chapter eleven: i like consistency, that's all
reminder that pics (not gifs) mean luke isn't present in the chapter !!!!!! also this pic .... and the pics from this day ........ MESS ME UP !!!!!! ok
SUNDAY MORNING. It was early, I was sitting at the island in our kitchen eating a bagel I had made for myself a few minutes before. I was tiredly looking over at the coffee machine as it brewed the coffee I was in dire need of.
Jenna and Danny were planning to come over at around noon, and I had told Madalyn that I would clean up. She and Howie had a late night, so I wanted to give them a chance to sleep in.
I was scrolling through Twitter, like I did most of the time nowadays, and I sighed quietly as I exited the app. I went to my messages to see if Luke had texted me back from the day before.
I hadn't heard from him since yesterday morning, when I left at nine-thirty. He had made me breakfast and we had a nice talk—I left early because we had gotten a little involved in the kitchen and I decided that it was probably best I leave before we made any decisions that could end in not having enough time to get me out of the door before one of the boys showed up.
I had sent him a text once I made it home that included a funny apology about leaving him to please himself, and then another referring to something I had seen on Twitter later in the day. But I hadn't heard back from him. I didn't want to care, but I thought it was strange.
I got up from my chair once I heard the coffee maker go and I walked up to the counter, waiting for the cup to fill before taking it back over to where I was sitting. I added a couple of things to make my coffee just the way I liked it.
I got back on Twitter as I waited for my coffee to cool a little and I noticed that I had a message on the app. I pressed on the message icon and my face broke out into a smile as I read Calum's name in my DMs. I was surprised, but I also found it funny.
I opened his message to see he had shared a tweet with me and said 'This is the most accurate tweet I've seen in a couple days.' The tweet was from a 5SOS fan's account.
riya @calmdown5sos
i've watched the new interview probably 20 times and all i have learned is that josie culley is the most patient and sweet human being on this planet. some of the tangents the boys go on r maddening but she doesn't even act annoyed
I laughed quietly to myself and bit my lip gently as I typed back a message.
@josieculls
That you boys are
maddening? Or that I'm
patient and sweet? 😇
I cringed after sending the message and wished I was better at talking to new people. People who knew me were aware that I was the worst at texting.
I went back to browsing through my feed and found a few more of those video edits of Luke and myself, but I also found a couple that were of Calum and me.
I took a sip of my coffee and decided it was time to start tidying up. I sat my phone down and got to work. The kitchen didn't take long, and I knew the living room wouldn't be too bad either. Madalyn and I kept things fairly clean at all times, but whenever I was working a lot and she was back and forth between Howie's place, we tended to neglect tidying. Somehow we became the most messy during these circumstances, even if we weren't spending a ton of time at home.
It took about fifteen minutes to get the living room in order. Once I was done, I made my way back into the kitchen and sat back down at my place. I continued to drink my coffee—which had gotten cold but in a good way—and went back to Twitter. I was surprised to see that Calum had responded. It was still pretty early and I wouldn't have blamed him if my reply turned him away.
@Calum5SOS
definitely the sweet part,
us guys are perfectly behaved
@josieculls
Hmm, I'm not sure I agree
Before I could set my phone down on the countertop, Calum had responded.
@Calum5SOS
you might be sweet,
but that doesn't mean
you're always right
@josieculls
I think you might be
full of crap, friend
@Calum5SOS
are we really friends? :-)
@josieculls
Possibly... if you promise
to not send me :-) anymore
@Calum5SOS
aw shucks jo ! that's my
favorite :-)
@josieculls
Who are you again?
@Calum5SOS
that's cold :'-(
@josieculls
Oh, I kind of like him.
He's sorta cute.
@Calum5SOS
kinda like me? ;-)
@josieculls
Aw, Calum, I didn't know
you were so funny ;)
My heart began to race as I continued to message with Calum, but I couldn't deny that I liked talking to him. He messaged back nearly immediately, but I decided to wait a couple of minutes before responding. I wasn't trying to make him wait, but I was more so trying to prove to myself that I had the self control to stay off my phone for more than a couple seconds.
After cleaning off the plate my bagel had been on, I let myself check my phone again.
@Calum5SOS
c'mon jo, everyone knows
i'm the cute & funny one in
the band
@josieculls
No one bothered to let me
in on that secret :/
I made my way out of the kitchen, after cleaning out my coffee mug, and made my way back to my room. It was nearly nine—I didn't expect Howie and Madalyn to be up for another hour, if not later. Since Madalyn's room was right beside of mine, I decided to spare them the chance of hearing me and grabbed my laptop before making my way to the living room and taking a place in the corner of our sectional.
I opened Twitter on my laptop and decided to reply to Calum that way.
