The Jerks Next Door || Ashton Irwin [5 Seconds Of Summer]

Chapter 19 | Heartbreak Girl

Ashley POV

I arrived back at home in good spirits, until I opened the door and saw Jodie sitting on the couch with a helpless look on her face. I walked into the living room and sat down. My plopping down next to her broke her out of her reverie and she looked up at me sullenly.

"What's wrong?" I asked cautiously.

She just shook her head solemnly.

"Well, what's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"You don't need to get mad, Ashley," she spoke finally.

"Then tell me what's wrong!"

She was about to answer when, to my surprise, Jake came out of the kitchen, also looking sad but somewhat satisfied. I looked down at what he was holding in his hands and saw that he held a huge stash of chocolate bars.

"Can someone tell me what's going on here and where all that chocolate came from?" I questioned exasperatedly.

Jake quickly shushed me. "She's sleeping, Ashley," he whispered quickly, pointing upstairs to where Al probably was.

"So then what's going on, what are you doing here, Jake, and why did you feel the need to steal all of this chocolate that I didn't even know we had?" I furiously whispered; my uplifted mood had completely vanished by now.

"Okay, " Jodie began, "so after you left, I tried to make Al feel better and distract her from...you know -" she referred to Calum "- but nothing I did made any difference. Throughout all the time while you were gone, I tried everything - making hot chocolate, baking my own home-made recipe for brownies, or maybe just making s'mores or something - but I could never find any chocolate. I usually wouldn't have thought that this was suspicious, but I thought there was no harm in asking; I mean, maybe I was looking in the wrong places, right? So when I asked Al, she suddenly turned all secretive, and I knew something was up. So then -"

"- she called me," Jake finished proudly. "And I came straightaway, because you know how I can always find a person's hiding place." I rolled my eyes; Jake had told me countless stories of how he would always win at hide-and-seek when he was a child, and how he could always tell when someone was hiding something. "So I asked my sister to drop me off, since she already had to meet her boyfriend and your place was on the way," he continued, "and when I arrived, Jodie briefed me and told me that Al was upstairs sleeping. So then -"

"- he told me that he thought that it would be the perfect time to see what Al was hiding so he searched everywhere - and I mean everywhere," Jodie stressed. "He even searched Al's room, since she's sleeping in your room." She paused, waiting for me to explode because Al was in my room, but when she got no reaction out of me, she continued. "And then he started searching the kitchen, and he said he found somthing. So he came out of the kitchen with the chocolate -"

"- and you were here!" Jake looked positively ecstatic that I was here in time to see the brilliance of their scheme. "So whatd'ya think?" he asked eagerly.

"Wait, so you're saying that you invited him here -" I pointed to Jake accusingly "- without telling me, had him search my whole apartment, without telling me, and then scoured through Al's personal stuff, without telling either of us?"

They looked shocked, not thinking of it like that. Jake got up quickly, all traces of pride gone from his face, and cleared his throat. "Well, you know, I have to be going - very busy -"

"Sit down, Jake," I interrupted.

He sat down with an apologetic look on his face. "I'm guessing you're mad, then?"