The Setup » [lashton] √

0.8

[Wednesday - a week later]

It had only been a week, and Luke had been struggling to keep his mouth shut. If he were honest, it was a miracle he'd lasted this long, the whole ordeal with Calum had been continuously on his mind, and when it wasn't on his mind, his thoughts were only a short walk from there. 

Not to mention he'd been spending a lot of time with Ashton. He'd realised he couldn't suddenly stop hanging out with him, and he did like him, not so much that he couldn't let go of him but enough that it that the realisation it would be cruel to just stop spending time with him was pretty easy to swallow. 

He did feel guilty, though; he was keeping something from him that he knew would clearly upset him. It seemed Calum and well Luke were the only close friends Ashton had at the moment, and if he told him, the chances of him feeling like remaining friends with both of them was slim.  

So in an attempt to keep things as normal as possible, they were thrift shopping together, his heart was doing backflips, and his head was aching with moral ambiguity. Ashton had been excited to show him this place, saying it was where he found all the best stuff and that Luke was sure to find whatever he was looking for here. He doubted that he'd find peace of mind between the stacks, but he was already here, so he may as well give it his all. 

"If I wore this, do you think people would get that I'm being ironic," Ashton asked, lifting a dark navy shirt with a man riding a horse and roping a steer with 'Threesome' written underneath to show Luke. He was grinning at this apparently amazing find of his.

"If you do anything ironically in front of strangers, you may as well be doing it genuinely," Luke said with a shrug of his shoulders. 

Okay, so he was having a hard time acting normal; he was stuck between cold indifference and flirting shamelessly. Yes, he knew that being friendly was the third and best option, but being friendly would make him feel like he had to tell him about Calum's set up and there his brain was again, trying to find a solution to the same problem he'd been stuck on for a week.

"True, I also don't get it, like at all," he said, putting the shirt back and continuing his search through the rack. 

Luke was standing behind him,  hands in his pockets and trying to find something to entertain him; he wandered away from Ashton and toward a display case near the cash register. His mind was drifting back to his situation with Ashton, wondering if he would be able to very slowly start spending less and less time with him until they fell out of touch. 

Then he spotted a large ornate ring engraved with intricate patterns, it looked handmade based on the small imperfections in the detailing, but without close inspection, the ring looked flawless. 

"Oh wow, that's gorgeous," Ashton spoke behind him; Luke hummed his agreement, "you should get it," Luke was nodding, actively not looking up as he became more and more enamoured with the ring in front of him. 

He was putting on his delight in the ring just a little; it was easier to ignore looking at Ashton for the ring than it was to just avoid eye contact with him altogether, call it self preservation, he supposed. It was only when he heard the bell above the door chime that he broke from his forced demeanour. As he turned, he saw the sound had caught Ashton's attention too.

You could have picked Luke's jaw up off the ground after he'd seen where the other's gaze was trained. The girl, the girlfriend. Luke had the paranoid thought that maybe, just maybe, she was trying to torture Ashton, which seemed outlandish until the door opened a second time and a man came through, wrapping his arms around her waist and pecking her on the lips.