Ashton Enchanted » [cashton] √

1.6

"Yeah, and then this seagull just swooped down and took the cheeseburger right out of my hand! The whole thing!" Luke told them, and he and Ashton dissolved into laughter, everyone else joining.

"You take everyone to that museum, Luke!" Sierra laughed along with them, rolling her eyes, "you're going to have to come up with a new spot,"

"He's never taken me there," Michael blanched.

Calum turned an accusing look on Luke, "You've never taken me either,"

"You're both classless, I would never take you somewhere nice like that," Luke said, turning his nose up at them both.

Ashton and Crystal both broke into giggles at the offended looks on their faces.

"I'd have to agree," Crystal added, shrugging her shoulders at the pair opposite them, Michael gaped at her like a fish, "oh c'mon, I love your uncouthness!" she declared, pausing for a moment before continuing, "so much so I think I just remembered my parents are out late today," she waggled her eyebrows at him.

That was met by a chorus of 'ew's', "I thought we were all going to GYG for burritos," Ashton said.

"Yeah, what the hell, you guys," Calum said, turning on them quickly.

"Oh shit, that was this afternoon?" Luke asked, "Si and I made plans as well,"

"Seriously guys?" Ashton asked exasperated, "Ugh, we'll just have to go another time then I guess,"

"No, no! You guys go, have fun, just because we're off doing coupley stuff doesn't mean you guys have to cancel," Luke insisted.

Crystal joined in, "Yeah you guys go have fun, Calum you're the one who wanted burritos anyway," she said with a smile.

"Lu, what were we doing?" Sierra asked.

He turned to face her, "remember, my mum wanted us to help her with redoing the garden beds?"

She seemed to pause for a moment before saying, "Oh, okay,"

Ashton quietly thought that Luke was full of shit, but he didn't have a polite way of getting out of being alone with Calum, so he swallowed his suspicions.

"Cool, so we just get abandoned every time you have something better to do?" Calum asked, voice suspicious.

"Obviously," Luke said in a 'duh' tone. 

Half an hour later Calum and Ashton were making the walk from the train station to Guzman y Gomez on their own. Their chatter came easily, talking about a local guitar shop they both thought was intimidating. 

He could tell Calum was miffed that everyone had bailed, because once again he brought the conversation back around, "every time I turn around, they're going off to do couple stuff, wasn't so bad when Lu was single," 

Ashton was sure Calum knew what the others were up to and it was almost crippling him with embarrassment.

He hummed nonetheless, "Guess I didn't really hang out with you guys that much before Lu and Sierra got together, so I can't really say,"

Calum thought for a long moment, "if you'd realised, he'd be taken off the market, would you have asked him out before her?"

Ashton blanched and whipped his head around to refute the question, and Calum was grinning at him, "you're pulling my leg, right?"

Calum nodded, "Luke is very proud that you've become such good friends though, he keeps telling Crystal he's your favourite,"

He couldn't help but blush, a grin split across his face too, "to be fair, he's a very close second, don't tell him that though,"

Calum raised his hands as if in defence, "You have my word; I won't feed his ego,"

After that, they chatted on and off again as they sat eating their burritos and splitting churros, with a healthy serve of dulce de leche. 

"So how long have you and Luke been playing field hockey for?" Ashton asked, he was so nervous that he knew there had to be millions of conversation topics. Still, all he could possibly think of was this or asking Calum what he thought of Luke and Sierra getting together, and that felt too gossipy, and he was a little afraid the others would start to think he really did have a thing for Luke. 

Calum thought for a moment, "must be since grade 8 or 9, started 'cause our mum's thought we were spending too much time playing video games with Michael. No way Michael's mum was convincing him to join though," he laughed, obviously the thought of Michael on a hockey field was laughable. "I guess it turned out well for us though," he continued, shrugging and taking a big bite from his burrito. 

Ashton nodded along as though this all made so much sense to him. He'd never been allowed to play sports, his mother and he had realised at a young age that sports, whether that be team sports or individual sports with spectators, would always involve someone yelling commands at him. And the thing was most people blocked all the noise out while they were playing, and Ashton was the same, but you'd be surprised what your brain can process subconsciously. So he'd had to avoid it altogether, unfortunately. 

"What about you?" Calum asked, and Ashton realised he was being weird and zoning out again and flushed deeply,  "you play any sports growing up?" 

He shook his head, "more of a book kid," he said, "liked reading about all these amazing things I knew I could never do," he admitted, reading had been one of his favourite hobbies. Much to his mother's chagrin, he'd loved young adult novels since he could remember, reading them well below the recommended age level. He remembered her making him put the books inside Harry Potter dust covers when they went out in public, worried other parents would judge her. She never stopped him though; she knew that that was (in a lot of instances) the closest Ashton might ever come to experiencing most things. 

"Oh yeah," Calum grinned and chuckled, "so you're a what? Fantasy nerd? Like the idea of riding dragons and casting spells?" he asked. 

Ashton laughed, "something like that," he'd been banned from the real Harry Potter books when he was younger, his mother was convinced Ashton would try and find spells to reverse the curse in any book like that. It always made him laugh because he'd never even come close to having thoughts like that. He'd come to terms with the life he would lead and was more than happy to sit in the corner of his room and giggle along to the tragedy that was Bridgette Jones's Diary. 

Calum hummed, "maybe you'll have to recommend me a book or two one day," he said, and he had a big stupid grin on his face, obviously thinking all of Ashton's books must have been terribly embarrassing, based on the little he'd said. 

"I'll loan you the My Immortal Series; you'll be entirely scandalised," Ashton told him smirking. 

Hi sorry, this has taken so long to update, but I just haven't been able to finish this chapter, and I have no idea why. Hope you enjoy it!