A Certain Romance || Ashton Irwin

Dare

I shifted in the seat below, trying to remove the wedgie that had formed because of the spankies I had to wear today. Fuck Friday's. Fuck football. Fuck being a cheerleader. Fuck everything that caused wedgies.

I was quick to regret staying up until 2 in the morning doing absolutely nothing useful for myself. There was a place and time to listen to Luke cry about his mom yelling at him because he set the toaster on fire and that time was not early Friday morning when I needed to be up in 4 hours for school. After crying about the toaster, Luke began talking about his worries that he was going to mess up at the game later on and have the whole school hate him, if they didn't already.

"So, I just realized that I never showed up for detention this week." Michael announced behind his phone, texting Kay who was only two tables away. It was obvious he was texting her because he'd blush every few seconds and stare at her until she responded to his text messages.

It was the usual lunch setting; cafeteria, sitting opposite Michael and Luke and talking in louder than normal voices to be able to hear one another, except Michael's attention was in and out of conversation with Luke and I.

"Wow, Michael, you're such a rebel!" I slammed my fist on my bag of chips, speaking with a great deal of sarcasm that was to the extreme from running on less than 3 hours of sleep. I didn't think I was even breathing, I might have been paler than Michael at the moment.

"I'm so nervous for tonight," Luke pushed aside his food. "I can't even eat."

"I think you should force yourself to eat something so you canthrow up on Calum again." Michael snorted.

"No one's going to puke on me again," Calum appeared from thin air like he was always did. He was like Luke's mom...always watching. "So fuck you." He snarled, tossing his lunch tray angrily on the table as he sat down next to me. At least Ashton and Calum liked to sit next to me.

"It would be an honor to make it on your fuck list." Michael locked his phone, shoving it in the pocket of his leather jacket, giving Calum a fake smile.

"I don't want to be rude but," Luke cleared his throat. "why are you sitting here?"

"It's funny you ask!" Calum took a bite of his sandwich. "I tried to go sit with the rest of the football team and they laughed in my face and told me 'second string jerks aren't welcome.' So why am I sitting here?" Calum stared at Luke like he was an idiot. "Because this is your fault, Hemmings." Could he have been any more subtle with his jealously?

"Maybe they just realized that you're an asshole." I muttered tapping my fingers against the table.

"I'm not an asshole!" Calum retorted. "I'm the asshole."

"We can't disagree with you there." Michael laughed.

"I might as well get to know you guys, since you're the only losers in this fucked up school that will accept me." Calum began stuffing his face with the nasty cafeteria food.

Without saying a word the three of us stood up, grabbing our belongings.

"Maybe try the chess club." Michael said sarcastically.

-

"How do you think you did on the pop quiz?" Ashton asked as I packed up my belongings, ready to sprint out of world history to get to my next class. Hallway traffic was awful at this point of the day and I hated being late to class because that would direct unwanted attention to me or a possible detention I didn't want to bother explaining to my mother.

"Pretty sure I aced it." I said without acknowledging him and leaving the room.

"Are you going to the party tonight?" The poor, hopeful boy appeared next to me as he always did at this time of the day.