𝙏𝙀𝙈𝙋𝙏𝘼𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉 • 𝙇𝙍𝙃

22. i'm your boss

calum regretted being the only sober one the moment it was time to leave the party. his friends were all incoherently drunk in the worst way possible. how he miraculously managed to squeeze everyone into his car was beyond him. maya had insisted on sitting in the passenger seat for an unknown reason, though luke suspected it had something to do with him — ironically, michael also assumed it had something to do with him.

that left luke and emma in the back while michael and ashton took the middle, ashton was still being petty and didn't want to sit by emma — luke happily took ashton's seat.

the ride back to everyone's apartments was mostly silent, aside from the quiet hum of the radio. due to the alcohol and being next to one of the few people he was comfortable around, luke was drifting off to sleep in no time. emma carelessly rested her head on luke's shoulder and found herself taking his hand in hers and absentmindedly playing with his ring clad fingers.

michael turned around in his seat, and looked at the duo being overly friendly in the backseat. surely luke and maya had broken up, there was no way luke would be sitting with emma in such a profound way with his girlfriend a few seats ahead of him. this made michael feel the smallest bit better about what he and maya had done, though he still regretted it immensely.

calum had also noticed the way luke and emma were sitting and shot michael a confused look. the boy just shrugged his shoulders — he wasn't in a position to say shit right now.

ashton was a little less reluctant to break up whatever the hell was going on in the back, repeatedly tapping emma's leg until she rubbed her eyes and dropped luke's hand.

"we need to talk tomorrow" ashton mouthed to her. she just nodded and scooted away from luke, leaning her head against the window and closing her eyes.

emma vaguely remembered getting out of calum's car and complaining about the long walk to her apartment. she also remembered someone throwing her over their shoulder and carrying her to her room, causing her to shout out "if you don't slow down, i'm going to throw up on you"

she heard someone laugh — it was a boy. "wouldn't be the first time I've seen you puke before, em"

—

maya woke up to a loud knock on her apartment door. she had fallen asleep around six in the morning, which was usually the time she would be waking up. wondering who could be bothering her at such an ungodly hour — even though it was well past noon — she trudged from the couch to the door and was unfortunately not surprised to see michael.

she was drunk enough to where she couldn't make it to her bedroom without falling over —  but not drunk enough to shake the thoughts of her kissing someone who wasn't luke out of her mind.

"oh — hi" maya stammered.

"hey, can we talk?" michael made himself at home in her apartment, grabbing a bag of chips and plopping onto the sofa like he owned the place. "sure" maya joined michael on the sofa, careful to keep a noticeable distance between them.

"uh-"

"so-"

they both spoke at the same time, causing maya's face to turn bright red at how embarrassing this was for her. she had no one to blame but herself — and the copious amount of alcohol she had consumed.

"you first" maya motioned for him to continue speaking and sunk into the sofa, as if making herself smaller would completely erase what she did last night.

"well" michael said, scratching the back of his neck "you kissed me last night — why?"

"why did you kiss me back?" maya retorted.