinned.

So Dalton and Luke headed to Dalton's car as Luke usually takes the bus. Luke plugged in the address to Dalton's GPS and then they were off onto the stretch of the highway. They drove for a while until Dalton decided to ask Luke some questions.

"So, who's house exactly are we going to?" He asked

"Um, I don't think you know the guy who lives there but I think the other two go to your university. Do you know a Calum Hood or Michael Clifford?"

Dalton had never heard of the latter person but Calum's name did sound familiar. He had to think about it to place where exactly he had heard the name. Then a realization came to him, Calum was the guy who would've stopped Cole from showing up at Will and David's dance thing. But no, Calum had other plans so Cole had to show up instead, "I've heard of Calum, never met him though."

Luke just nodded and reached for the radio. From past interactions at work, they knew they both had very similar music tastes. Thus, Dalton didn't hesitate or protest when the other blond plugged his phone up to play some music into the radio speakers. A rock song from the 80's started blasting through and the rest of the ride to Luke's friend's apartment was filled with loud drums, guitar riffs, and violent headbobbing. By the end of it, Dalton had started to wonder why the two coworkers didn't hang out too much, what a waste of musical fun.

The two got out of the car and took the elevator to the fourth floor. They were joined in the elevator by Michael, a dude with colourful hair and a rough voice. He was nice enough, offering them both a stick of gum. When they finally got to the apartment they were supposed to be at, Dal met the inhabitant, Ashton. In the first few moments of walking into his door, he could already tell he was the parental figure of the friend group. Ashton had started to yell at Calum, who was on the couch and seemed to have been there early to get off the couch and say hello. Ashton reminded Dalton of Molly Weasley from Harry Potter.

Then Dalton met Calum. First, stupidly asking why he didn't show up last week to the dance class. The other boy looked confused before realizing that Dalton was the friend of Will's that David had told the Maori about. It was explained that Calum had forgotten that he and Ashton had planned a date a month in advance and didn't realize the day he was supposed to show up for the dance was the same day he had planned the date with Ashton. Apparently, Ashton and Calum were dating, and soon after he found that Michael and Luke were too. It was like none of Dalton's friends were straight, which now that he thinks about it, is probably true.

The five sat at Ashton's dining room table after all the shaking hands and getting acquainted happened. The four taught Dalton how to play a card game called 500 and things got rowdy, especially after Dalton decided to teach the others how to play a card game called Slapjack. Chaos ensued, but it made Dalton realize he didn't have to stick to one batch of friends.

Once the card games started repeating a little too much, Michael ordered a pizza while Ashton pulled up Netflix on his television to find a show they could watch. Calum started making popcorn in the kitchen, and Luke and Dalton were left on Ashton's living room couch.

"Hey, I have a question," Luke said, while they waited for the others to join them.

"Yeah? Shoot." Dalton nonchalantly replied, scratching off his chipped black nail polish.

"There's this customer at work who is becoming a regular, you always spell his name wrong. Is that a prank for me or a prank for him?" This statement was so shocking to Dalton that he looked up from his nails.

"Why would it be a prank for you?"

"It's just kind of embarrassing to read the name wrong out loud and have him grab it violently out of my hand every day." Luke shrugged, pretending it wasn't a big deal, "I guess it doesn't really matter, sorry. I was just wondering. Hey, but don't worry, I did really stupid things around Michael back before he asked me out. Crushes are pretty heavy to deal with."

Dalton had felt bad for Luke, wanting to apologize before he said those last two sentences. Then he wanted to interject, what was it with people saying he liked Cole? He didn't! Did he?

Before any words could come out of his mouth, Ashton shuffled his way over and informed that they were going to watch The Office. The two on the couch nodded as Michael came back into the room and separated Luke and Dalton by sitting in between them.

Dalton decided to let it go and just enjoy the rest of the night with his new friends as Calum came over as well. Besides, he was very certain he didn't like Cole, Not matter what everyone seemed to think. At least, Dalton thought he was sure.