*3 Weeks Later*
All of us sat on the ground of the living room of the L.A House and the guys had moved the furniture out of the way so that there was room for us to move about. It was their last night in the L.A. house for a long while. We had gotten back from the U.S tour only three weeks ago. Up until everything had settled down with Luke, Ashton, and I, I felt as if the tour was never going to end. I felt as if I was stuck in that whirlwind forever. But after that one night in New Orleans my mind cleared itself, at least for now, and the rest of the tour went by without a trace. But over the past few days my mind is beginning to spin again with the thought of these last nights with Ashton. They are going to London for some extra Europe show dates tomorrow. I know I should be focusing on the positives and be happy that I had these last few days to spend with Ash, and I have been, but now it was the last night and I don't know what to feel. And now here we are, all five of us together, in the living room, on the last night, playing twister.
"Okay so before I lay out the twister mat I would just like to clear up some rules." Calum says and everyone rolls their eyes at him.
"Calum everyone knows the rules to twister." Michael says laughing.
"No. These are my rules." Calum replies back.
"Your rules? Okay Cal, what are 'your' rules?" Ash says doing the quote signs with his fingers. Ash looks to me and smiles. His left arm is wrapped around my shoulder and I am sitting with my knees up leaning up against him.
"Well I'll tell you Ashton. There is really only one rule. Since past incidents that occurred on MY-" Calum puts the emphasis on my and points to himself "twister mat. The only rule I have for tonight and for anyone who ever wants to use MY twister game is-"
"just get on with it Calum!" Luke shouts impatiently.
"There will be absolutely no sex on this mat." Calum finally says and me, Michael, and Luke laugh but Ashton just sits there quietly smiling at the ground and shaking his head. He finally looks up at Calum and says,
"Smooth Cal. smooth." Ash says kissing me on the cheek.
"I'm sorry bro but I had to power wash it." Calum says giggling.
"We didn't actually have sex on the twister mat Cal." I say.
"Who cares. Let's just get on with it. Who is going first?" Michael finally says.
"Ladies first?" Ashton says smirking at me. I squint my eyes and nose at him.
"Fine." I say as I get up and I step onto the mat. Luke picks up the spinner and gives it a flick.
"Left hand red." Luke says smiling at me. It was amazing and so relieving to see Luke really smile again. I could tell he wasn't faking being happy like he was before, even though it wasn't that hard to tell because he was literally shit at faking his feelings. I smiled back at him and I reach way up into the sky and then I slam my hand down on the red dot.
"Boom. Done. Next." I say flipping my hair with my left hand.
"She gets quite competitive. Last time she blamed me for her loss." Ashton says.
"That's because you wouldn't stop-" I pause thinking about that day we played twister the night before we left on that journey of problems. I think about the way he kissed me and the way he touched me and then I start to think about how I was going to miss him so desperately. "That's because you wouldn't stop tickling me." I decided to use the word tickling instead of the other words because I wasn't really in the mood for the other guys' jokes about Ash and I's physical relationship. Even though Calum's joke about the mat was pretty fucking funny.
"Hey babe if you want to make excuses go ahead." Ashton says jokingly getting ready for his turn.
"Alright Ash left hand blue." Luke says enthusiastically. Ashton walks over and places his left hand over my body and puts his hand on the blue dot next to mine. I can feel his torso leaning up against my side and I can feel him breathing on my neck.
"Don't slip and crush me." I tell him.
"Don't worry babe I won't crush your body. I'll just crush you at this game." Ashton says slamming his lips against mine.
"Hell no. I'm going to crush every single one of you." Michael gets up and Luke tells him to place his right foot yellow.
After a long while of turns Ash and I are the final ones on the mat and we are finally tangled so much that one wrong move at this point can cause one of us to tumble.
"Okay Ash you ready." Calum says flicking the spinner. "Right foot green." Calum says proudly knowing that if Ashton moves his right foot he will no doubt slip. I smirk at myself, finally, I know I love him but I want to beat him. His right and left hands were on red, his right foot was on green and his left foot was on blue. If he moved his right foot he would be in pushup position and I know Ash is strong but there is no way he could hold that position for longer than a few minutes. Ashton hesitantly slides his right foot to a green dot and now he was holding his weight up with just his toes and arms. I stared at the way his muscles tensed up and I imagined his strong arms around me. Stop it. I can't think about those things right now if I do I'll start to miss them and I can't be sad right now. I have to focus.
