hey rockstar

seventy ; pandemic ruined it all

It feels odd waking up before Tenley, and it's unbelievably hard to get out of bed without waking her or the dogs up. But I manage to breakaway to the kitchen, the sky grey and full of clouds. I settle myself at the kitchen island looking through all my email and texts before a phone call comes in, and I answer it with hope in my heart.

"Good morning, is this Mr. Calum Hood or Ms. Tenley Carmichael?"

"This is he, yes," my fist is clenched on the counter in front of me, and I keep an eye trained on the dark hallway, waiting to see if T will disappear.

"Yes, Mr. Hood you and Ms Carmichael are common law yes?"

"Yes, we are. Can you tell me her results, yes?"

"Yes, I can. And in regards to your COVID-19 tests...."

TENLEY

My eyes are hardly even open before Calum is crawling on me. A smile on his face and a stuoi, and loud laugh left his lips. I stare at him, blurry in the dark while he hands me a bottle of pills.

"Our tests are negative, take this," I squinted at the bottle to see extra strength tylenol and I smiled a little bit.

"Did they call?"

"Yeah, like ten minutes ago. I texted everyone don't worry. And your dad told me what I needed to do so take this. I'm going to go make some tea-"

"Coffee?"

"One cup, one cup of coffee. And then tea, and honey for the rest of the day. And s ahit ton of soup," i sigh, leaning back into my pillow. "You'll be okay, you don't have it!"

"I got that, and you're okay too?" He nods, leaning down to press a sweet kiss against my lips. His smile is wider than I've ever seen as he rolls off the bed.

"Okay, coffee, then something warm to eat. And you can stay all cozy in your bed I've got-"

"Two meetings, and some streaming thing with the boys. I remember."

"You're so smart," without another word he's gone into the dark hallway making noise in the kitchen.

I undo the bottle and take a few of the pills, watching as Duke crawls slowly from Calums end up the bed to rest himself on my chest. I sigh as he snuggles his face into my neck and picks up my phone.

Text messages in our group chats are backed up for almost a full day and Simone has sent me almost 20 tik toks. Duke and I catch up on everything, laughing at the videos, and relaxing into the dark before his dad appears. A small coffee mug in his hand and what looks like a bagel in between his teeth.

"Am I supposed to eat the bagel in your mouth?"

"No," he pulls the bagel out while rolling his eyes at me. "I was coming to ask what you wanted."

"Nothing, I'll eat some of our snacks here. Since we decided to hibernate," he laughs sarcastically, handing over the hot cup.

"Okay well, we hadn't left the room at all yesterday, so it worked out good didn't it?"

"I mean, I guess so. But still,' I looked around at the two tables and shook my head, he'd eaten most of the snacks that we compiled yesterday, and drank basically all of the water. But left all the fruit for me. "You really need to eat more fruit."

"Yeah well, i'm working out now so-"

"You know you still need to eat pretty okay for your workouts to actually work?" He shrugs his shoulders, kissing me softly before leaving again. Headed to the spare bedroom where his desktop is set up, so Duke and I turn on a show. Watching as Butterscotch leaves with Calum, ignoring the two of us completely.

"Weird little dog isn't she?" He chuffs at me, before falling asleep.

CALUM

My door is left open so I can just see T and Duke napping in the dark. Some disney movie turned on the little tv in there. And Luke laughs at me, staring off into the distance on our stream.

"You alright mate?"

"Yea, just watching Tenley." Ash nods, typing something, before speaking out to the streaming audience.

"Yeah you guys don't know I guess. Cal and Tenley had a bit of a scare the other day. They had to get tested for COVId," I watched as comments and people freak out. "They're okay though! Should've led with that but shouldn't I?"

"Yeah you fucking idiot," Michake laughs, fucking with something on his end. "She's got a lung infection or something, easily treated for our little asthmatic."

"You be nice to her," I threaten and he nods.

"Yeah, actually a few weeks ago before shut down they dropped off the best little car package."

"Oi, we got one too!" Luke smiles and I can hear Sierra mumble something but not loud enough to understand. "Had masks, gloves, bleach, and then like the best cookies and brownies-"

"Mine had hot chocolate!"

"Yeah, mine too, i fucking love that shit. I should go shopping with you guys."

"Uh, please don't," I laugh to myself, and I can hear through one ear that T laughed from her room. "Are you watching our stream?"

"Maybe," she shouts back, heading lifting just above Duke to smile at me. Quickly I take a photo, and send it to the group chat. ON my screen the boys are laughing and I can even hear CRystal laugh from the other room at Mikes.

"He just sent us the best picture of her, hold on," Mike stops and I get a tweet notification. "I tweeted it. Look at her, that's hilarious."

"She's so cute, where's butterscotch? That's Duke right?" Ashton's eyebrows shoot up, he loves that little weiner so much. I wish he would just get a dog or something.

But in my lap, Butters lifts her head up, just visible in the monitor, and everyone on the stream loves it. Screenshots are taken and Ash gushes over her, making the rest of us laugh.

"Wow, he's really excited about a weiner, isn't he?"

The whole stream bursts into laughter at the comment, and Michael falls off the chair he was sitting on. His laughter loud and nearing obnoxious while Ash grumps about it.

"Whoever that was, I love you for that."

"Clever little bastards aren't you?" I mumble, listening to the laughter of my friends and Tenley. All of us in our own homes but still somewhat connected.

I sit on the stream watching mostly the other three boys interact with each other, and fans comment. I count the screen shots and sigh. I miss being with everyone, being on stage and feeling that connection. And I know everyone misses, we count the upcoming tour dates and talk about our plan for each city for each show to make it special.

The pandemic ruined plan, for everybody. Not just our tour and our travels, but concerts, and things people were looking forward to. For all we know SImone and Jeremy's wedding could be cancelled, we could miss meeting the baby. Maybe Mike and Crys can't get married, everything is so up in the air, so tense. And I hate it.

"Cal, man what are you doing over there?"

"You look zooted," Tenley comments on the stream, and I watch as the number of likes climb. I can hear her giggling to herself and I watch as the boy stares at me.

"Day dreaming I guess."

"Me too, are you guys ridiculously tired too?"

"Oh yeah, for no reason. Like the one and only time we all get a good amount of sleep and I fricken can't sleep," Ash whines, leaning back into his chair.

"Maybe we should do late night streaming?"

"Yes, absolutely," I nod, and roll my eyes.

"But like, we need to sleep and then wake up at a random time and do it so we're even more fucked."

"No, stop it!" Tenley shouts, and I can see the shadow of her sitting up in bed. I laugh at her, blowing her a kiss.

"Aw, how cute."