A Certain Romance || Ashton Irwin

Patience

I stared at the moonlit ceiling, counting how many bumps were marked in the atrocious popcorn painting job above. The sounds of Ashton bumping his limbs in the bathtub in the en suite bathroom - that was clearly made for no one bigger than a thirteen-year-old - kept disturbing my stocktaking. The clock on my normal phone, the phone that didn't lead to misfortune, told me it was only one in the morning. No matter how many times I checked my phone that would not make time pass any quicker for me. I felt my stomach growl, meaning the dinner at Sammy's house wasn't enough and I needed to get up a raid Ashton's fridge.

An amount of ten times, I typed a text to Luke (the only person to be awake right now besides Sammy), but every time I'd linger over the send button far too long then erase the entire message after talking myself out of texting him. There was some greater force controlling him, even Michael maybe, and that force had them convinced that I no longer existed in their lives. Perhaps I really did not exist in the universes of Luke and Michael anymore and whatever was responsible for this was only preparing me for the way things will ultimately end up. Or our friendship had run its course and I was the only one who couldn't see that.

The sound of the heater rumbling on, vibrated through my ears and also startled me. Every time it would turn on it sounded like a third party was in the house giving the system a literal kick start for encouragement. I, myself, lied in Ashton's bed sweating and it was not for the reasons people would first think. I didn't understand the point of having the heater on because it was simply chilly outside, nothing that would cause hypothermia. My throat was getting dry because of the heater, but I was suddenly too shy to ask for a glass of water.

"Can't sleep?" Ashton walked into the bedroom shirtless, only sporting a pair of sweatpants.

I rubbed my eyes when he looked to my direction, forcing a yawn to escape my mouth to pretend I was really sleeping and of course not checking him out. "You just woke me up actually...by walking in here." I stretched my arms above my head, propping up my head a bit with my hand once I had concluded my stretching.

Ashton shook his head while opening and a slamming a few drawers to his dresser that was straight across from the foot of the bed.

"Well, excuse my fat ass for taking heavy steps." He retorted with sass that only came around when he was exhausted and hadn't slept and it was excusable, considering he decided to sleep in his bathtub.

"Why are you awake?" I sat up in the bed and the swift movement causing a rush of cool air to brush across my legs as I only wore an oversized t-shirt and the heater was finally off. Goosebumps formed along my ankles and shot up to my thighs in a gradient flow and to me that only meant I was going to have to spend thirty minutes too long in the bathroom shaving my legs because of the split second of coolness my legs were exposed to. That was all it took.

"The bathtub isn't the greatest idea when you're six feet." He continued looking through the drawers for whatever unknown thing he was looking for.

"What are you looking for?"

"This pocket knife..." He trailed off. "Ummm....Something my dad left me before he left Mum and I when I was boy."

"What? Are you going to murder me in your bed?" I chuckled, bringing a pillow to my lap and hugging it. "I mean, if you're going to murder me at least let me put pants on."

"Why aren't yo-" He turned around with his eyebrows knitted together, then he walked over to his desk and began looking over there. "Never mind."

"Can I help you look?" I stood to the floor, feeling the cold fabric of my shirt brush against my thighs.

He mumbled a, "Sure."

And I began sifted through the papers and other random belongings he had on his desk.