|| 5 Seconds Of Torn ||

20

Silence can indeed be deafening. The silence that fell over the Hood’s kitchen proved that for sure. Calum and I stood side by side waiting for someone to say something but I think the others were waiting for the same thing. They are all so stubborn I guess I’ll have to be the first to say something.

“What is the emergency band meeting for?” I looked to Luke then to Michael and finally to Ashton who still had his strong arms crossed across his chest. His biceps were so hot…and now was not the time to think about Ashton’s muscular arms, the boys were mad.

“Oh like the two of you don’t know.” Luke scoffed. I looked up to Calum who just rolled his eyes at his bandmates.

“Jesus guys, seriously? Ugh damn my mum for letting you bastards in.” Calum was now shrugging off his coat and hanging it up on the hooks on the wall.

“Did you guys fuck?” Michael’s voice was so casual. My eyes grew wide and I wanted to look anywhere but the four other people in the room.

“No Michael we didn’t as if it’s any of your business anyway.” Hello I'm still in the room here guys. This conversation just got extremely awkward really fast.

“Are you guys dating?” this time it was Luke asking the question.

“So what if we are.” Shit Calum don’t lie to them.

“So you are? What the hell Calum you couldn’t tell us?” Ashton looked more hurt than angry.

“Yeah you dick!” Luke stood up from his seat now, fixing the hair under his beanie, his expression matched Ashton’s.

“We aren’t dating okay? I'm not dating Calum or Ashton or Luke or Michael! We are all just really good friends damn it!” I shouted at the four boys. Their heads all snapped in my direction, eyes wide. “I’m sorry I yelled okay, the last thing I want to do is wake up Cal’s parents but you guys are seriously pissing me off right now.”

They all muttered ‘sorry’ and I took that as a signal to continue. I needed to address the elephant in the room and quickly before it became a whole damn herd of elephants.

“Look guys, I said I wanted to get to know you all a little better this summer and that’s what I want. But I want to get to know you guys as just friends. I'm not trying to be a bitch and friend zone all of you at once, but I refuse to have you guys fighting over me.” it was hard for me to believe that it was even possible for them to like me enough to fight over me anyway but whatever.

“The lads and I were talking earlier and we think that it would be best if we all got the chance to know you. Like we all get equal time with you and try not to push our feelings on you.” Ashton reasoned with a very valid point.

“I agree with that. I enjoy being around all four of you as a group and individually so I think that is a good plan. Cal I had an amazing time tonight, and I would love to do it again just in a little more friendly way.” Calum smiled at me, defeated but understanding because we had already discussed this.

“We want you to stay with us all for a week at a time, and for that week you spend time with the lad you are staying with? Make sense?” Michael eyes scanned around the room to see if everyone was following.

“I'm not some sort of pawn though; I want to be thought of as a friend not a prize to be won. Got it?” all the boys nodded at me. “So this will start after tour with the month and a half we have left. Luke I won’t forget about our bucket list.”

“Actually about that, I told the guys and we agreed to make it a band bucket list if that’s okay?” Luke looked at me like I would explode but actually that idea excited me even more.