@Calum5SOS
you would have caught
on soon enough if i hadn't
told ya
@josieculls
Yeeeaaaahhhh I'll pretend to
believe you
I opened one of the articles that I was supposed to finish editing this weekend in another tab, and went back and forth between tabs as I continued talking to Calum. Probably taking about six or seven minutes to respond to Calum at a time.
@Calum5SOS
are you always up this early?
@josieculls
I wake up at five-thirty in
the morning for work
most of the time... so waking
up at seven o'clock on the
weekends is heaven
@Calum5SOS
that almost makes waking
up at eight feel late
I couldn't immediately think of a response, so I busied myself with editing for a while. But I switched back to Twitter to see another message from Calum.
@Calum5SOS
do you ever wake up and
enjoy a good cup of ... jo ;-)
@josieculls
Goodness, you ARE funny !!
I think 70% of my blood
might be coffee
I went back to editing, giving Calum plenty of time to respond.
@Calum5SOS
of course you're a coffee
addict... that makes sense
somehow
@josieculls
Coffee's my favorite drink, flavor,
and scent. I like consistency,
that's all.
I tried waiting for an answer for Calum, but he took longer than I expected, so I went back to editing. This time I took longer to switch back than I had previously been. When I switched back to Twitter, I had two messages from him.
@Calum5SOS
sounds like you're consistently
addicted, jo
well i don't want to bother
you too much on your
weekend off from having to
deal with me, but i thought
that tweet was kinda funny
and i wanted to chat. i hope
the rest of your sunday goes
well!
@josieculls
Feel free to bother me anytime!
My day's going to be filled with
work and friends who I have
a feeling will be asking me
about your band (believe it or
not)... so I don't know if it'll
be all that free from you ;)
I hope you have a good day
as well! :)
I didn't have very much left of the article I was editing—I always read through the articles about three times, and this was my third time reading—so I finished up before checking to see if Calum messaged back.
@Calum5SOS
sounds like a pretty good
sunday to me ;-)
(i'm only kidding, please
dismiss my behavior)
@josieculls
Again, you're reeeally funny.
Maybe you're right about being
the funny cute one. I'll see you
tomorrow!
I immediately exited Twitter as my heart pounded and I shook my head to myself. I had barely called him cute, but it made me feel guilty for some reason.
"Hey." I jumped as I heard a whisper from behind me—a giggle followed. I turned to look behind my shoulder to see Howie walking into the living room. I glanced back at my laptop screen to see it was nearing ten now and I wondered how an hour had passed.
"You scared me," I told him, speaking softly. I was always worried that my voice would carry and wake up Madalyn, even though I knew she was a heavy sleeper. "Is Mads still asleep?"
"Yeah," Howie told me, nodding. "I'm thinking she's going to have a bad morning... she got pretty wasted last night." Howie and Madalyn had gone on a double date with someone that Howie was friends with and ended up ordering a couple too many drinks. It happened every once in a while—Madalyn was always worse off than Howie. "I'm going to make some coffee, I'll be back."
Once Howie was out of the room, my phone dinged to tell me that Calum had messaged me back, but I simply deleted the notification and decided against looking. To distract myself, I got up from the couch and moved into the kitchen. I knew Howie would probably want to eat something, so I just sat in there with him.
"You didn't have to come in here," he told me, but I waved it off. It wasn't a secret that the kitchen was my favorite spot in the house, so I was sort of glad he'd be in here awhile. "How was your night?"
"Very boring," I told Howie as I thought back to the night before. "I busied myself by watching a couple of our videos last night... I don't know if Maddy told you, but I'm—"
"Oh! You're getting that new job, right?" I nodded my head, but immediately began to explain that it wasn't exactly a new job.
"It's just a summer project... I'm not fully transitioning to it or anything. I'm still just an editor," I explained, not wanting him to get too excited. "I'm just trying to get a feel for what I'll be doing. I'm hoping I'll like it. The interview was fun, but that's not really how all the videos I'm doing will go."
"I can't believe you're getting this opportunity, but I'm also thrilled for you. I think it's so cool that you're doing this. I would say you'll be the coolest girl on campus, but... people are doing cool shit all the time." I laughed at Howie's words and agreed that it was hard to feel cool on our school's campus. So many of the people we went to school with were so talented. "I am genuinely envious that you're spending time with 5 Seconds of Summer, Jo."
"You'll get to meet them!" I told him, still sure that it would eventually happen. "I'll make sure it happens, okay? I don't really know how, but... there's no reason it can't."
"I think I'd piss myself," Howie said and I made a face of disgust which caused him to chuckle. "It would make me so nervous to meet them!"
"They're really nice, you'd be fine after a couple of minutes of talking." I continuously tried to explain that they weren't nearly as intimidating or striking as people seemed to believe. "If you meet any of them, it'll be Luke... probably."
"My fingers are crossed," Howie told me, sending me a wink. "Maddy and I have been listening to their new album on repeat... I love it."
