Hey guys I updated the cast list so check that out :)
Three practiced songs in and I was starving, and it didn't look like the boys were wrapping up anytime soon. In fact, it looked like they were just getting started. I should've eaten more greens at dinner.
I don't know what else I expected when coming along to these practices, I mean, I was a regular here now, but each time I hoped maybe they wouldn't be so boring.
I look around Michael's man cave, trying to seek out some food that doesn't come in a cereal box or a bright orange foil packet. Would it kill him to have a bowl of fruit? Actually, I probably wouldn't touch any fresh produce found in here. It certainly wouldn't be fresh.
"Ella, did you hear that?"
I snap back to the dull reality before me, looking at Luke as he stands behind a microphone, guitar poised in his hands.
"What?"
"Did you hear it?" He repeats. I clearly fucking didn't. "Here, I'll do it again." He strums his guitar once and raises his eyebrow at me in a grin. "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry." I look at him with the utmost confusion. "But what the hell are you saying to me?"
Michael sighs from beside Luke. "The difference in the strum," he says, like I have any idea what that's meant to mean. "Duh."
"Which is better?" Luke asks, strumming again. "This, or .... " another strum, that sounds exactly the same, "this?"
I just stare at them. Were they serious? I blink, they blink back. I shuffle in my seat, they shuffle their clunky boot covered feet. "Uh, the second one," I say with all the confidence I can fake.
"Yeah?" Luke lights up, and I think I've said the right answer. "That's great, we were thinking the same! Okay, guys. From the top. Listen for the new note."
The guys start playing again and I sink back further into the musty couch. They play another two songs, and I actually really like the last one they do. I've never heard it before, so I bring it up.
"What was that one?"
They don't reply, too busy packing away their things.
"That song," I repeat. "The one you just did. What was it called?"
"Vapor," Michael replies. "We just wrote it."
"Do you like it?" Calum asks, his voice a little too hopeful.
"It sounds really good. Are you guys going to play it next weekend?"
The boys just look at me, apart from Ashton; who is looking at anything but me. I quickly realise what's going on here, and how much of a freaking liar Ashton is, and that I now look like a total idiot.
"You don't have a gig, do you?"
Luke, Michael, and Calum all look at each other then, screwed up faces as they talk amongst themselves. "Do we?" Asks Michael. "I don't think ..."
"Unless I booked it high, I don't think we do," replies Luke.
I stare daggers at Ashton, who tries to hide behind his drums. Why would he lie about something like that? Just to get out of a family trip to the city? Come on, it couldn't be that bad.
"Right." I awkwardly laugh. "I was just kidding. Hey, can we order a pizza or something? I'm kind of starving." I try and shift the awkwardness off me.
"That's the best idea you've ever come up with, Stanford." Michael puts down his guitar. "Pepperoni?"
"Can we just get a cheese one as well?" I speak up, somewhat shyly. I braced myself for the snide comments that would come from the boys, squealing about how meat belonged on a pizza and that was the only option. But nothing came.
"Yeah, sure," Michael says. "Anyone else have any other requests?"
Calum says something about a pineapple and ham one, and Luke demands garlic bread. Ashton says nothing.
"Alright, I've got two pepperoni, one pineapple, and one cheese, and two sticks of garlic bread. You know the drill, pay up. Five each."
I begin to panic because even if I did have money, I certainly didn't bring it along with me tonight. As if sensing my panic, Luke puts his massive hand onto my shoulder. "Oh, no. Don't worry, Ella. We've got this."
Were these the same boys? The same loud, gossipy, mean boys I had gotten to know over the last few weeks? Why were they all of a sudden acting so nice towards me? Had Ashton said something to them? God, I was seriously gonna kill Ashton. He was still avoiding my eye contact. He knew how guilty he should be.
Once Michael has his money, he rings up the pizza place and puts in our order. Luke and Calum are busy talking about some new James Bond film, and Ashton is still hiding behind his special little drum kit, so I walk over to the kitchen and get myself a drink.
When I close the fridge door, Ashton's standing right there. I almost drop my bottle of water, but I recollect myself and breeze past him without saying a word. I grab a glass and lean against the bench, beginning to pour in the water. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, but I still don't say anything.
"El-"
"Oh, what's that?" I look up and act distressed. "Is a big fat liar speaking?"
I can see Ashton roll his eyes. "Come on, El, you don't even know the whole story."
