I Need You || a.i. (EDITING) [On Hold]

Chapter 21

Just a reminder since you probably won't read the bottom note. 

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before I update again! Sorry, but I want to know that people actually care about this story!

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I was almost speechless. Standing before me was Ashton and his two younger siblings, who I had no idea what to say to. I smiled and walked over to them, putting my hand out. His sister, Lauren, just looked at me weird and didn't shake my hand at all. Harry, however, took my hand and shook it excitedly.

"Are you Ashton's girlfriend?" He asked me, making my cheeks flush.

"No, I'm just a friend. That's all." I glanced over at Ashton, but he didn't seem to be paying attention to my response.

"Friends wear each other's clothes?" Lauren snapped. I didn't know what to say to her. Why didn't she seem like me? We'd never even met before, and I don't think I'd given her a specific reason. Ashton nudged her shoulder, but she just huffed and walked over to the couch to sit with her phone.

I tried to ignore her and turned my attention back to Harry, who was walking over to the bag of things he brought to entertain himself. Things were definitely off to a great start.

I sighed as I ran my fingers through my still-wet hair. Ashton walked over and slid his arm around my waist.

"Well this is going good," he chuckled as he attempted to whisper in my ear.

"They hate me. I told you I was bad with kids! They never like me," I whisper through my teeth.

He rolled his eyes and pulled me along with him into the kitchen. We're we in charge of feeding them too? With my luck, they'd probably get food poisoning and any good impression I'd made on Ashton's mom would be gone in an instant.

"They don't hate you... Well, Lauren might, but it's nothing you did wrong. She really liked Kate for some reason..." He looked up at me with his mention of his...ex-girlfriend? I tried not to show any change of expression.

"I think she wanted to be like Kate, but I'd rather she want to be like you."

I couldn't help but blush and leaned in to peck him on the cheek. I liked this. This playful, flirty, little relationship thing we had going. I don't know if it really was a relationship, but it was better than anything I'd dealt with in the past. Things were calmer. More affectionate.

Ashton ended up ordering a pizza instead of cooking something, which made me glad. Obviously, us trying to cook together didn't seem to work. We joined littler Lauren and Harry back in the living room, but they were both preoccupied with their electronics. I let them be a for awhile as I went to grab my phone from the bedroom. I hadn't talked to my family or Sheila since yesterday morning, and I'm sure somebody wanted to know what was up.

I decided not to call Sheila. The pizza would be here soon and I knew a phone call with her would take a solid two hours- she'd want to know every detail of every minute. Maybe I'd invite her out to lunch or something instead another day. Instead, I dialed Michael's number and sat on the large chair in the corner of Ashton's room.

"Hello? Lauren?" His voice was low and mumbled, yet quick.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Where have you been? None of us have known where you were at!"

What was he talking about? Ashton said he texted them for me earlier and told thm where I was. .

"You didn't see my message?"