I sat down at Starbucks with Ashton with my tea in my hand while he was scrolling through his phone. He looked up at me and smiled, holding his arm out for me to sit with him.
"Hey beautiful," he kissed me on the cheek and locked his phone, sliding it into his pocket. "I missed you all week."
I'd had a meeting to go to on Tuesday that ran late and I ended up missing my usual meet with Ashton.
"Well I have the perfect way to make it up to you," I said, handing him my tea and he took a sip. This was becoming a usual thing for us. I would get a tea and he would take a sip and try to guess what kind of tea it is.
"That's definitely chai," he said. "And what is this perfect way to make it up to me?"
"Calum invited us all to go out with him and Abbi again tomorrow night," I said. "And I promise, this time I won't get overly drunk and cry and then pass out on you."
Ashton laughed at the memory. "Well I'm glad to hear that. Who's Abbi?"
"Oh, she's this girl Calum has been seeing," I said. "She's nice."
Ashton nodded. "Sure. What time and where are we going?"
"Luke never bothers to tell me these things until the last minute." I rolled my eyes. "I'll get back to you on that."
"Okay," he said, taking my tea again. "I love chai, give me more of that."
-
I didn't make dinner for Luke and I Friday night because we were going to meet up somewhere with Ashton, Abbi and Calum instead. I put on a nice dress and waited for Luke to finish getting ready before we left.
When we got to the restaurant, Ashton was already in the waiting area with Calum and Abbi. They were talking as we walked in and Ashton smiled at us, seeming to light up the entire room.
"Hey guys," Luke and I greeted the others as we walked in, giving hugs out to everyone. I hugged Ashton last, who kept his arm around me while we waited to be seated.
It wasn't long before we were, and I sat between Ashton and Luke across from Abbi and Calum.
Calum, Abbi and Luke all caught up and talked about the club we were planning on going to while I told Ashton about things I'd been doing with Chloe and he actually listened to my unintelligent rambling.
"I think we should head to that club now," Calum said, checking the time on his phone. "It opened a little bit ago so let's go in before it gets too packed in the parking lot."
Calum gave Ashton the address to the club and we said quick goodbyes since we'd be seeing each other again in a few minutes.
Luke drove us to the club and we pulled in at about the same time as the others, parking somewhat close to each other. I got out and said hello to Ashton, who intertwined our fingers as we went to go inside.
I decided not to get a drink right away this time and instead occupied myself by following Ashton to a couch and sat right next to him. Luke sat down as well, eyeing a group of girls dancing nearby. Calum and Abbi went to dance right away, laughing together and obviously having a good time with each other.
"Just go dance with one Luke," I said, nudging him. He looked over at me and blushed.
"What?" he asked.
"I see you looking at those girls," I said. "I'm sure any of them would be delighted to dance with a good looking guy like you."
Ashton gave him a playful push and Luke stood and awkwardly walked up to the group of girls. Immediately, one of them pulled him into their group and started dancing with him. He looked over at Ashton and I helplessly and we both gave him a thumbs-up of encouragement.
I laughed as we watched him disappear into the crowd with the group of girls, probably enjoying all the attention.
"He's so weird," I said. "He acts like he's all that and then blushes when girls actually get all over him."
"He's all talk," Ashton said. "Most guys are."
"Yeah, they come off like total assholes," I smirked up at Ashton who rolled his eyes at me.
"Come on." He stood up, taking my hand. "This asshole wants to dance."
I let him pull me off the couch and into the crowd of people. The music was hardly danceable for me--not that I can dance--and I ended up pulling out my drunk dance moves again.
"So this is how you dance when you're sober?" Ashton laughed as I did the sprinkler. "Exactly like how you dance drunk?"
"Pretty much." I laughed with him. "Hey lets get a drink. Just one for now."
Ashton took me with him over to the bar and ordered us a couple fruity drinks and I drank mine slowly, not wanting to get even tipsy tonight. I turned and looked around while he was getting our drinks, slightly startled by a guy sitting on one of the couches staring right at me. I turned back around, moving closer to Ashton, who put his arm around me and I relaxed a little.
Luke came out of the group of girls with his shirt stretched out a lipstick kiss on his cheek.
"Looks like someone could have gotten laid tonight," I said as he sat down and ordered a drink as well.
"Could have," he said. "But I don't really want to anyways."
He took a sip of his drink and we were soon joined by Calum and Abbi again, both laughing.