"No." I spin around to face him. "I don't, because you keep lying about it. How am I supposed to know the whole story, when you haven't even told one single part of it?"
He opens his mouth to reply but I cut him off. "Whatever." I walk back to the other boys. If Ashton wanted to lie to me about why he didn't want to go to the city, then fine. He could lie. Didn't mean I was going to be okay with it.
"Trouble in paradise?" Michael raises his eyebrows at me, then at Ashton; who still stands in the kitchen. Alone. Oh, wait, no. Luke's gone to join him.
I shove Michael. "Shut up." He just laughs. "Hey, Ashton likes the city, right?"
"The city?" Michael screws up his face in thought. "He did."
"What happened?"
Michael just looks at me, like I'm some dumbass or something. "It's pretty obvious."
"What-"
"WHO WANTS TO PLAY TWISTER?!" Luke suddenly yells.
We all turn to him like he's the new son of God.
"I don't even own-" Michael starts.
"I brought it!" Luke cries.
"To our band practice?"
"Come on!" Luke's already opening up the box, which he seemed to pull out of nowhere, and laying down the mat. "Who's gonna spin?"
"I will." Michael steps forward, grabbing the spinner. "I hate this stupid game."
"Yay!" Luke cries, like a literal child. "Twister!"
I eye everything in concern. There was no way in hell I was going to get onto that mat and bend my limbs like a damn pipe cleaner. These boys may be getting kinder, but they were still males who loved to laugh at fat girls attempting to play Twister. No thank you.
"I'll help," I say to Michael.
"It's really not that hard of a job ..." Michael argues.
I shoot him daggers, but he doesn't catch on. Cool friend.
"Come on, Ella!" Luke cries. He's way too excited about this, I swear. "Come over!"
Ashton's still looking at me, and I'm still avoiding him, so I stand next to Calum. We all take our places, and I'm fretting every second of this game that's to come. Michael calls out the first demand.
"Right foot blue."
Oh, that seems easy enough.
"Left hand green."
Piece of cake.
"Right hand yellow."
Oh. I look around. Calum was blocking my nearest yellow circle so I had to stretch. I swear I hear Luke giggle. The second I put down my right hand, Ashton puts down his right beside me. I roll my eyes.
"Look," he whispers, balancing his arms. "It's a tricky situation."
"Left foot green."
"I ..." I strain to do as Michael says. "I don't see what's so tricky about it. You're really gonna make me go alone?"
"Of course ..." Ashton winces. "Not. I was just saying that to lessen the blow. But you could stay-"
"Right elbow red."
"Home with me." Ashton and I almost bang heads diving towards the same red circle. He smiles sheepishly. "Sorry."
I'm pretty sure my ass is in Luke's face, and I'm pretty sure he's enjoying it. Also I have Calum's torso stretched over mine, and Ashton nice and snug right beside me. I hate this game.
"Luke, that's cheating!" Michael calls.
"Ow, nah!"
"What's so wrong with the city?" I ask Ashton, my limbs practically screaming in pain.
"I-"
"Left hand blue!"
There's a lot of squirming and squealing as we all try and reposition ourselves. I was literally about to die. Also, I was still annoyed at Ashton. He seemed very secretive about this whole thing, and I had no idea why.
"Fine," he hisses into my ear. I almost collapse to the ground he gives me such a fright.
"Right foot green!"
"Fine what?" I'm about as stretched as one can physically stretch. But my mind is only focusing on Ashton.
"I'll go." Ashton seems to be struggling as well. He's practically lying over Luke, who is still giggling gleefully.
"To the city?" I question, even though I know that's what he means.
"Left elbow yellow!"
"Yeah, I-"
Somebody makes a bad move and we all come crashing down on top of one another, me falling right into Ashton's lap. We sit looking at each other for a while and I can see his cheeks are red. Whether it's from the stress of the game, the temperature in here, or something else, I don't know.
"Yeah," he breathes with a smile. "I'll come to the city with you."
I get so lost in his eyes that I forget where we actually are momentarily, until Luke's shoulder in my side wakes me up. I shriek in pain. "Ow! Luke!"
There's suddenly a knock at the door and Michael shoots up. "Pizza's here!"
"How long did we play that for?" Ashton asks, gently helping me up off him.
"Like, ten minutes. You pussies."
"Like to see you try, Clifford," Luke snaps back.
Michael collects the pizza and brings it back to the Twister mat. I'm so hungry I dig in immediately.
