Wildflower | A. IRWIN

Part Three

     It was noon by the time Ashton got home. He went into his kitchen and immediately looked for some kind of food to make up for his lack of dinner and breakfast. Leftovers would do for now.

He took his keys and phone out of his pocket and set it on the counter. He plugged his dead phone into the charger and waited for it to come back to life.

As he chewed on his cold pizza, there was a knock at his door and a few rings of doorbell followed after. He walked over and looked through the peep hole to see his friend, Luke. He opened the door to see his worried friend in full view. "'ello," Ashton said, taking another bite of his food.

Luke took a deep breath. "Oh thank god you're not dead," he sighed relieved. "Calum said you weren't picking up your phone so then I tried to call you but you weren't picking up for me either so Michael just said 'fuck it, he's dead'. But obviously you're not dead cause your standing right here and..." Luke took another breath, looking Ashton up and down, "you look like shit."

"Well you don't look like a Miss America yourself," Ashton counters, knowing that he probably, indeed, looks like shit. He hasn't changed his clothes since yesterday and a night sleep spent in a car wasn't the most relaxing. "And I'm good now, I had no service for a while and my phone was dead. Not much I could do there."

"Right," Luke said. "So are we gonna talk about why you're still dressed like you were for the meeting yesterday or are we just going to ignore that?"

Ashton shrugged, "I just got home and I was gonna freshen up after I finished eating." He opened the door wider and gestured for him to come in. "But now you're here."

"I can go if you want—"

"No, you can stay. I'm just gonna go take a quick shower and I'll be out." Ashton said, finishing his pizza in one last bite. He closed the door and let Luke in to make himself comfortable while he left to go to his room.

***

     "Hey, Ash," Luke yelled from the other room as Ashton put a clean shirt on, "who's Iris?"

Ashton froze for a moment. Does he want to tell Luke about his whole night spent sleeping in a car and some random girl helping him out early in the morning? Not really. He walked out and saw Luke leaning over the counter peaking at his friends phone that was now well alive.

"You have a lot of missed calls by the way," Luke informed him. "On the brightside, people care about you."

Ashton grabbed his phone and scrolled through the hundreds of missed calls just from Calum and the few from Michael and Luke. He then stopped at a text from an unknown number.

"Are you free any night for dinner?" Luke said, repeating the text on Ashtons screen. "She wants to cash in a favor? Ashton, I didn't know you were seeing someone."

"I'm not." Ashton turned his phone screen down on the counter. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "This girl helped me this morning and I owe her favor. Nothing more."

Luke smirked at his friend. "Alright, sure. We don't have another meeting with management till next weekend so you should tell her that you're free every night this week."

"Any night except tonight," Ashton yawned, "I'm never going to take my bed for granted again."

"Right," Luke chuckled, "well I should head out. And you should call Calum to tell him you're fine, don't want him worrying more than he has already."

"Alright, I'll do that soon. See ya, mate."

"Take care!" Luke waved goodbye as he headed out the door. "Oh and goodluck with that girl!" Ashton rolled his eyes and closed the door.