Forced | cake au ✓

Chapter THIRTEEN

Edited - 7/28/19

Calum

"You're what?!"

I winced, pausing from buttoning up my navy dress shirt. "Michael! Keep your voice down, will you? Other people live in this condo, too."

"Okay, first of all," Michael held up a finger. "All units are soundproof. Plus the ones who live in this building are mostly just old business people who don't really care about us."

"Yeah, but you're ruining the general peace of the place."

"Don't try to change the subject!" I saw Michael's reflection at the mirror scoff.

My front door opened without warning and Ashton waltzed in, wearing a plain black shirt and gray sweatpants. "What's happening, lads?" Ashton greeted, his curly hair tied back into something he usually called a man-bun.

"Calum's getting ready for the movie premiere," Michael said, pushing himself off the wall before facing Ashton. "Oh, and he's still in love with Luke."

"He's still in love with Luke?!" Ashton tripped over the edge of the carpet in the living room the same time he said those words. He caught himself at the last second, preventing himself from face-planting on my floor.

"Michael!" I hissed, turning towards him and glaring. "I am not—"

But Michael wasn't even looking at me, he was still looking at Ashton who was walking closer to where we were. "Yeah, Ash, he told me himself just a few minutes ago."

"Cal, is he serious?" Ashton asked, scanning my face. I opened my mouth, about to deny it, when Michael faced me and raised his eyebrow accusingly.

"Okay, fine!" I huffed. "I maybe, sort of, kind of have a stupid crush on Luke, but I'm not in love with the guy!"

"Since when have you known that you have a crush on Luke?" Ashton used his fingers to make quotation marks while he rolled his eyes.

"Turn down the sass, alright?" I said. "And it just dawned on me last night."

"How'd you know?" Michael asked, uncrossing his arms and looking genuinely curious.

It was quite a horrific revelation while I was laying in bed last night. I spent the whole day in, writing songs, and then as I was listening to some of our old songs, even the ones I specifically wrote about him. All I could think of was Luke, Luke, Luke.

"I just kept thinking about him. And it wasn't just because of what's going to happen today, I really couldn't stop picturing his face in my head and it's the worst thing ever."

"Why?" Michael asked. "Why is it the worst thing ever?"

"Because I shouldn't feel this way," I groaned, walking past both of them and heading towards the living room. "Because all I'm trying to do is fix what I did in the past, not try to ruin things again with my goddamn feelings."

Another thing that kept replaying in my head was our talk in the elevator. The way he was so fucking nice and genuine, it really was like a big smack in the face, almost like somebody screaming, You see what you had lost?! Do you see who you could've had?!