"Woah, Stanford." Luke laughs. "It's like you haven't seen food in months."
"Basically," I mumble.
"I'm liking her more and more every day." Michael grins, digging into his own slice.
Ashton turns to look at me and I faintly hear him mumble "me too". And I drop my pizza right on the Twister mat. And Luke screams in horror.
------
"Morning, morning!" Our art teacher is far too cheery for the morning and her voice is giving me a headache. "I hope we're all ready to hand in our projects? Because they are in fact due in today!"
Luke, Michael and I all look at each other in alarm. Shit. Oh, shit, shit. I had totally forgotten about that stupid project!
"Quick," Luke hisses, leaning in like he's starting some sort of team huddle. "We need to think of something. That we all did. Some kind of group project."
"Something for the band?" I suggest.
"Good." Luke points at me. Then silence. "Okay, like what?"
"She never said it had to be visual, right?" Michael looks at us both, waiting for us to catch on. We don't. He sighs. "Why don't we just talk about the band?"
"Talk about the band?" Luke hypes up. "You couldn't give me enough time in the day!"
"Like a speech?" I ask.
"Yeah. Hear me out. We go up there, make up some bullshit on how the band is spiritual and all that jazz, and make it really deep."
"We could play something?" Luke asks.
"Do you have any instrument anywhere near you?" Michael deadpans.
Luke looks around, he literally looks around for one. In art room. "Ah, bugger," he says. "No."
Michael gives him a sarcastic look. "Oh, what'd ya know?"
"Okay, back to the speech." I refocus them. "I know nothing about your band. Or music for that matter."
"That'll be our charm." Michael sounds like he's put way too much thought into this. "You can say the band changed your life, keeps you breathing. You know, stuff like that?"
My eyes widen. "Wha-"
"Children." The devil appears. "Do we have our projects?"
"We do, yes." Michael clears his throat. "We all actually prepared a speech."
"A speech?"
"Yes, a speech."
"On what?"
"That's a surprise," Michael discloses, lowering his eyes to appear, what he thinks, is mysterious. But in reality he just looks stoned.
"Well alright." Miss whateverhernameis claps her hands. "Class, Luke, Michael, and Ella have been very creative and prepared an oral approach to their project."
Luke snickers. "Oral."
"Up you go." She ushers us all up the front, and let's just say I seriously hope Michael knows what the hell he's doing.
"Hey everyone, we're gonna talk to you about our band, 5 Seconds Of Summer. Most of you have probably heard us, and if you haven't, well, what the hell is going on?" I shoot Michael a look and he recollects himself. "So yeah, the band. Uh, Luke?"
Everyone turns to Luke, who is just standing there leaning against the wall. He straightens when he realises the attention is on him. "Oh. Yeah. The band. Like Michael was saying, we have a band."
I mentally face palm.
Luke clears his throat. "The band means a lot to me, you know, and, like, I think people don't really understand that. But I live for this band, and I want nothing more for us than to become something big. We really have an edge, something different. We write our own songs, play our own instruments. We're authentic. I like that about us, I like the way we sound. I really think we have a chance."
Michael and I are kind of blown away, as are most of the class. Michael quickly follows on. "I agree with Luke, a hundred percent. We definitely have a chance, and one day we're going to make it big. Really big. Right, Ella?"
Now all eyes are on me, and I'm like a deer stuck in the headlights. I don't know what to do or say. And everyone's looking and waiting. "Uh, uh ... I ... um ..."
"Ella is our biggest fan." Michael squeezes me against his chest and I let out an inhumane squeak. "She's come along to all of our gigs, knows all our songs. She really loves us."
It's silent for a bit and then Michael hits me in the chest, and I realise it's now my turn to talk. "Uh ... yes! That is correct. It is I, 5 Seconds Of Summer's biggest fan. Ella Stanford. Me. Yes. Hello."
"This speech sucks ass!" Some kid yells from the back.
"Hey, mate, you suck ass!" Michael yells back.
"Boys, please." Miss artteacher shushes.
But the random kid down the back with the spotty face was right, this speech did suck ass, and there was nothing we could do to save it. I was a horrible actor, and the boys were just raving on about how successful they thought they deserved to be. This was not a spiritual art project, this was three losers trying to salvage something together that made them seem like less of failures. Yet, here we were, standing in front of the classroom like a firing squad, with no hope of survival. Then Luke spoke up.
"Does anyone have a guitar?"