"I haven't listened to all of it yet, but the songs I've heard are really good. They're really talented." We both nodded in agreement as the coffee maker began to dispense the liquid into the cup that Howie had chosen.
"I can't believe you're fucking Luke Hemmings." I shook my head with an amused smile playing on my lips as Howie mumbled and he turned to glance at me, a small smirk playing on his lips. "You're a legend, Jo."
"Don't call me that," I said, rolling my eyes playfully.
"I'm serious! My kids are gonna know just how cool their Aunt Jo is." I smiled at Howie's words and thought about all the stories I'd have to tell people I met in the future, or my kids. I still planned on telling my mom at some point, which would be fun.
"By the time your kiddos are old enough to hear about my escapades, I think we'll be talking about how cool I was... it won't be a present thing." Howie playfully rolled his eyes and I smiled to myself as he turned away to grab his coffee.
"Maybe you'll have kiddos with Luke Hemmings..." Howie shrugged and my eyes rolled as I snorted.
"That is the last thing that will be happening... now or ever," I told him, but he didn't seem convinced. "I just had Calum Hood messaging me."
"She's double-timing?" Howie asked and I simply laughed at him. "Madalyn told me her dream of you falling in love with Calum so that she can be best friends with him."
"She's a little delusional," I told Howie—hoping he had figured that out by now. "He is a little flirty... but in a harmless, friendly kind of way."
"Jo, you think any guy that hits on you does it in a friendly kind of way."
"That is not true!" I protested, but Howie countered with a look, clearly not letting up. "You act like I have guys hitting on me often."
"You do, Josie! You just never think they're actually hitting on you." I decided I didn't want to fight with Howie, so I shut down the conversation.
"I absolutely feel like I've been hit by a train... that backed up and ran me over with each car a second time." Madalyn walked into the kitchen, her eyes barely open. She took a seat next to me and laid her head down on the countertop.
"Here, baby," Howie said as he brought Madalyn the coffee he had made for himself. "Drink some coffee."
"Thank you," she said, bringing her head up and reaching toward Howie, wanting a kiss. They kissed briefly and Howie returned to the coffee maker, making himself another cup.
"Josie was messaging with Calum Hood this morning." Working like a miracle, Madalyn perked up at Howie's words and excitedly smacked my arm.
"Ow, Mads!" I said, rubbing my arm to lessen the sting.
"Oh, sorry," she said, reaching forward and rubbing it gently as well. "What did you guys talk about?"
"We were just joking around with each other... it was a really short conversation. He sent me a girl's tweet of her calling me sweet and patient in contrast to the guy's being hard to handle during the interview. We only sent maybe 10 messages back and forth."
"He was being flirty," Howie said, causing my eyes to shut in frustration.
"In a friendly way!"
"Oh, cut the shit! Friendly flirting doesn't exist," Madalyn said, but I simply disagreed.
"I friendly flirt all the time!"
"No, you actually flirt and then friend zone people because you don't like commitment." My jaw dropped at Madalyn's slight psychoanalyzing, but she didn't seem to regret her words.
"I'm going to stop telling you all things," I said as I crossed my arms.
"Fine... we'll stop giving you a hard time," Madalyn said as she began to pout, even going as far to stick her tongue out at me. "Baby, can you make me a bowl of cereal?"
"Of course, baby." I pretended to be disgusted by the two of them, and they simply laughed at me. I found myself looking down at my phone that I had brought in with me. I decided to just look at Calum's message, knowing it probably wouldn't be anything that warranted a response anyways.
@Calum5SOS
i'm glad i have record of you
calling me cute and funny ;)
have a nice day, jo
I smiled to myself, but hid my expression by biting my lip. I refreshed my feed and lost my smile entirely as I saw that Luke had just tweeted something about the album. I figured if he was tweeting that he'd probably respond to my texts, too.
I clicked on his account to see that he had been replying to tweets from fans for the last forty minutes, however, and I was still lacking a text back.
I decided to stop worrying about it. If he didn't want to text me back, he wasn't obligated to. And from here on out, I'll just remember that if he texts me... I'm not obligated to respond, either.
a/n:
what a petty ending !!!!
omg...... calum and josie???? wtf?? that's wild ??? who decided to let that happen ?!!!
hehe
ok
that's all
ok actually one more thing: do any of u that write stories kind of find yourself becoming hyper aware of one or two readers??? and u kinda base your writing on their feedback?? LMAO that might sound crazy. i just get sorta attached to the interaction and feedback from one or two readers at a time !! and if they're not reading, i kinda lose motivation?? it's sorta annoying sometimes NOT OF THEM OF COURSE!!! but annoying that i kind of get this weird attachment ????
ok i sound absolutely nuts ... just disregard HAHAHA
ok bye
jill