Paper Hearts

Chapter 4

This part is actually pretty long, so brace yourself :) - E

few days later, I was sitting in psychology, and the teacher announced we will be doing a group project. Everyone looked at another person except me, I just kept staring at my book.

"You and your partner will come up with and conduct a psychology experiment," she explains. "There are no limits to what you can do, but I will be choosing your partners."

Everyone in the class groaned. Honestly, though, I would rather her pick partners anyway.

"You'll have to get together outside of school, because this is not an in-school project." she says firmly.

She starts pairing people up.

"Emily, you'll be with Ashton." she points to a cute guy with straight, blondish hair.

"Okay, I'm going to give everyone the last ten minutes of class to exchange numbers, and make plans on times and places to work on the project."

I walk over to Ashton's desk and smile at him. "Hi, Ashton! I'm Emily."

"Hey!" he replies as I set my stuff down beside him, and sit down in the vacant desk to his right. "What's it like in America?" he asks.

"Uhmmm..." I think for a second. "Free?" I answer, more sounding like a question.

He giggled, he had a sweet smile. A sweet laugh, one of those laughs that are contagious.

"Really, it's not that different from here. Except they have different restaurants and stores, and they drive on the opposite side of the road, with the driver's seat being the passenger's seat here."

"That is so weird, I can't imagine driving on the other side of the road." he said, his mouth agape.

"No way! It's weird here!" I laughed. "Okay, we really need to start this."

"Okay, well, what do you want the project to be on?" he asked.

"What are your hobbies?" I asked Ashton.

He pushed his tongue toward his cheek on the inside of his mouth. "I'm in a band." he said quietly, still thinking.

"That's perfect!" I said, "We could do a study on if the type of music you like effects your personality traits!"

"That actually sounds fun!" he said and we high fived.

We exchange information, phone numbers, addresses, that kind of thing. When I looked down at the phone number, I was shocked.

"God, Australian phone numbers are weird." I said.

"Nah, it's the American ones that are weird." he replied, looking at my number.

Later that day, I called Ashton and told him to come over to my house.

When he walked in the door, his mouth dropped open.

"Why is there so much music stuff in here? A signed Kiss poster?" he walked further in, "A James Brown golden record?"

"My dad's a musician. This isn't half of it, you should see the studio." I told him, nonchalantly.

"You have a studio in your house?" he questioned.

"Yeah, he's a pretty good engineer. His official job is that he's a rep for Taylor Guitars, though."

"Is that why you guys moved here?" his eyes went wide.

"Yeah, they wanted to expand the company, further than Europe and North America."

"Wow, this is, this is crazy. My band mate, Michael, he's wanted a Taylor for as long as he has been playing guitar and now he might actually have a chance to get one since they're coming here and- "

Just then, my dad walked through the door.

"Hey, Em! I'm ho- oh hey." he said when he saw me standing ten feet away from him. "Who's this?" he asked, gesturing to Ashton.

"Oh, um this is my friend Ashton, we're doing a psychology project together for school."

"Really? I love psychology! What's the project?" he asks. He has a degree in sociology and a minor in psychology, so he is very interested in both.

"'Does the type of music you listen to affect personality traits?'" I told him, smiling.

"I love it! If you need my help for this let me know!" he said, starting to walk off, then stopped. "Ashton, I'm Scott, nice to meet you!" he reached out to shake Ash's hand.

Ashton took it, shaking slightly.

"Wait... Ashton do you even like music? Or is Emily dragging you into doing something music related?" he asked and looked at me.

"Oh, no sir! I love music... I'm actually in a band."

Dad turned around so fast, he probably got whiplash.

"Really?" he asked, suddenly very, very interested.

And then all the questions came:

What kind of music do you play? We have kind of a pop, punk, rock sound.

How many people? Four, including myself.

What do you play? Drums.

How old are y'all? I'm 17, but I'll be 18 in July, and then two of them just turned 16, and one will be 16 in July.

What are you called? 5 Seconds of Summer.

"You know what?" my dad said, "I like what I'm hearing. You're young with a cool name, if y'all can play, you could get somewhere. I wanna hear ya." he told Ashton.

His eyes went to golf balls. "Sure!! But-bu- wh-when?" he stuttered out.

My dad looked at me, "When is this project due?"

"We have a month." I said, knowing exactly where he was going.

He turned back to Ashton. "How about you call your band and see if they want to come over and jam?"

"Oh-uh-um-ok-okay!!" he sputtered out. And he walked out the front door to call his friends.

I turned to dad. "I know what you're doing." I smiled.

"What am I doing then?" he asked, smirking sideways.

"You're gonna listen to them, and if you like them, you're going to let them record and take them under your wing." I said.

"You know me so well. You nailed that." he told me, with an appreciative smirk and high five.