Matters of the Heart

Chapter 0.14

|| Madison ||

I haven't seen Calum since Sunday night and that's because I pulled a classic Madison Wakens act and decided to avoid him. Regardless of the fact that we go to the same school and that he's my friend's boyfriend's best friend, it's actually been pretty easy. Whenever I see him on campus I just scoot the other way.

When Friday afternoon had come around, I found myself at work all alone because today was Alison's day off, Dylan was away with Kyle for their anniversary and Sarah had to rush off shortly after our shift started because she got word that her dad had an accident -a fall of some sorts- and I told her to rather go be with her family instead of here. The shop is pretty quiet today anyways because its absolutely disgusting outside with mad amounts of rain and wind so nobody really wants to leave the comfort of their homes anyways.

While the song Paris In The Rain played through the speakers connected to my phone via the aux cable, I sat behind the counter engrossed in a new book that I had just bought.

But I could barely focus on the book because of the album that was playing.

Ever since dinner with Calum, I haven't been able to listen to Lauv's first full-length project because it reminds me of Calum and the time we spent together which makes me smile like a dork.

While I was trying to focus on the words on the page I was reading, my mind kept flashing images of Calum and his fucking adorable smile which made it totally hard to focus.

When I heard the door open, I looked up to see Kayli enter the shop.

"God, it's so fucking gross out there," She huffed as she shook her umbrella out and then closed it. When she zeroed in on me, she frowned. "Madison Wakens, you are in so much trouble, young lady."

I blinked. "I am?"

"You are," She said as she came nearer, shedding her raincoat as she did so.

"Why?" I questioned as I went around the counter to her and then took her raincoat and hung it on one of the hooks by the window for her.

She thanked me and then said, "because five days after you and Calum had dinner together and almost kissed, I'm only just finding out about it! The almost kissing thing, I mean. I already knew you were there for dinner."

"Wait, who told you that?" I asked with a confused frown.

"Well Kane and I were just at home gonna have a chill day with the weather being disgusting and all and then Cal showed up and he was mad sulky so of course he was gonna tell Kane why because those two don't hide anything from each other -total mortification for me since Calum probably knows all the details of mine and Kane's sex life because, God, they really do tell each other everything." She stopped and rolled her eyes before continuing. "Anyways, so Cal's all super sulky and then he proceeds to tell me and Kane that he thinks you're avoiding him -"

I am.

"-and so obvs we wanna know why and then he tells us you guys had dinner on Sunday night, like we didn't know, and apparently it was really nice and all and then you guys were reading -totally a couples thing to do by the way- and apparently he was gonna kiss you but then you backed away and now he's beating himself up because he thinks you're avoiding him because he made you feel uncomfortable or whatever which is totally not what he meant to do."

I gasped. "What? No! He didn't do that at all! What, oh my gosh, no!"

Great, now I've got Calum feeling bad about something he didn't even do!