Rose | Ashton Irwin

chapter twenty

Rose's POV

"Are you ready?" Penny chirps, peaking over my shoulder and into my locker. Calum stands beside us, leaning against the metal as he taps away on his phone. I replace the books in my arms with the ones I need for homework before turning toward them with a nod.

Penny had been complaining non-stop the past few days about how long it had been since we were all able to spend time together. Though I hadn't realized it until then, she was right. She had asked to do things plenty of times, but I was always preoccupied with everything going on. I ended up just receiving too many snapchats of her bothering Calum while he tried to study or watch television.

"Let's go then!" She grabs my hand in hers and pulls me out the front door's of the school in a flash, Calum trailing behind us. Just as we make it into the parking lot I hear someone call out my name, turning to see Alec waving his hand in the air.

"Rose!" He calls again, smiling when he sees that he's caught my attention. He jogs to where we are, panting quietly. "Hey. I've been texting you all week. What's been going on?" He cocks his head to the side in confusion, his shining blue eyes scanning over me.

"I-I just haven't been able to respond. Busy with school work and all." I force out an awkward dry laugh, scratching the back of my neck. Obviously I couldn't tell him that I had been avoiding his messages, or turning the other way when I saw him down the hall. Ever since what happened between him and Russell I assumed that he would have given up straight away. When he kept texting to see if I was okay, I then assumed they would fade away after a couple days with no answer. Apparently I was wrong.

"I know what you mean. I just wanted to say that until Russ showed up I had a pretty good time. I know he was kind of a buzz kill, but maybe we can try again sometime? Maybe we can go grab a bite to eat or catch a movie." Someone calls his name from the sidewalk, so he flashes me one last white and toothy grin, "Just let me know yeah?"

By the time he's jogged away Penny and Calum are staring with raised eyebrows. After they met him at the party, I brushed it off and said it was nothing serious when they texted me about it the next day-which I thought was true. Calum barely remembered it after the drinking, but neither of them knew about what happened between him and Russell.

"Don't worry, I have a lot to catch you guys up on." I nervously laugh, knowing that there's much more that I haven't been telling them. Cal waves that he will meet us there before Penny and I climb into her small yellow bug. The floor is littered with trash, cups, and paper that she's thrown around carelessly.

"You seriously need to clean." I grimace as I pick up an empty fast food bag and throw it into the backseat, holding my book bag on my lap.

"I did." She rolls her eyes, whipping out of the parking spot. A student looking down at their phone crosses to their car and flicks her off as she zooms by, causing them to stop. As per usual she doesn't drive, she flies down the road. A Hawaiian girl that I got her for Christmas as a joke sways on the dashboard, a matching one in Calum's jeep.

"When? A year ago?" I snort, but she just sticks her tongue out and laughs. We pull into our destinations parking lot within minutes and have to wait on Calum, who unlike Penny, drives according to the speed limit and follows all rules of the road. We're waiting in front of tropical smoothie, the place that she always requests to go to, as we blare the song "Thank you, next" with the windows down.

"And the snail is finally here!" She exclaims as we approach the jeep, climbing in. Calum and I always complain about eating inside due to how many people filter in and out the doors, so it's become a habit to go through the drive thru. With Penny's tiny and dirty car, his is the obvious option.