Colored Bracelets (Lashton)

3. It Should Be a Snap

After Calum left, Ashton continued sitting there. Whenever he felt like he was looking at the group in front of him for too long he would glance down to his lap, hiding his face behind his upright knees. He didn't want to be caught staring but there were times where he hoped that staring too long would read to the others that he knew there was something different about the group and that he wanted in on whatever they were doing. Being shy, those visions of being brave enough to find out remained in his mind. 

When the bell rang Ashton let out a sigh of his own, another day just wishing that he wasn't still the quiet boy who sat in the hallway before classes. He wanted to be the proud boy who people knew about, with bracelets collecting on his wrists. 

As he let his legs go straight out again before he stood his ankle was kicked and then tripped over. He looked up when he heard the other person curse out. To his surprise, it was the boy with one pink bracelet on his wrist. 

"Oh, shit. S-sorry. I didn't see you." He quickly stated as he got down to the ground, setting his books beside him as he scrambled to pick up what he had dropped. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Ashton started calmly as his eyes shifted over to the two bags of bracelets that he had dropped. This was it. All he had to do was get the information out of this boy and then he could move on to actually being invited into the circle. "Why do you have all of these?" Ashton asked, sounding innocent as he reached over and picked up one of the bags, trying his best not to smooth his fingers over the bag's contents that he was holding and giving back to the other boy. 

"It's nothing." The boy shook his head, never making eye contact with Ashton. "It's stupid really." He said nervously as he took the bag from Ashton and stuffed it into the pocket of his trousers. 

Was his lousy lying a way of telling Ashton that it was none of his business? Surely, that couldn't be the case if they wanted to branch out the bracelets onto as many wrists as possible. 

Before Ashton could ask the boy another question about the bracelet, focusing soloy on the pick one on his wrist, there were another set of hands meeting down on that boys' shoulders. The new set of wrists both wearing mulitple bracelets. 

"Hey, Matt, might want to watch where you're going, yeah?" The blond chuckled as he placed both of his hands on the other's shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. Then he pulled the other boy off, his one hand remaining on his shoulder, brushing it off gently.

"Who's your new friend here?" The blue eyed boy asked once he noticed that Ashton's eyes were on all of the bracelets on his wrists. His eyes seemed to flicker with some sort of amusement as his teeth rested on top of his lip piercing. 

"I don't- I don't know." He mumbled, his eyes looking to his own feet.

"Why don't you ask him? Be a gentleman, yeah?" The blond chuckled again, shaking his head and dropping his other hand from the boy. He was still looking down at Ashton. 

Pink Bracelet's eyes slowly peered up to meet Ashton's. "Um, what's your name?" Then he raised his head all the way up and turned it to look at the blond standing closely behind him. 

"Ashton," was all that he could say because he was trying his best not to stare at the blond the entire time. He shifted his eyes between the two boys, his eyes always landing on the blond.

A small smirked tugged at his mouth whenever Ashton's eyes met his blue ones. 

"Well, aren't you going to shake Ashton's hand, Matt? It would be rude not to, don't you think?" The blond's tone was teasing him as his hand ran down Matt's arm and stopped to cup around his elbow that caused Matt to raise his arm out to Ashton, the blond boy licking at his lips as he waited for them to shake hands properly.

Ashton could feel just how awkward and clammy Matt's hand was as it wrapped around his own. When Matt pulled away in a rush his eyes went wide for a moment just before he wiped his hand on his trousers.

"That's a lad. No, why don't you hurry off to class so you don't end up late?" The blond gave the boy a firm pat on his back.

"Thanks." Matt mumbled quietly before making a brisk exit from being caught between Ashton and the blond, who turned his head and chuckled quietly to himself as he watched as Matt left. 

Once he turned his head back, he shook it and scratched his fingers at the side of his neck. "Sorry about him. I'll make sure he doesn't bother you anymore."

"Oh, he wasn't bothering me." Ashton said with a shake of his head. "It was me who accidentally tripped him." 

The blond nodded. "Well, then I guess I should tell you to stop tripping people." His lips quirked up into a smile before he turned around to walk away. 

Ashton quickly stood up, half in a panic because he didn't want to miss out on the chance of the opportunity to actually talk to the boy wearing so many of the colored bracelets. "Wait!" He blurted out loudly. "H-hey, what's your name?"

The blond stopped and then turned to walk back over to Ashton. He turned his head slightly to the side, as if he was curious about something; the same small smirk showing up on his features, causing a dimple to form on one side. 

"I'm Luke, Luke Hemmings. It was nice meeting you, Ashton." A smile spread across Luke's lips before he nodded his head slowly as his blue eyes roamed over Ashton, from his head all the way down to his feet and then back up again. He rested his teeth on his lip piercing again before speaking again. "Maybe, I'll see you around sometime." 

As Luke Hemmings walked away and Ashton picked up his schoolbag, putting the straps on his shoulders, Ashton couldn't help but bite his bottom lip and look down at the floor. His eyes squeezed shut in excitement before opening them and looking up to see that Luke was gone.

"Yeah, maybe you will, Luke. It was nice meeting you, too." Ashton smiled to himself before a worried look appeared on his face when he heard the bell sound again, signalling that all students should be in class.  

As much as he didn't want want to be late for class, he couldn't help but focus more on the fact that he was possibly on his way to being in the bracelet game. 

This story will no longer be a collaboration project and I will be writing it on my own. It was something fun for us to try and it just didn't work out in the end.

People were asking me about what colors mean what for the bracelets. I'm being evil and just telling you all that you will learn as Ashton does!  I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you all in the next one, which I already have written so it should be up sometime during the week!