The Hunt // A 5 Seconds of Summer Short Story

Part 5

Calum Hood’s POV (Team 1)

At 10 till midnight, the four of us are sat on the subway, anxiously willing it to go faster.  Poppy’s got the list in her hands, reviewing it carefully.

“We’ve got to get this signed,” she suddenly says to me.

“There will be police in the station somewhere,” I assure her.  Poppy nods and I let my eyes drift across the subway car to where Reilly and Ashton are sitting.  Reilly’s got one leg up on the seat, her body turned to look out the window behind her.  She keeps glancing at Ashton who has his head resting on the window and is looking up at her, talking quietly.  Reilly is smiling widely as she looks from Ashton to the dark tunnel we’re speeding through.  I find myself smiling at the two of them together.  None of the boys really come to me for advice on girls but I knew how Ashton felt about Reilly; he’s a pretty open book.  Reilly is a bit tougher to read.  She’s incredibly friendly with everybody and doesn’t know the meaning of personal space so it’s hard to tell if she really likes you or is just being nice.  I know that Ashton has confided in Michael over the past two years, since we’ve met the girls, and he’s been egging Ash on to make a move but I can see why Ashton might not want to ruin a good friendship.  It makes me feel good that maybe my outrageous scavenger hunt task was the kick they needed.

The subway screeches to a halt at our stop and we jump up and hurry off.

“Poppy, there’s one!” I point to a member of the Boston Police Department, just patrolling the underground to make sure everything is all right.  We hurry over and quickly explain to the man that we need his signature.  Ashton’s got his phone out, documenting the signing with a video.  We thank the man and then hurry through the underground maze and up the stairs to the street.  We sprint the two blocks to Reilly’s old ballet studio and when we reach it, the windows are dark.

“Guys, I think we’re first,” Poppy squeals excitedly as Reilly starts climbing the fire escape.  Poppy follows after her.  When Ash jumps up to the first step, I hear screaming.

“We’re first!” Reilly shouts.  I look up to see light coming from the windows, Poppy squeezing her way in.  A surge of excitement runs through me as I follow Ashton up the stairs and in through the window.  Sure enough, the four of us are the only ones here.

Cameron Winters’ POV (Team 2)

Now that Vivi and Luke are both fully clothed, thankfully, we hurry to get our checklist signed before running to the T to get back to the studio.  The sign above us says the next one will arrive in 2 minutes.  Thankfully, we’ve got 2 minutes to spare.  Michael and Vivi are watching the streaking video again, laughing loudly, their voices echoing off the walls.  I look at Luke who is standing beside me, his hands in his pockets.  He glances down at me and I look away, smiling.

“Did you have fun tonight?” I hear him ask me quietly.  My gaze goes back to him and I think back on the evening.  The whole deal with Allie put me in a bad mood but on our walk up to the Statehouse before he and Vivi went streaking, we were having a good conversation.  It wasn’t about anything in particular, just school and life in general.  Luke had gotten me talking about my home in Cape Cod and the look on his face while I was babbling away is imbedded in my mind.

I catch myself smiling. “Yeah, I had fun tonight,” I say before blurting, “I liked hanging out with you.”

Luke returns my smile. “I liked hanging out with you, too.  Even if you did have to wait around while I got sucked off by a slut before you watched me streak through a public park.”