Ease [Cashton/Muke]

Chapter forty nine

"Good god." Maggie groans loudly, thumping her head on her desk shortly after.
"Mag-" Calum starts to ask concernedly.
"Louis Tomlinson is cancelled!" She yells back in frustration.
"What happened?" Calum sighs, it's only been three hours since their phone call ended.
"Harry's shoot as been brought forward to tomorrow. Tomorrow!" She cries out dramatically.
"And I'm not free tomorrow..."
"Exactly." She mutters bitterly.

"So then-" Calum starts, trying to be helpful.
"No you can't be useful, I have to do it myself. My complaining achieves nothing but it's making me feel better and that's all that matters." She says flatly.
"I-"
"You can barely use your own damn calendar calm down." Maggie snorts, already back to being focused on rearranging tomorrow's schedule of meetings.
"I can use my calendar." Calum pouts.
"Sure Princess." She rolls her eyes.

"Calum?" Maggie calls out lazily a few minutes later.
"Yeah?"
"This is gonna work if you can do a meeting at 7 tomorrow morning."
"Yeah no worries, that leaves the whole afternoon?" Calum shoots back.
"Yeah, last meeting finishes 12:30."
"Great, lock it in."

Monday afternoon is notably less eventful than the morning, Calum and Ashton both get through a whole day of work. Generally one of them gives up long before 5.
"You've done so much today. Feeling okay? Haven't pushed yourself too far?" Calum queries as he steps in Ashton's office a little after 5, the younger was just starting to pack up his things for the day.
"No." Ashton chuckles. "I'm fine, I promise. Besides, I miss half a day on Friday and want to keep on top of things. I just love how easily I can get ahead without all the distractions of school here."
"I'm glad." Calum smiles, pecking Ashton on the lips when the sub steps closer.

"But it's tomorrow, did Maggie and I forget to mention it?" Calum explains as they walk back down the corridor.
"What?"
"Harry's Friday photo shoot got brought forward to tomorrow, so we're heading in tomorrow. Is that okay? We should have checked with you." Calum frowns at the end.
"It's alright. I don't mind. I don't have anything on, you know that. You're still telling me now." Ashton reassures, the last thing he would ever want is for Calum to think he's a bad dom.
"You know I don't want you to feel controlled."
"I don't." Ashton smiles softly as he watches Calum pack up things in office in preparation for them leaving.

"You need to go home Mags, I feel like you live here." Calum says flatly to his assistant who was still happily typing away at her computer.
"I'm fine." She shrugs.
"I don't care if you're fine, go home."
"Tomorrow I'm getting out of here at, like, 1pm, working now feels fair."
"Because you start at 6." He deadpans.
"Yep. Anyway, I promise I'm good. I'll be out soon. See you in the morning." She brushes him off.
"Fine." Calum sighs. "But if you don't leave early enough tomorrow I'm not letting you work Wednesday."
"First of all, you will fall apart without me. Second of all, that's blackmail."
"Yes it most certainly is. Bye Mags." Calum grins as he steps into the lift.
"Bye." She mutters with a shake of her head.

"What was that you were saying about her starting at 6 tomorrow?" Ashton raises an eyebrow.
"Oh! Something else I should have mentioned." Calum replies, frustrated with himself. "We had to shuffle around some meetings to make tomorrow afternoon work and one starts at 7am, meaning we need to get here at 6. We being Maggie and I."
"Oh." Ashton nods in understanding.
"I'm sure you're not keen on leaving the house at 5:45am so I can get Alec to drive you in whenever you'd like. You can come in at 7:30 like we usually do or maybe I'll allow you to come in a little later, have a bit of a sleep in." Calum supplies as they approach the garage.
"That sounds good. I probably won't get up till 7:30." Ashton grins.

Calum - Maggie: Ashton will text Alec in the morning when he's ready for a lift in

Maggie - Calum: You do know you can text Alec yourself right but whatever it's sorted now

Calum - Maggie: Thanks :)

Calum's alarm rings at 5:30am the next morning, set quieter than usual, and he's quick to shut it off. Ashton groans and mumbles, shuffling around in discomfort.
"It's alright Sweets. Go back to sleep. I'll see you in a few hours." Calum says softly, kissing his sub lightly on the lips as he slips out of bed.
"Okay. Will you say goodbye before you leave?" Ashton stretches his eyes open, voice weak.
"Of course." Calum smiles, even if it can't be seen in the dark.

Calum showers quickly, having decided he'll have breakfast when he gets to work, and gets into a typical grey suit. He flicks off the en-suite light that he's sure would have been disturbing Ashton's sleep, as much as he didn't want it to, and steps back into their bedroom -still dark given it's winter.
"I'm going now. Goodbye darling. Make sure you eat a good breakfast still and message me when you wake up."
"Okay. Love you." Ashton fondly rolls his eyes, leaning up to kiss his dom.
"Love you too." Calum mumbles as they pull apart. He sighs and softly shuts the bedroom door behind him, grabbing a green juice from his kitchen on the way out of the house.

"You know I don't mind early starts Maggie but it's just so much harder when I have to leave Ashton alone in bed. I don't know how you've always done it." Calum frowns, crossing the threshold into his office at 5:58am -the drive is always quicker this time of day.
"You get used to it." Maggie shrugs, causing Calum to just let out and indignant huff. "Stop crying he'll be here in a few hours," she rolls her eyes, "now, what do you want for breakfast?"

A/N: hello all this is a bit of a filler I hope you aren't getting bored with this story, Luke will be around soon to spice things up. Promise. Lots of love to you as always :)

-Grace Williams xo