The Chase ▹ Ashton Irwin

CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT

"Am I making you blush, Ashton Irwin?" I joked.

"Of course not!" He laughed. I gave him a little push, and he stopped dead in his tracks. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusement, while he just stared at me.

"That tickled." he said in a serious tone. But, knowing Ashton, I knew he was still fooling around.

"Let this be another lesson to you," I played along, conjoining our fingers together again. I looked over to the tree and saw the rest of our group, and they were all staring at us. "Don't pick a fight with me, because I will tickle you."

"That was really cute." Natalie said as we approached all of them. I just rolled my eyes and laughed, trying to hide the blush that was probably now on my face. Luke was here as well, which made me smile. I'm glad he's no longer hanging out with his old group of friends; he doesn't deserve to. We continued to talk to one another for a couple more minutes, until the bell rang. Excitement bubbled up inside of me, because first period was art: my favorite class of the day. For obvious reasons, of course.

...

"Okay class," Ms. Hullen said when there was about 10 minutes left of class. "It's time for yet another at-home assignment, which is going to count as your final."

There was a chorus of about 20 different groans throughout the room, except Ashton and I. It wouldn't surprise me if we were the only 2 people taking this class because we actually like the subject; not to just fool around and take an easy course. Ms. Hullen ignored the negative interactions, and kept talking.

"You can work by your self or with a partner, if you want-"

My eyes shot over to Ashton, to see him already looking at me. We seemed to raise our eyebrows expectantly at each other at the same time.

"-And what you're going to create is anything you'd like, actually. It has to incoorporate one of the things that we have covered this semester."

She walked over to the whiteboard at the front of the room, and I watched as she bulletted all the things that we've spent time on in the last couple of months. "Lines, shape, shading, texture, blending, color, abstract, and definition." She said as she wrote them out.

Wow. There have been so many things in this class that we've learned, yet it felt like just last week I was stepping into this class for the first time. It was amazing to think about, actually. So much has changed about me and my surroundings since then, and its weird to think that it's been so much longer than what it felt like.

I guess time flies when you find yourself falling for someone.

*Ashton's POV*

"I'm checking our stats right now." Michael said, turning his chair back to his desk computer. School had ended about an hour ago, and Brooke and I decided to push our tutoring session to wednesday because she had a shit ton of homework to do. It saddened me a little, because I really wanted to spend time with her (even though I do that almost everyday), but now our band can post another cover!

"What if it has 10,000 views?" Luke laughed, strumming Michael's electric guitar. It was unplugged, but it still made a pretty sound.

"Well, it's kinda close..." Michael said, his eyes glued to the screen. I sat up from where I was laying down on the floor, a sudden burst of hope in my chest. "Really?" I asked.

"We're up to 50." He replied. I turned to Calum, who was sitting across from me.

"Yes." I said sarcastically. Calum and I highfived, and we all laughed.

"How many times did we each watch it?" Micheal joked.

"Like, 45." Luke replied. His serious tone made us all look over him, confused. A small smile crept on his face. "Nah man I'm just kidding I watched it like twice."