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Ashton was alone in his room when he woke up the next morning, which he was slightly surprised at. He thought that Calum would be the type to sleep until the late afternoon hours because it was only 7:15 in the morning. Without a second thought, the boy got out of bed to get dressed for the day and go to the cafeteria to get his breakfast. It was his first day of classes and he was beyond excited to start. It may have been because he was just a huge fan of school and learning in general, but he also had an inkling that it was because it was going to be a different type of learning and it was going to be more in depth than high school.
Once Ashton made sure that everything he needed for the day was put perfectly in his backpack, he set it on the floor and cleaned up his side of the room so it was clean and fit his standards. He grabbed everything that he needed and headed out the door, being sure to lock it in case there were any curious ones wandering the halls. He didn't care if they would take Calum's things, it was his own that he was concerned about.
As he got to the bottom floor of the dormitory, he spotted Bryana at the vending machine. Glancing down at his watch, he saw that he had enough time for a quick chat with her. He quickly rushed over to the blonde just as she was turning to leave the vending machine. She went to open her granola bar when she noticed Ashton approaching her.
"Hey, Bry," Ashton greeted when he got close enough to the girl.
"Hey, Ashton! What are you doing up so early?" she asked with her big award winning smile.
"I have class in about an hour," he told her. "I should be asking you the same. You look lovely for being having gotten up so early."
"Oh, thank you! It's a new dress actually! But I'm headed off to class too. I decided that I might as well make a good impression," she said, grabbing the hem of the dress in between her finger tips.
"What building are you going to?" Ashton wondered.
Bryana began digging around in her purse, pulling out a folded piece of paper. She looked down at it, reading carefully. "I'm in Donnelly Hall. What about you?"
"That's where I am headed towards as well! Would you like to accompany me on the way there?" Ashton asked, sticking out his arm for the blonde to link up with.
"I would love to!"
The two started off to Donnelly Hall, arms linked as they talked about meaningless things and walked with a purpose. The pair received weird looks - Ashton guessed that it was because they were wondering why someone such as himself was walking around with a girl like Bryana. He thought that it was downright rude that people were so judgmental based on looks. Just because Ashton wasn't the equivalent of an Abercrombie & Fitch model doesn't mean he couldn't associate with Bryana, a girl that could become a Victoria's Secret model at the drop of a hat.
They got to the building that they were supposed to be at and went to their separate rooms. Ashton suddenly felt the familiar lonely feeling he used to have in high school as he walked by himself into the classroom that was beginning to fill with students. Taking a quick glance around, he didn't see Anya around or thankfully Calum. It gave him a sense of deja vu as he realized that he was once again in a class alone. He hurried to the empty front row, taking a seat directly in the middle. The professor was at his computer, not paying any attention to the students that were filtering into the room.
Ashton looked him over, concluding the guy most likely came across as strict, but was actually a really nice person once one were to get to know him or get to be one of his reliable students. He looked away from the professor and lifted his backpack onto the desk, sliding out his laptop, notebook, and his selection of pens. He set them up in an orderly fashtion, his OCD tendencies causing him to make sure that everything was set perfectly. With a quick swipe on the laptop mouse, the computer turned on. Ashton quickly typed in his password and filled out the prompt it gave him in order to connect to the campus wifi. It didn't take him long to bring up a blank document for notes and also scroll through his artsy Tumblr, reblogging a few outstanding posts. He quickly closed out of the Google Chrome window as soon as the teacher made a loud slap on his podium.
"Welcome to modern philosophy. I am Dean Walsh. You can call me Dean, Walsh, Professor...but for the love of everything that is holy, do not call me Mr. Walsh. That's my father's name."
----
Ashton rose up from the desk an hour later, putting his things back into his bag. As he shoved his laptop into the pocket, he heard his phone vibrating on the table. Once he finished zipping the bag, he clicked on the device to see that it was Anya asking him to lunch with her and Bryana. He quickly texted back a confirmation, figuring he might as well since he had about three hours until his next and final class of the day.
The walk to the central cluster of trees that he was meeting Bryana and Anya wasn't all that far from where Ashton was. He saw his friends standing by one of the trees, deep in conversation. He rushed over to them, excited that he would be around people that he knew instead of a room full of strangers that he didn't speak a word to.
"Hello, girls," he said as approached the two.
"Hi, Ashton," the two said in unison.
"How was class?" Bryana asked.
"Oh, it was wonderful. I can't wait until the next day I have it," Ashton gushed, trying not to let his inner nerd show, but it was just so difficult not to. "What about you?"
"It wasn't as grueling as I thought it would be," she giggled.
"Well, while you guys were off learning, I was working and I found out that Calum skipped his morning class today," Anya spilled, quirking her eyebrows up. "He's probably freaking out about your date."
Bryana rolled her eyes and chuckled. "As if. Speaking of, I need to find something to wear and was wondering if you both would be willing to help a girl out?"
"I am certainly not the person to ask to assist you," Ashton surrendered, putting his hands up.
"Oh, please! You probably have a very good eye for fashion," Anya pointed out.
"Seriously! After lunch, come back to our dorm room. If anything, you can just give the male perspective," Bryana bargained.
"Fine, fine. I gather that it would be alright. I don't have anything to do until my next class, so why not?" Ashton gave in. "But tell me: why are you stressing over what you are going to wear when you're refusing to go on another date with him?"
"Because I want to make him want what he can't have," Bryana said with a devilish smile as she brought her pointer finger to Ashton's chin. "That's the one pro of being considered a Playboy bunny lookalike."
"Alright, now that Bry has gone ahead and made it awkward, where are we going for lunch?" Anya asked after a few moments of awkward tension.
