Let's be Cliché || Lashton

Moments Like These

The door opened and in walked a broad man in a suit, he was really surprised to find five teenage boys all sitting in the living room. He didn't even realize anyone was home until he flicked on the light and spotted them on their phones, the room was absolutely silent.

"Yo," Luke greeted, not even bothering to check if it was his mum or dad walking in.

"Wow you have more friends than I thought you did." His father noted, not listening to Luke's halfhearted greeting. He was more surprised to see that Luke had more than two friends.

"Hey, Mr. Hemmings! How've you been?" Michael greeted, getting up to preform a secret handshake with the older man.

"It's been a while, NPV. I'm pretty great." The man replied with a smile, straightening his tie before turning back to Luke.

There was a quiet what the fuck man? directed at Michael as soon as the pale boy was sitting again, once Calum realized that they didn't have their own secret handshake but his boyfriend had one with Luke's Dad, who he'd probably only met three times maxium.

"What does NPV stand for?" Charlie whispered to Ashton so he wouldn't interupt the tension between Luke and his father.

"Neo Punk Vampire," Ashton murmured casually, like he was used to calling one of his best friends a blood sucking monster on a daily basis.

"Luke Robert," his dad said, looking sternly at his son.

"Yeah?"

"Your mother called me today." Mr. Hemmings trailed off, hoping that Luke would know what he was about to lecture him on.

"Yeah?"

"She told me you skipped school today."

"And?"

"You skipped school and she saw you running downtown without any clothes." Mr. Hemmings deadpanned, cutting right to the chase so Luke would hopefully start paying attention.

"Mum was downtown? Did she restock on Lucky Charms?" Luke asked, easily more interested with what was going on with his phone.

"Luke--that's not the point. Your mother saw you naked, in public."

"Whatever dad." Luke muttered, sratching his nose.

His father scoffed, "You wanna act like that? She told me you didn't grow everywhere when you made it to your teens."

"Dad!" Luke screeched, dropping his phone, spluttering and shoving his dad out of the living room all at once.

"You and your friends need to leave." Mr. Hemmings said as soon as they were out of earshot.

"Wow dad, real polite. Just kick me onto the cr-"

"You're such mouthpiece, you know that? It's your mother and I's anniversary and as a nice surprise for her I want you out of the house for the rest of the day, now will you leave?" His father explained tiredly, checking his wristwatch to see the time.

Luke scoffed once and then a second time while backing up towards the cabinets, he continued to scoff as he pulled the the box of chocolate Lucky Charms out. He hugged it while scooting around his father, scoffing even more until he was in the doorway to the living room, "I was leaving anyway. I'm totally not leaving now because you told me too. I have plans."

Ashton raised his eyebrows at his tall friend, he certainly didn't act like he was in high school.

"Dad," Luke said, leaping into the kitchen and nearly smacking his head against the man he was talking to. "Can I borrow the car?"

"I don't have a problem with it as long as NPV is driving, I trust him." Mr. Hemmings peered into the living room long enough to toss his keys to Michael.

"Thanks Mr. Hemmings! I won't let you down!" Michael called, successfully not dropping the keys on the ground.

Luke flopped back down on the couch, "Where do you guys want to go?"

"There's a party on my block?" Calum suggested, but his expression revealed that he didn't really feel up for it.

"Nah, I just want to be lazy." Michael replied.

"We could go to that pool?" Ashton suggested, lowering his voice so Luke's Dad wouldn't hear him. The curly haired boy looked at Luke for confirmation, considering he was the one that had the keys and Ashton wasn't actually going to admit that he was the one suggesting they should trespass.

"I've got floaties at my house?" Charlie added, sitting up slightly because he was paying more attention.

"Settled." Calum agreed, removing himself from the couch where he began putting his pants and shirt back on.

♢ ♢ ♢

"Holy fuck," Michael whispered, even though he was trying to be quiet his words echoed in the mostly empty room. Ashton turned his head to the side so he was looking at the boy. Michael was more interested in the blinding ceiling lights though.

"We've got exams next week." Michael stated, absolutely blown away by how close they were to summer break.

"Gross Mikey, don't talk about it." Calum spoke up, scrunching his nose at the mention of standardized testing.

It went quiet after that, there was nothing but the scent of chlorine and the sound of rippling water. Ashton wasn't sure how long they'd been here, just floating around without a destination. Charlie had four floaties, and each one had a string on either side so you could secure yourself to someone's floatie. They had to drop buy a dollar store to get Luke one, since he insisted he didn't mind not being connected with everyone else.

Now that they were in the pool though, Ashton was pretty sure Luke chose to be left out because it gave him an excuse to hold Ashton's hand so he wouldn't float away from the others.

"Ashton graduates soon." Luke mumbled, barely loud enough to be heard in normal circumstances but his voice was amplified by the vast openness. He subconsciously pulled himself closer to Ashton, until they were practically in the same floatie that was barely managing to stay above water.

"Well fuck." Calum said, realizing that was true. "That means my kitten is graduating too."

"We're so old." Michael grumbled, sensing a headache in his near future.

Ashton laughed at that, nearly tipping his floatie over in the process. "What the fuck are we doing with our lives?"

"That's a good question, what do you want to be when you're done school?" Charlie asked to no one in particular, it sounded like such a stupid question since almost half of them were on their way out the door already. It was like sitting on the edge of a cliff and asking someone if they wanted to die.

Ashton thought about it, he had a few ideas but with there wasn't anything solid he was going for, "I don't know . . . I'll be a camera operator for a living?"

"I'm going to be a superhero." Michael said next, sounding entirely serious even though everyone ended up chuckling at him. He refused to change his answer too, but admitted that he wasn't a fan of spandex.

"I could play football for the rest of my life." Calum muttered, sounding unsure of what he wanted to do.

"I'll probably be a lawyer." Charlie said at last, causing the other boys to holler loudly in excitement. They were pleased to hear that Charlie was actually going somewhere, making a name for himself in the future. Sure, none of them would have sought out such a boring, white collar job but they respected that Charlie was willing to help people in a way that was unpopular in their opinion.

"You'll be great," Luke said to reassure the boy, who was embarrassed by their uproar at the mention of his possible career.

The silence fell again, but it was a lot heavier this time, everyone had questions on their minds. Would they hang out after every exam? Or would it be limited to the weekends and the first week of the summer holiday? What was the cafeteria serving tomorrow? Would they even have time to sit around and just talk?

How many of these moments did they actually have left?