Tangled Strings (sequel to Red Strings)

Chapter 18

"He still loves her?" Luke nods.  "Big time, didn't you hear Amnesia?" "Damn." "Yeah." I sigh finding myself staring at Luke's quiff. Suddenly a pillow hits my face.

"Ow!" I yell trying to grab it out of his hand Luke laughs "You said entertain you!" I glare at him grabbing the one from under his head and hitting him with it. Luke hits me back again.  "This means war!" I declare sitting up.  "What happened to a nap?" Luke ask in between giggles "Maybe later" I shrug hitting him again.  

Natalie's POV

"So what should we get?" I asked flicking my hair to the side, as I look at the supermarket, as we're standing in the produce section.  "Um....." Michael is biting his lip and Ashton and Calum look at each other.  

"Do you guys understand how to go grocery shopping?" I ask raising my eyebrow, and I grab a shopping cart, and I walk into the first section- the produce section.  I grab a handful of apples and turn to the boys and say "Well are you guys going to pick anything you'd like or am I gonna have to feed you all the stuff I chose?"  

The boys shuffled a little before I looked and said "I can see that there's some broccoli, oh and asparagus...." "Let's get um oranges!" Calum suddenly says as he grabs a handful of oranges and puts them in one of the plastic baggies and chucked it into the cart.  "BANANAS!" Ashton yells and he grabs some and puts them into the cart as well.

"Alright then." I say as we continue through the journey in the supermarket, which includes a lot of running around and throwing things around.  By the end, I'm exhausted after just an hour with them.  "Am I gonna be this tired all the time with you guys?" I ask, as I lean against the cart and take it to the checkout aisle.

"No!" they all chirp at the same time and I look into the cart, which is filled to the brim with food.  "You guys are officially crazy." I state as I begin to unload the cart, and the cashier smiles and says "Hello." "Hi!" I reply, and the boys take this as their cue and begin to help unload the cart as well.

"I can see that you've got your own helpers?" the cashier says smiling at the boys.  "Well they agreed to come, so they have to agree to help." I joke and finally when everything had gotten checked out.  "Alright so are you going to be paying in cash or with credit?" she asked scanning the last item.  My mouth nearly drops in shock.  The total is at $89.55.  

"Um....I think I have that cash with me and if not...." I look into my purse, and dig around for my wallet before suddenly Calum steps in and says "Credit."  I look up at him and say "Calum you don't have to pay for it...."  He looks at me and replied "Well we are all in a band, and since you're gonna be living with us, we might as well pitch in on the food." 

He immediately swipes his credit card and looking back up at me says "You have enough to stress about already.  Don't stress about paying for the food."  I blush a little and we get everything back into the car, and we drive back, and me and the boys get the bags and are able to make one trip back to the house.

"We're back!" I called and Skyler and Luke came down, faces flushed.  "I hoped you two used protection." Michael said pointing between the two of them.  They both blushed and Luke said "We actually had a pillow fight." "Oh using toys now too?" Michael said winking.  "Oi, don't make fun of em now, that's what the rest of the time we're here is for!" I said 

Luke groaned and I then said "I was thinking of whipping something up.  Do you wanna help me at all, or I can just leave you two back to whatever you guys were doing previously." 

Skyler rolls her eyes and replies "I'll help you out."  I smile at her and say "Perfect!  We're gonna try and cook my mom's special pasta." "THAT PASTA!" Skyler gasps and I say "She gave me the recipe over the phone, so I figured I should make it while I was away." "Wait what's the 'special' pasta?" Ashton asks before Skyler whips around and says "ONLY THE MOST AMAZING PASTA IN THE WORLD!!"

The boys nod in approval and Calum then says "Well we'll leave you two to the pasta making, me and Ashton were gonna be upstairs sorting out the drum beats for Good Girls." "I'm going to sleep." Michael shrugged and Luke stood there awkwardly.  "Luke do you wanna help us?" I ask as I get out some of the ingredients from the grocery bag.

"Sure!" he says as he pulls out a pot for the pasta and begins to boil water.  "So which pasta do we need?" he asked as he pulls out a couple different bags, and Skyler says "The penne works right?" "Yup that's the one." I say as she throws it over and I catch it perfectly.  

"You two are like some cooking team." Luke points out as Skyler pulls out some shrimp and condensed milk.  "Yeah well, being best friends with her for 15 years, we cook together a LOT." Skyler says as she slides the other parts of our dish to me.  

"And she still hasn't poisoned you?" Luke asks me and I shrug and say "Everytime she cooked me Kraft Dinner she didn't.  She's made me chilli too, and that actually turned out well.  Plus she took the Cooking course at Norwest, so I think she hasn't done too bad.  In short: she definitely did NOT poison me."

Skyler hits me and says "Focus on the pasta!  Don't burn it!" I roll my eyes as I stir the pot a little.  I can hear that Calum and Ashton are drumming away upstairs as we're cooking down here.  "So um....Natalie I had a question for you." Luke stated as I walked over to Luke, as I began to cut a bit of crab meat.  

"Alright what is it?" I asked, continuing to cut the meat.  "Are you and Calum.....ever thinking of.....well....maybe getting back together?" Luke asks hesitantly.  I look up for a moment.  I bite my lip and sighed, putting down the knife.  

"Listen we broke up.  And I really don't think we'd get back together." I stated licking my lips a little.  "Natalie you know Amnesia was about you right?" "Yeah.  I did.  And after that, I had gone outside and me and Calum had a huge fight.  That's all we had been doing really, all this tension, all this anger." "Well you two didn't kill each other on the plane." Luke points out.

"I know that.  But.....I don't even know anymore, I just think I need to really think about it, and if Calum comes back, then he comes back." I stated as Skyler quickly adds the last ingredients to the seafood pasta, with a cream sauce.  

"That's the point, he really does.  I just don't know if he's ready for you yet." "Yeah well, I'm barely ready for university let alone him." I say wiping my hands on a tea towel before saying to Luke "Can you and Sky set the table and get the other boys?  I'll just put finish up." I said as Skyler stepped away from the stove.