"This music sucks," Abbi said laughing as Calum handed her a drink. "This is crap I hear on the radio. I want to actually dance."
"I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so," I laughed. "Although it's perfect music to do drunk dance moves to."
"Because it's easy to dance out of time?" Ashton said, nudging me.
"Hey!" I frowned at him. I've never had the best sense of rhythm.
"It's cute," he said, leaning in and kissing my nose. "Let's go dance out of time more."
Ashton took my hand and pulled me back out into the crowd of people and this time did a few dance moves that would look like a stereotypical white dad trying to dance at a family barbecue.
"Ashton, you are a horrible dancer!" I laughed as he did the disco dance a couple times and then grabbed me by my waist and pulled me close to him, kissing me a couple times and ignoring the large amount of people surrounding us.
Ashton pulled me closer to where Luke was, stopping and letting go of me. "I have to pee, I'll be right back."
I nodded and let him go, watching as he walked towards the bathroom. I smiled at him, admiring everything about him as he walked away.
I turned around just to be bumped into by the guy I'd seen staring at me before. I was able to see now that he had bloodshot blue eyes and messy hair, obviously drunk by the way he was stumbling around and spilled his drink. Oh boy.
"I thought I'd never get an opening," he smirked, taking a sip out of what was left of his drink.
"An opening for what?" I asked, crossing my arms.
"To come and talk to you," he said as if it were obvious. "I have had my eyes on you all night."
"I have a boyfriend," I said, attempting to move away from him.
"Really? I don't see him," he moved closer to me, backing me into a corner. "Must be a great boyfriend if he's not even around to defend himself."
"He went into the bathroom!" I pushed him back. "Get away from me, you creep!"
"Oh, you don't want to do that, miss," he grabbed my wrists from my chest and pulled me closer to him. I started panicking and tried to pull out of his grip.
"Can't I get one kiss from you?" his grip tightened as he pulled me even closer. I struggled even more.
"Luke!" I yelled, trying to get his attention but he was laughing with Calum about something and probably couldn't hear me over the music anyways. I couldn't blame him for any of it; he was facing the other way and probably thought I was still with Ashton anyways.
"Oh yeah, call to your boyfriend to try and save you," he mocked me and I lifted my knee to kick him in the crotch, but he kicked my knee back out of the way.
"He's not her boyfriend." Ashton appeared next to me, suddenly moving between us and shoving him off of me. He landed on the ground in front of us, and I held my aching wrists to my chest.
"Ashton!" I reached for his arm, grateful for his heroic actions, though he didn't look happy with me at all.
"Outside now." Ashton didn't even look at me and took me by my wrist and pulled me toward the door.
"Ow!" I tried to wiggle my wrist from Ashton's grip but he didn't let go as he practically dragged me outside. "Ashton, you're hurting me!"
He let go of my wrist and turned around to me, looking angry. "What the hell was that?!"
"What?" I backed away from him. "I had no control over that situation! I was trying to get away from him!"
"You don't move into a corner to get away from someone like that, Taylor!" he yelled, stepping closer to me. I backed into the wall behind me, suddenly frightened of Ashton.
"I didn't see where I was going, I was just trying to get away!" I yelled back, despite the fact that Ashton was towering over me. "I told you I didn't have any control over that situation, I was trying to yell for Luke's help!"
Ashton raised his hand and I flinched, cowering slightly until I realized he was running it through his hair in frustration.
I started panicking again, images of Josh flooding through my mind. I should know that Ashton is nothing like Josh but that's not what my brain was telling me. My brain was telling me to get the hell away from him.
"Taylor... Did you think I was going to hit you?" Ashton's tone softened as tears poured out of my eyes and I turned and ran back inside--as best as I could in heels--in search of Luke. I should have been fazed by the way he called me by just my first name.
"Taylor, wait!" Ashton followed me as I ran into Luke, who was coming outside looking concerned.
"Luke! Please take me home!" I grabbed onto his shirt and cried into it, trying to drag him towards his car at the same time.
"Taylor, what's going on?" he asked, looking down at me and back at Ashton, who had both of his hands in his hair and looked extremely distressed.
"I just want to go home! Please!" I sobbed into his chest and he placed his hand on my back.
"Okay, okay," he said. "I'll get you home, come on."
"Taylor." I heard Ashton's voice behind me but I just wanted to go home and forget about everything that happened.
(A/N: like I said before please vote I'm so thirsty thanks I love you)