The Bass Player » [cashton] √

3.4

[11th of January - Orlando]

They were back on tour again. Calum was stuck to Michael's side almost all the time, and Ashton was generally somewhere with Luke. Which was a good thing... objectively. Unobjectively it meant that a lot of Calum's time was spent wondering where Ashton was or what he was up to, if he and Luke were having fun and if they'd get a chance to see them before soundcheck.

The four of them had, had the brilliant idea that Ashton and Calum should be seen together less, they were both single and openly interested in men, fans would draw conclusions, and there was the fact that Ashton was positively incapable of keeping his hands to himself. Not to mention Rockknot, who always seemed to be around. Calum swore that Angel & Trinkets had not spent this much time with Tempted Timeless. He was at a complete loss for how they'd managed so much alone time together before.

He was staring off into the distance, thinking about all of this, silently grateful none of the members of Rockknot had approached him to chat when Michael's voice called out to him, "What are you doing over there?" he whipped his head around and saw the older man approaching him with a bag of McDonald's in hand.

"Just chilling," He told him, thinking that had they been alone he might have admitted that he's purposefully sat in view of everyone else, so they'd have no reason to think he was off somewhere with Ashton. Not that he really thought there was some underlying conspiracy around him and Ashton, but he was paranoid the girls were going to find out.

Michael joined him on the floor, "I got extra fries for you," he said happily taking them out of the bag and offering them to Calum.

He took them and smiled in appreciation, "Seen Lu and Ash?" Calum asked as casually as he could manage.

He hummed in response as he unwrapped his cheeseburger, "They're in some video meeting with someone from the label," he took a big bite of the burger and chewed a few times before continuing with his mouth full, "told them it wasn't fair if you were the only one who wasn't in the loop, so they let me leave," he grinned stupidly at Calum, clearly proud of the idea.

"Oh? What's the meeting about?"

"Stuff on Twitter is getting pretty hairy, it's spreading from our fans to other parts of Twitter, including radical feminist Twitter, who already hate us for the guitar we auctioned off for that Trans charity." He rolled his eyes, "Anyway," he continued, "they're trying to figure out what we can do so it doesn't keep spreading, cause like who gives a fuck about them right? But like we don't want like actual feminists to think what they're saying is true," He sighed, scrunching up the now empty burger wrapping and diving a hand into the bag to pull out chicken nuggets.

Calum took a few fries into his mouth, trying to think about what they could feasibly do. Nothing came to mind, and he fought the urge to sigh along with Michael. Instead, nodding his head and humming in agreement.

Michael continued, "went out front earlier and doesn't seem like are a lot of people out there yet, shows supposed to be sold out. Told Lu and he's going to bring it up while they're in there,"

"Fuck," Calum didn't know a lot about this industry yet, but he knew that if Michael had noticed a dip in pre-show attendance, something was up. The boys had been playing these size shows for years, and there was obviously a 'normal' amount of early arrivals they saw.

"Yeah, I know, they'll work something out though. We haven't even started on the PR stuff they initially had planned; we just need the tour to finish up so we can actually get to it, you know? Most of its ads and like online engagement and that, which is hard to do on tour, but it'll be fine once we actually start it." He reassured, and again Calum found himself without much to say.