"There's that cute little cafe towards the entrance of campus that looks delicious. I heard from a few other girls that the sandwiches are just amazing there," Bryana suggested.
----
"What do you think about this one? Is it too glitzy for a casual date? I doubt the kid can afford to go anywhere fancier than the pizza joint from last night," Bryana asked, walking around the room in a tight fitting pink sequined dress. "Ash, what's your opinion?"
Ashton gave his friend a once over. "It looks stunning on you, but I think that it is a tad too much for the type of date that you will be going on, especially if it's with Calum. I would aim for something that has minimum sparkle if your wanting something sequined. Personally, I would go for a navy blue color. It would certainly make you look like you just came from the beach."
Bryana looked at him in shock, as if she didn't expect that out of him. "Wow, um, okay. Let me see what I have."
The blonde disappeared back into the small closet and Ashton went back to reading his book. As much as he tried to focus on the words in the book, his mind kept getting distracted. He couldn't help but wonder why Bryana was stressing herself over this date so much. It wasn't like she even liked Calum because she had even said it. He knew that she was just going to get the free food, but he still didn't want her going out with him. He didn't think that Calum should go out with anyone because he was such a heartless bastard and knew that he would try to get into his date's pants. That was something that Ashton certainly did not want to be present for nor did he believe that Calum was worthy of any type of of antic intimacy. The only intimacy that boy deserved was his head and a 2x4.
"How is this?" Bryana asked as she paraded around the dorm room.
Ashton tore his attention away from his book and looked up at his friend. Her blonde curls bounced as she pretended that she was on a catwalk. He mentally congratulated himself for being right about how navy blue would make her look fabulous. She looked so radiant, any guy would be drooling at the sight of her. That's when Ashton's small smile fell from his face. He was a guy that was attracted to beautiful women, so why wasn't drooling?
----
"When are you going on that date with that hot blonde?" Luke asked Calum as they walked out to the field.
"After practice," Calum told him, still proud of himself for scoring the hot blonde and proving Luke wrong.
"Please tell me that you're going to shower first," Luke chuckled.
"Oh definitely. A dime like her deserves the best looking me that I can come up with," the Kiwi told his friend. "Not only that, but I want her to consider a second date or maybe even a little bed action."
"At least you're taking her to dinner first," the blonde captain chuckled.
"I'm classy like that," Calum said with a cocky edge to his voice.
Coach Reeves called the team together to give them details of the day's practice plan. Luke had already told him that the first practice was always just shooting and dribbling drills along with a few team building activities so the team could begin to meld together. Drills and team building were Calum's favorite types of practice. He loved running plays and other types of practice, but he always found some type of comforting feeling when it came to seeing everyone practicing their skills. He used it as an observation day as well so he could become familiar of how his teammates operated individually as well as a team.
"Alright, so I'm going to break you up into three groups, each group going with each captain," the coach told them.
Calum listened as he listed off each group and let out a sigh of relief when he got on Luke's team. He knew that he had to get cozy with the other two captains, but he would rather do that in a casual setting. He was already pretty comfortable with Luke, so the it took a bit of a load off his shoulders knowing that he didn't have to impress as much as he would with a different captain. He was still going to show off to the others so they knew that they had a potential professional on their side, but it wasn't going to be like he was playing for the Brazil scout.
"Listen up, ladies. We're going to be working on shooting. So, if you can't shoot worth a shit, that damn well sucks because you're going to have to do it eventually. So, you might as well make an ass of yourself now," Luke announced to the seven boys in the group. "Cal, you seem to know what you're doing, so you're going to go first."
Calum gave a cocky smile as he walked towards the ball that was set in line with the goal. He got into his stance a few feet back from the ball. When he was ready after a few moments of readying himself, he ran to the ball and gave it a swift kick right into the center of the back of the net. Calum turned around, an arrogant and confident expression on his face.
"And that, ladies, is how you get it done," Luke told them.
----
Calum put on his black dress coat and looked in the mirror again, fluffing his already puffy hair. He made sure that he looked as irresistible and sexy as he possible could for Bryana. The one thing that he was determined to do was try to score exactly what he had told Luke earlier in the day. Plus Luke had challenged him.
When he thought he was good enough, Calum grabbed his wallet, phone, and room key as he left the empty room. He was hoping that Ashton wasn't down in Bryana's room because he didn't need that nerd to ruin his mood. The asshole probably already told her all of these terrible lies about him. To be honest, he was shocked that she hadn't called to cancel. The girl seemed like she would be easily persuaded.
Once he got to his date's room, he listened to hear if there was talking on the other side of the door, but only heard the faint sound of a new Justin Bieber song. Taking a deep breath, Calum lifted his hand and knocked on the door. It didn't take long before the door swung open and he was greeted with the beautiful Bryana Holly.
"Hello, Calum," Bryana greeted with a welcoming smile.
Calum couldn't take his eyes off of the girl. "H-Hi, Bryana. You look absolutely hot."
"Thanks," Bryana giggled. "You don't look too bad yourself. We somewhat match. Are you ready to go?"
"Whenever you are," he smiled.
She grabbed a white hat and her purse before shutting off the lights and making her way out of the room. "Let's go."
Calum walked with her down to the ground floor, hoping that where he chose for the date to be was going to be up to Bryana's standards. He was also of the hoping that the girl would be willing to accompany him to a party at one of the captain's later on so he could show off his potential girlfriend.
When the couple was outside, the blonde girl turned around to face Calum. "So, where are we headed?"
----
This took me all day and honestly I thought it would be so much shorter than this. I have amazed myself.
Thoughts on Ashton helping Bryana? Why he was shocked he wasn't drooling over her?
Thoughts on Calum taking Bryana on a date? What his challenge/goal is?
All the love. -B