starstruck - lrh

seventy-nine.

 I walk into the bar, a hesitant look on my face as Zac looks a little too happy for my liking.

I hardly want to be around someone who's having a drastically better day than myself. He clearly isn't reading the room as if he really was at the show, I think it was incredibly obvious that I was pretty damn emotional.

"What are we doing here?" I ask Ashton, hoping that he knows better than to set me up in a bad situation.

"Zac, how are you man?" Ashton asks, ignoring me completely as he approaches the booth that Zac sits in. I look to Michael, hoping he knows more than I do but he seems just as oblivious.

Zac stands up in order to greet everyone, "Good, awesome show you guys put on. I didn't realize how good you guys are."

His eyes find mine and he outstretches a hand for me to clap so I do quickly as I take a seat in the booth knowing that there's no way out of here. The thought is almost enough to make me wish I went home with Calum.

"What's all this about?" I ask considering I really would prefer to get to the bottom of this.

"Can I get you guys some drinks?" Zac asks, looking back towards the bar in order to flag down the bartender. "Drinks on me."

"Oh, I would love one," Ashton is quick to say, making me groan as this whole process is taking much longer than it needs to.

"Me too," Michael adds. "Can we get a round of some IPAs?"

"I'm on it," Zac says, getting up from the booth in order to order them.

I shoot the guys a look, annoyed that they had progressed this whole thing. No one has filled me in in the slightest and I want nothing more than to just get up and leave.

"What's going on?" I ask, my eyes mainly on Ashton.

Ashton sits back in the booth, a proud look on his features as he says, "Zac may or may not have a plan."

I furrow my eyebrows together, not knowing what he means by this at all. It's not specific in the slightest and provides me no answers that I am practically begging for at this point.

I open my mouth, preparing to push him further regarding the subject when we hear the door to the bar open up. We all turn our heads, immediately being met with the sight of Calum as he looks around the bar for a moment, his head hung low.

"What's he doing here?" Michael is quick to ask.

"No idea," Ashton says, his tone skeptical.

"Can someone please give me some fucking-"

"So what's the plan?" I hear, as I'm cut off by the sound of Calum Hood who approaches our table.

"Wouldn't that be nice to know," I say, my tone exhausted as my head's starting to hurt at this point.

"What are you doing here?" Ashton asks Calum, his tone skeptical as he clearly isn't a part of his plan.

Calum takes it upon himself to slide into the booth beside Ashton as a look of hesitance is on his features. I don't take my gaze off of him as I am confused as ever by everything that's going on.

"I'm here because I want to help get Haven and Luke back together," Calum sighs.

Everyone's eyes double in size as this is shocking to us regardless of the fall out we had outside the venue. I didn't expect him to come around so quickly but I'm sure it's because he realized he had no choice; unless he wanted to lose everything.

"What?" Michael asks, clearly bewildered.

"You guys are right," Calum says. "I know the person Haven is and I know her character. She needs people like us who actually know her and actually care about her to be on her side. I don't care what that means we have to give up, no one deserves to be put in that position. Especially as we're entering this industry, one day that could be one of us."