More Than a Fan || cth

Chapter 20

I've been standing at the door of Lacie's room for about 3 minutes now.

But who's counting?

I can't will myself to go in and talk to her. It's unusual, I'm so nervous.

Alright, suck it up, Calum. You're overthinking. She'll understand.

My phone screen lights up with a text from Ashton. I swear he always seems to be watching me or something. I hit the power button on my phone, leaving him on read.

The door suddenly swings open, startling me out of my internal conflict. 
Lacie starts to walk out, but stops in her tracks, her bored expression turning into an amused one.

"Hey, there," she says softly, the surprise evident in her tone. My heart starts to race.

"U-uh, hey," I choke out, giving her an uncomfortable smile. 

An awkward silence falls upon us as I'm staring at my feet like they're some kind of treasure.

Lacie raises her eyebrows. "Cal?" I jump out of my daze again.

"Huh?" I say stupidly.

"Why are you standing outside of my door at 11pm?" She asks and I take into account what time it is. After talking to Ashton, it was only about noon, but I've spent so much time trying to perfect what I was going to say and trying to calm myself down that I hadn't gotten to telling her until now.

It's pathetic, really.

"I, um, you know what? We can talk tomorrow. It's late."

I turn to leave and head back to my room before Lacie grabs my arm, stopping me. Involuntary shivers run down my spine at her touch, and I curse myself for being affected by her. I turn around to face her.

"Wait, it's fine, we can talk." Lacie states, going into her room without waiting for an answer from me. I follow her, taking a deep breath.

She takes a seat on the the bed, reaching behind her and taking a fluffy blanket into her hands to wrap around herself. I bite back a smile from how cute she is. "So, what's up?"

I settle down in front of her, pulling my hands together in front of me and focusing on them instead of her inquisitive, green eyes.

"I- um," I awkwardly glance up at her through my lashes and smile sheepishly. "I wanted to tell you what happened the other day."

Her eyebrows raise in a mixture of surprise and excitement. "Alright." 

"Alright."

What am I doing? I'm acting like such an idiot. Just tell her already! It's not that big of a deal.

"Calum." Lacie's hand suddenly rests on top of mine. "Calm down. It's okay, just tell me."

My heartbeat drums loudly in my ears. I look up to meet her gaze and I give myself a second to relax before nodding slightly.

I'm not used to opening up like this.

"So, um, the other day on stage, the boys and I found out the duration of the tour, whatever, no breaks, yeah yeah-" I stall. Lacie looks confused. "Sorry. Basically, I was taken aback by the fact that we obviously just took a long ass break to figure ourselves out, I guess, and to write an album. We come back, and suddenly they expect us to go back into that cycle that put us in the position to need so long to recover in the first place? I don't know. I got over that quickly, I think, just because it's my career, and I love my music and my fans, right? Cool. Anyway, that's fine. I just.."

I stop. My chest tightens, but I push it away and take a nervous breath.

"Basically, in conclusion, Lai, at first I hated the idea of going on tour without you. I don't want to get super sentimental because that's all I've been for the past week but you've changed my life a lot, in a good way, and I don't want to leave you like that again. The thing is though, I don't, and didn't, want to put you in the position of tour life and having to deal with fans and that whole mess, but at the same time I especially don't want to go through it without, um," I cough. "you."