Coming Up For Air

3.3

"I wanted you to know

That I am ready to go

My heartbeat, my heartbeat

I wanted you to know

Whenever you are around

I cant speak, I can't speak."

- Childish Gambino, 'Heartbeat'

☂Ashton☂

"Do you want to go on a date with me?" Luke blurted suddenly into the quietness. It had been a little less than a two weeks since the night at Louis' flat, and Ashton was spending a calm Sunday afternoon at Luke's, doing homework while Luke filled out papers to begin his A-Levels.

Ashton looked up at Luke and almost laughed because for some reason, Luke looked nervous, like he actually thought Ashton might say no. Instead of laughing, however, Ashton just smiled.

"Of course I do."

Luke looked relieved and Ashton thought he was unbearably cute, so he abandoned his homework for a moment to lean over the table and kiss him.

Calum, who had been sitting in the corner writing something in a black notebook, gagged in the background and Luke laughed against Ashton's lips.

"You're both whores. Kissing before the first date." Calum shook his head disdainfully. Luke flipped him off.

"Yeah, like you didn't have a girl over last night. Who was that, anyway? Do I know her? Should I know her?" Luke asked, more in a teasing tone than anything, Ashton thought. All the same, Calum turned red--or as red as anybody with his coloring could get. Which, as Ashton looked more closely, was actually pretty damn red.

"You--ah, nope. No. She's--yeah." Calum stuttered and looked at the floor and Luke raised his eyebrows at Ashton in a hilariously suggestive way that looked terribly out of place on his face and Ashton had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

"She sounds great. I'd like to meet her. That is, of course, if she's capable of saying something other than--," Luke made his voice high and sickly-sweet, one of those demeaning mockeries of a girl's voice that never sounded anything like the girl being mocked actually did, "Faster, Calum, fast--,"

"Leaving! I'm leaving. I'm going to Niall's. Bye." Calum cut Luke off, rocketing out of the chair in the corner and stumbling out the door as fast as he could, pausing only to grab his jacket. Luke grinned after him in a self-satisfied kind of way.

"That," Ashton said after a moment, "was funny."

"I know." Luke nodded. "Giving Calum shit is always funny."

Ashton nodded in consent. He had spent a lot of time with Luke over the past thirteen days, and in turn had spent a lot of time with Calum. Tuesday and Wednesday, the two days following the night at Louis' (or "Motherfucking Monday", as it was permanently known after Luke repeatedly referred to it as such during various fits of anger), the two best friends were reasonably subdued, for good reason. Ashton had been at Luke's flat a lot, and made tea lot, and was told he made tea wrong a lot ("The water has to actually be boiling, Ashton. You can't just take hot water from the sink," Luke had told him kindly after Calum had not-so-kindly dumped his luke-warm milky tea into the sink, retching dramatically.).

Ashton still had school, so he went to check on them when he could. Calum and Luke both had work, so sometimes he'd show up and it was only Luke home, or only Calum, or both or neither. Luke had showed him where they kept the spare key, though, so Ashton just let himself in when nobody answered the door, and by the time one of them got home, he usually had made food (while his tea-skills left something to be desired, Ashton was fairly good at cooking simple food) or had given up on making food and ordered in for them (because he wasn't that good.).