COLLIDE ✰ BLAKE RICHARDSON

XII.

XII.

After Blake and Leah had successfully pulled their prank on Brad, they headed back out to find the rest of the boys. Realizing they were all gone, the two of them quickly grabbed their stuff and walked out to the busses. And thank God they did — if they would've stayed in there longer, they might have almost gotten stranded at the venue. Running up the stairs of the bus, the two singers were laughing at how stupid the whole situation was.

"Imagine if we got stranded there," Leah said through laughter as she threw her bags down onto the ground. "I don't think we would have survived."

"I think Joe and Marie would've killed us before we even thought about survival," Blake chuckled, sitting down and putting his feet up onto the couch, therefore putting them in Leah's lap. He was so tall that his legs stretched out to cover nearly the entire length of the leather couch. She scowled, nudging him with her foot in return, but didn't bother to move his legs.

They fell into a comfortable silence for a couple minutes, but it was soon broken by a loud crash coming from the kitchenette area of the bus. "What the f-"

"Well done, George!" Reece called out, sarcasm evident in his voice. Leah and Blake made eye contact, both of them holding in their laughter. They were always in some sort of banter.

Leah got up to go see what was happening and almost collapsed in laughter when she took in the scene in the kitchen. There was an entire pot of spaghetti sauce dumped all over the floor, and Reece was standing in the corner with his head in his hands.

"You guys literally just ate pizza," the brunette commented through laughter, causing both boys to look up at her.

"Listen, we were still hungry!" George replied as he bent down to pick up the metal pot from the floor. "Now Reece is mad at me because I've dropped it, but it was all his fault because he's the one who bumped into me."

"You guys are literally five years old. It's not that big of a deal, just clean it up."

"Tell that to him!" Both boys said in unison. It was almost scary how they said the same exact thing at the same exact time. It was probably the product of spending so much time together. Leah looked up at them, her eyebrows raised, and then they all just burst out laughing. Idiots.

She wasn't sure what time it was, but she knew for a fact that it was late. Leah hadn't realized how tired she was until then. Yawning, she moved Blake's feet and plopped back down on the couch next to him. He was mindlessly scrolling through Twitter on his phone, but he looked tired too. He had changed into a purple Champion hoodie and flannel pajama pants, and all she could think about was how soft he looked.

Leah made the instinctive decision to scoot over closer to him so their bodies were touching. Blake looked up from his phone at the sudden body contact, his cheeks reddening slightly as he grinned at her. Leah yawned again, leaning into his chest. She could hear his heartbeat — she pretended not to notice how much it sped up when she leaned into him. Whatever they were, whatever this thing going on between them was, Leah never wanted it to end. He made her stomach explode in a million butterflies every time he looked at her.

"I'm tired," she murmured against him.

"Me too. Go to sleep," Blake whispered into her hair.

"Sounds good to me," Leah replied before closing her eyes. Blake wrapped his arms around her shoulders, hugging her close. She hummed against his chest, almost immediately feeling her exhaustion take over and falling asleep in his embrace.

Reece walked out of the kitchen, his eyes widening when he took in the sight of Leah asleep against his friend who he knew had a huge crush on her. The blonde boy raised his eyebrows at Blake, who just shot him a look that meant 'don't say anything'.

Reece put his hands up in defense, "I'm not saying anything! I actually find you guys quite cute together. Just don't make it weird."

"We aren't dating, you know that, right?" Blake whispered, being careful not to wake the girl in his arms up.

Reece shrugged, "Well, you two sure act like it."

"Obviously I want to, but I don't want to rush anything," The dark-haired boy replied, being honest about his feelings. Of course he wanted Leah to be his girlfriend, eventually, but he didn't want to scare her away. He liked her so much that he was terrified of making the wrong move and ruining what they already had between them. It was better, Blake figured, to wait to make sure she really liked him as much as he liked her because he liked her a lot. Like, a lot.

Reece just nodded, understanding where Blake was coming from. From the dating experiences he'd had, he knew it was better in the long run not to rush things. He grabbed his phone from the coffee table and sat down on the other couch across from the two of them, discreetly opening up the Instagram app and snapping a picture of Leah asleep in Blake's arms. He didn't even think twice before uploading it to his story, captioning it "Touring gets the best of all of us sometimes".

Within seconds, the fans were going absolutely wild over the picture. It was getting reposted onto every fan account and everyone on Twitter was freaking out over how adorable the two of them were. Blake wasn't even aware the picture had been posted since he was busy texting his sister. When he opened Instagram back up, he almost passed out at the number of notifications he had. Sure, he usually had a lot, but this amount was just crazy.

The thought crossed his mind that maybe it wasn't such a great thing that whatever was going on between them had gotten out to the whole world, but he hoped that their fans would be supportive since they all seemed to love Leah. Blake just hoped it wouldn't change things between them.

Leah, still asleep in his arms, had no idea what was going on until she was woken up by her phone ringing loudly in her ears. Rubbing her eyes, she quickly remembered where she was and blushed as she moved out of Blake's embrace. Grabbing her phone, she slid the button to answer the call without even looking at who it was.

"Hello?"

"Leah! Have you gone mental? Have you forgotten about the contract? Oh my goodness, you're quite lucky I used to be a publicist, girl. It's barely been a week of the tour and you're already jeopardizing your position. I'm disappointed, to be perfectly honest," Marie nearly shouted from the other end of the line, causing her to wince. Leah was very confused. She had absolutely no clue what her manager was so angry about.

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe a lovely picture of you and Blake canoodling all over social media!"

"What?"