Calum: “Guess it’s true, I’m not good at a one night stand. But I still need love, ‘cause I’m just a man.”
It really wasn’t meant to be anything like this. It was meant to just be a little fun, nothing more. A distraction, something to take Calum’s mind off tour and all the stress that came with it, off the interviews and the shows he had to play in front of nerve-wracking amounts of people. Sure, this is his dream, this is all he has ever wanted and he feels more than thankful, more than privileged to be able to experience it all, but sometimes it’s just a bit too much of everything. Sometimes he can’t stand the fact that every tiny little detail of his life is being scrutinised by a thousand people all over the world, sometimes that thought just becomes a bit too insane for Calum. He just wants something that feels real. And those are the nights he likes to go to a club, without the other boys, the nights he likes to go out on the dance floor and just have fun, like any other guy his age might do. He takes an attractive girl home – it’s not hard, now that he’s in a chart topping band – and the heated kisses, the skin-on-skin, the meaninglessness of it all make him feel alive somehow. Make everything come back into focus and seem just a bit more real. Often the boys joke that he’d be bad at one night stands, because Calum always gets too caught up in the little things and he never corrects them. These nights are his escape, but they are nothing he is particularly proud of. They don’t really mean anything, anyways, so where’s the point in bragging about them or even talking about them? They don’t mean anything – until he meets you. It’s a night like any other and it’s a club like any other in a town like any other, but you’re not a girl like any other, at least not to Calum. There’s the way you dance, for example. Barefoot, your shoes long since discarded, on your own, your mind clearly very far from here. Or the sparkling of your eyes, brighter than anything Calum has ever seen. It’s the same routine, but it’s different with you. You won’t sleep with him, even after you’ve danced for hours and Calum likes that, he likes that you’re not impressed because he’s in a successful band. He likes that you just smile at him when he asks whether you’d like to get out of here, likes that you simply kiss him on the cheek and say ‘maybe another time’, turn around and go. He likes the piece of paper with your number written on it you slipped into his pocket without him even noticing. He likes watching your retreating back, a weird feeling unravelling inside of him He doesn’t pick up any other girls after that, because they’re not enough to fill the empty spaces in his chest that you seem to have ripped open. He wants something more than meaninglessness. Maybe the boys were in fact right when they sad that he’s bad at one night stands. And now here he is, at the other side of the world, still thinking about the girl he nearly picked up at a bar, the girl with the fluorescent eyes and the thousand watt smile and he wonders if he’ll ever stop seeing your face when he closes his eyes. He dials your number and for the first time in months it feels like the air he inhales actually reaches his lungs again.
Ashton: “This ain’t love, it’s clear to see. But darling, stay with me.”
It’s the rush that he loves most. Your lips against his, your fingers on his shoulders, his teeth scraping against your neck… When you’re together it’s quick and harsh and pure adrenaline. There’s nothing of the usual drama that comes with relationships, no arguing, no yelling, no fussing. It’s just sex, whenever one of you feels like it, no strings attached. But these past few weeks that he’s been on vacation, Ashton’s found himself feeling like it more often than usually. His fingers seem to constantly be itching to dial your phone number and ask you to come over. He’s always liked the way you felt beneath or on top of him, but now he even likes the feeling of you next to him. It started out with appreciating the way you moan his name and now every time you smile at him, he loses it. Everything about you is suddenly important, even the things that used to not matter to him. Like the way you always tuck your hair behind your ear after taking off your shirt or the way you’re comfortable enough around him to come to his flat wearing no make-up and your pyjamas. He wishes he could invite you around for something else than sex at least once, just so you could watch a movie and eat pizza together, but somehow Ashton knows that he would cross some kind of invisible line the two of you have drawn between each other without even noticing. You’re not friends with benefits because you’re not even friends and he’s definitely not in love with you, he’s almost completely sure of that. You’re just sex, nothing more. But that doesn’t keep Ashton from grabbing you by the wrist the next time you’re about to climb from his bed. You’re still naked and you’re beautiful like that with your hair an unruly mess on top of your head due to his roaming fingers and your skin covered in the marks he left on it. “Stay with me,” he mutters, his voice so low that he’s sure you won’t hear. But you do and your cheeks redden and your hair falls into your face as you climb back into his bed without hesitation and settle beneath the covers next to him. This isn’t love, Ashton decides as he draws you closer to him and buries his face in the crook of your neck. But it’s definitely something.
