Secluded (Ashton Irwin)

Chapter 26

Reagan took out the key to her room and balanced her coffee in her left hand, while she unlocked the door with her right.

"Has anyone told you that you take forever to get ready?" Reagan laughed as she pushed the sunglasses to the top of her head and made her way to the curtains covering the balcony door; she pulled them open revealing the city and then sun.

"It takes time to look this good," Liam said waving his hand over his appearance, trying to remained serious and not let his laugh break through.

"Keep telling yourself that," Reagan laughed as she sat down on her bed, taking a sip of her iced coffee.

"So what's todays plan man?" Reagan asked Liam as he picked up his phone off of his charger.

"I was thinking we could explore time square?" he asked glancing over at Reagan who was nodding with her straw still in her mouth.

It was day 3 of their spontaneous trip to New York.

On Day 1 they were too tired to go anywhere, plus a 3 hour jet lag didn't seem so bad, but when you weren't use to it.. it was pretty annoying.

Yesterday, on day 2, they explored the statue of liberty. Reagan had been there when she was really young but she didn't remember much more than the awful ferry ride over to Ellis island where one of her friends got sick.

Reagan loved being away from home with her brother. She didn't have any worries or anything to stress about, plus she loved traveling and seeing new places.

Reagan felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. She put her coffee on the stand next to the bed and reached in for her pocket. Ashton's name flashed across the screen.

"Alright let's go downstairs so we can get a cab," Liam smiled. Reagan hit ignore and followed him downstairs to the lobby and out to the busy New York street.

Yet again Reagan sent Ashton to voicemail and he let out a sigh as he heard the same message he always heard.

You have reached 310 -23 -Ashton hit the end call button and locked his phone. It was the third day he tried to get in contact with Reagan and nothing. He had tried to go to her apartment twice now, and he couldn't tell if she was out or generally ignoring his desperate knocks.

If the roles were switched, would Ashton act the same way? Would he shut out every chance of Reagan trying to reach out?

Yet again, Ashton and Reagan were two completely different people. Reagan was quick to move on. She was good at being knocked down, and getting back up and starting on a new path. Ashton was perhaps easily... swayed. He knew if the roles were reversed he would give Reagan some time to explain herself and he would probably always go back to her.

Ashton gave people many chances and sometimes that screwed him over. He was too trusting. He always believed in the good of people, but sometimes that wasn't a good thing.

Ashton pulled himself up and made his way out to the kitchen following the smell of breakfast. His mom had today off, which she hadn't had a day off in a while.

"Pancakes, omelets, and bacon. Help yourself," she smiled as she saw Ashton appear.

Ashton grabbed his breakfast and sat down at the table with his family. They hadn't been able to all sit down and eat at once in a while, someone was always busy. But not this time, they all got to actually talk and catch up.

After they all ate, the kids had kitchen duty while Mrs. Irwin did laundry. Ashton washed, Lauren dried, and Harry had to put everything back into the cupboards. Once they were done, Ashton made his way to his room so he could shower and get ready to meet the boys later that afternoon at Michael's.

Ashton hadn't been to Michael's since the Reagan thing went down, but he knew for sure this time she wouldn't be there.

"I don't know why you continue to play Calum, he always beats you," Luke laughed as he and Ashton watched Calum score on Michael in fifa..again.

"Shut up Luke," Michael groaned, hitting the buttons on the controller harder trying to get past Calum's defense.

"We should do this again tomorrow," Calum said easily taking the ball from Michael's player.

"I mean I don't have much else to do," Luke said taking out his phone.

"Can't, i'm going hiking with Caitlyn tomorrow," Ashton said sitting back down on the couch and taking a sip of the water bottle he had in his hand.

"Caitlyn Hartzell?" Michael asked glancing over at Ashton for a quick second to watch him nod, "How is she? It's been a long time since I've heard that name."

"She's doing really well actually. She actually graduated from college this year. She's really happy with her life now," Ashton said checking his phone for any messages.

"That's good to hear. She's come a long way since we all graduated high school," Luke said making Ashton nod again.

Ashton put his phone back in his pocket, "Yeah. She came into my job the other day, so we've been catching up."

"Tell her we all said hi," Calum said before scoring against Michael.. again.

"Fuck dude," Michael groaned as their game ended.

"Who's gonna get beat next?" Calum smirked making Michael roll his eyes and the rest of us laugh.

Later that night as Ashton was about to go to sleep, his mom knocked lightly on his door.

Ashton looked up from his phone, "Come in."

His mom opened his door a little bit, "I put some water bottles in the fridge. Have fun tomorrow okay? I probably won't be awake by the time you leave."

"Thanks mom, I love you," Ashton smiled before telling his mom goodnight and she disappeared into her own room.

Ashton set the alarms on his phone and then reached over to turn off his lamp before falling asleep.

Reagan and Liam were at the restaurant and bar they had in their hotel by the lobby. They had some dinner and now were having dessert while a band was playing music on stage. The two had spent all day at times square and Reagan knew she would be feeling the burn in her legs tomorrow.

The band finished the song they were playing, and Reagan put her glass down to clap. They were pretty good. Then they started to play a song that made her freeze for a second. She recognized this song.. they were covering a Foo Fighters song. A ping hit her in the stomach, she couldn't do this right now.

"Hey Liam," Reagan spoke up, trying to be louder than the music so he could hear her.

"Yeah?" he asked, his eyes flickering from the stage and then to Reagan.

"I'm gonna go upstairs, I'm super tired. Stay down here, i'll see you later," she said getting up and making her way to the lobby where the elevators were.

Reagan shut the door behind her and took off her shoes. She let out a sigh as she got ready for bed. She picked up her phone from the table, and clicked on her recent calls. Her finger hovered over Ashton's name as she bit her lip.

Reagan shook her head, and put her phone down as she turned off the light and pulled the covers up to her chin.