the hating game ; lrh

twenty-four

THE WEEKEND ROLLS AROUND quicker than expected, and before I know it I'm sitting on the couch in Michael's basement watching yet another chaotic band practice.

"I can't get it in tune!" Calum complains for the umpteenth time, un-clipping and re-clipping Luke's tuning device onto the end of his guitar once again.

"That stupid thing doesn't work, Calum," I groan — had we not had this conversation a thousand times before? — and storm over to him, snatching the instrument from his hands and bringing it back to the couch with me.

"That's not true," frowns Luke, though I only roll my eyes in return and toss his useless tuner at him from across the room.

As I sit down to begin tuning my brother's bass guitar, I almost forget that Ashton is still in the room — and that we haven't spoken since the night of the party. As the thought returns, I glance up at where he is perched behind his drum kit and am surprised to see that he is already looking at me. I quickly look away, not wanting to maintain the eye contact, and focus on plucking the guitar strings.

—

"Alright, let's take a break," Michael announces, the band signing in relief as he does so — they had been trying (and failing) to coordinate a new song for the past hour, and even I was growing frustrated with all the errors.

As the boys place their instruments down and begin conversing among themselves, I see Ashton climb away from his drum kit and begin to make his way toward me. My heart rate increases, and I glance quickly over to where the rest of the band was laughing about something that had happened at school earlier in the week in the hope that I could somehow be saved from this conversation, but I am too late because Ashton is already standing before me.

"Hey," he says awkwardly, shifting side to side across both feet. "Could we, um, talk?"

I glance across at the boys again, but none of them have noticed. "Sure," I nod — I may as well get it over and done with now. "Upstairs?"

Ashton nods in response and turns to walk upstairs without checking if I'm following. Regardless, I take a deep breath and stand to follow him. As I pass by the other boys, Luke finally glances up to see where I'm going, though says nothing even as I begin to climb the stairs, simply watching me go with an unreadable expression.

When I reach the top, Ashton is seated on a stool by the kitchen bench, elbows pressed against the counter. I'm not quite sure where to stand, so I take a seat opposite him.

"I know I should've talked to you sooner," he begins, tone small and perhaps even guilty.

"It's okay," I tell him, and I really do mean it — even now, I'm not ready to speak to him about everything that's happened, let alone a few weeks ago.

But Ashton shakes his head instantly, clenching his jaw slightly. "No, it's not," he insists. A long sigh escapes his lips, and he runs his fingers roughly through his curls. "I never wanted to hurt you." I'm not sure how to respond to this, so I simply swallow silently. "I know it doesn't seem that way, but it's true. I do care for you, Rory."

"Okay," is all I can manage to say. If he cared for me he certainly had a funny way of showing it.

Ashton watches me carefully, perhaps waiting for me to say something more, but when I don't he lets out another rough sigh. "I don't expect you to want to be with me — or even be friends with me, really," he lets out a humourless laugh. "But I want to apologise. For everything. I never treated you the way you deserved, and I don't know why. I just hope you know it's not because of you — it's me."