Sooner or Later (Feat. 1D and 5SOS)

9. Awkward Silence

Liddy grinned at her own cleverness, and Mr. Walters let out a booming chuckle as he brought the plate of pancakes to the table and began to serve his children.

"Does Mom know you let her watch those movies?" Emma asked while she prepared her sister's drink. Of course, she already knew the answer.

Emma's mother walked into the kitchen. "Let her watch what movies?"

"Nothing," Mr. Walters quickly answered, and then he grabbed his fork and speared a pancake for himself. "Nothing at all. You look beautiful today, dear."

Mrs. Walters smiled. "Thank you. I tried a new conditioner today."

The telephone on the wall starting to ring. "I'll get it!" Emma declared as she placed Liddy's chocolate milk on the table and then rushed over to the phone.

She brought to the receiver to her ear. "Hello?"

Muffled voices were speaking at the same time:

"Talk to her!"—"No, you!"—"I dialed the number!" Static. A boy's voice. More static. A loud thud. "You dropped the phone, dumbass!" Laughter in the background. "Talk to her, you pansy!"

Finally, a clear voice came through: "Uhh ... Emma?"

"Uhh, yeah ...? I'm sorry, who is this?"

More laughter in the background.

"Umm, this is Luke."

"Oh! Luke, right! I'm sorry, I didn't recognize your voice. You sound so different on the phone ..." Plus, you've like literally never called me before. "So what's up? How's your weekend going?"

"Good. Yours?"

"Oh, get on with it!" someone shouted. Calum, probably.

"Shut up!" Luke shouted back, and then he said to Emma, "Anyway, so I was wondering if you ... if you wanted to ... ummm ..."

"Yeah?"

"If you wanted to come to our band practice this afternoon. Actually, Calum was the one wondering, not me. See, we're all gonna be at Ashton's house later this afternoon, and he figured you might wanna go because you haven't heard us play in a while."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that's true. One sec." She pulled the phone away and turned toward her father. "Can I go to Ashton's house this afternoon?"

"Why?"

"They're having band practice."

"Band practice? – Oh yeah, that's right, they're doing the whole music thing now ... Hmm, yeah, I suppose. Just to Ashton's, though. Nowhere else."

"Got it." Emma put the phone back to her ear. "Yeah, okay, I can go."

"Awesome, I guess I'll see you then."

"I guess."

"Okay, bye, Emma."

Click.

Emma blinked her eyes in disbelief. "Uhh, bye." 

Shrugging, she placed the phone back on the base and then went to the table to eat her breakfast. She sat down in between her mother and Liddy, as she always did, except, of course, during the holidays when family was visiting; then she had to sit at a separate table with all the little kids, which had until recently included Ashton as well, but now he got to sit with the adults since he was in high school and all. Totally unfair in Emma's opinion. After all, she was way more mature than he was. He still played with action figures.

"So who was that?" her father asked.

"Just Luke."

"Luke? Who's Luke? I don't know that name."

"He's a friend of Michael and Calum."

Mr. Walters nodded. "Speaking of Michael, I saw him walking down the street the other day. For the life of me, I don't know what that boy was doing. He was just wandering around the neighborhood, I guess. Such a strange boy. Anyway, his hair was blue! Blue, of all the colors!"

"Blue?" Mrs. Walters could hardly believe it. "Well, that's different, isn't it? Oh, I bet his mother got a real shock out of that one."

"I'll say. Who would dye their hair blue? I don't understand it."

"He's just expressing himself. All kids do it."

Mr. Walters looked at Emma then. "What about you? Are you gonna dye your hair some weird color? Because if you do, you'll be wearing a hat, young lady. Your hair is beautiful the way it is. Natural, the way it's supposed to be."

Emma rolled her eyes and shoveled another piece of food into her mouth. Parents.

"Lydia Janine Walters, you keep that syrup on your plate, or I'll take it away!" 

—-

Gosh, Luke is so awkward... As promised, 5SOS were in this chapter (briefly), but they'll be back again in the next chapter. 

Thanks for reading!