"Can you hold it babe?" I ask him.
"If anyone should know it's you babe. I can go all night." Ashton whispers in my ear. His face is starting to turn red, he looks at me and smirks. I begin to blush and my hands become clammy.
"Oh really?" I say and I pop my hip out sending Ash falling down onto his side.
"DANI WINS!" Michael shouts.
"That's not fair you bumped me!" Ashton says lying down on the floor.
"Hey babe if you want to make excuses." I say mocking what he said to me at the beginning of the game. He gives me an uneasy smirk and then he grabs my legs and me slam onto the mat.
"Ow Ashton!" I say smiling. All the guys giggle.
"Alright well we're going to dinner. We have reservations." Luke says helping you up.
"Alright well we'll see you later tonight then." Ashton says to them and they all wave goodbye and leave. Ashton and I went to dinner with everyone last night so that we could have some alone time tonight.
"They're gone. Thank goodness!" Ash says lifting me up and twirling me around. He slowly slides me down, causing my shirt to lift up slightly, and our bodies slide up against each others until we are face to face and my arms are wrapped around his neck.
"The night is still young. What do you want to do?" he asks. The truth was I don't know what I want to do. He said the night was young which was true it was only 8:30 P.M. but I could feel it moving by fast. To fast. Why was it that the moments we want to last forever only seem to last for a few seconds. I can't think of anything I want to do but just talk and lay in his arms. "Babe?" he asks me. He must've noticed I was lost in thought.
"Hmm oh. No Ash it's up to you. This is your last day. What do you want to do?" I say smiling at him. He looks down and I can tell he was starting to get sad about the circumstances as well.
"You know what I have a great idea, grab your coat we are going outside." Ashton says giving me a peck on the cheek and I walk upstairs to get my coat wondering what Ashton could possibly be thinking.
I open the front door and am greeted by a grinning Ashton.
"What?" I ask, "Why are you so excited?". He just smiles back at me and reaches out his hand, offering it to me. I roll my eyes playfully, and grab it. He pulls me through the backyard and down the little staircase out by the fence. The house was on a cliff so there was a little platform not far down. We got down to the wooden platform and Ash sits down on one of the chairs pulling me on top of him. "Ash what are we doing?" I ask again, getting a little annoyed at his secrecy.
"Look up." He simply says. I just do as I'm told and smile. We look at the sky full of stars. We were in L.A. so there weren't that many due to the light pollution, but the longer you looked, the more you'd see. They were beautiful. We sat there for a moment and just looked at the stars.
"You see that one?" He says out of the blue, pointing his hand at a star in the sky.
"Mhmm." I reply.
"Do you like it?" He asks me again. I laugh a little because of the strange question.
"Yeah, I guess." I say. I can feel him smiling from behind me and he pulls something out of his pocket. He's silent for a moment and so am I, it's just quiet.
"When I'm gone," he starts. I frown as I remember what's happening tomorrow. For a moment I had forgotten that he'd be leaving me. "I want you to look at that star, and think of us." I smile a little, where was this going? "I want you to think about all of the times we had on tour. I want you to think about everything we've been through, good and bad." My mind wonders to Luke when he says that. "I want you to think about how much I love you." I giggle when he says that.
"How will I know how much you love me?" I ask.
"Just know I love you from here, to that star, and back, times a million." He says cheekily from behind me. "And, to be exact, that is 335,201,309 light years away." He adds. I'm confused for a moment and turn to him,
"How do you kno-" he pulls a piece of paper out and holds it in front of me,
"Because of this." I take the paper from him and read it. It's a certificate. A certificate for a star.
"Wha-"
"Its yours. Say hello to Daniella Irwin." I smile. Wait, did he say Daniella Irwin? As in his last name?
"Wait, did you say Irwin?" I ask him.
"Yeah, I thought it had a nicer ring to it." He replies. I decide to mess with him a little.
"So what, you don't like my last name? What's wrong with Conners?" He suddenly stops and gets really worried and flustered.
"No! There's nothing wrong with- I mean, it's great- I just thought- ummm..." I laugh and he relaxes a bit. "You're messing with me." He says, understanding.
"Mhmm." I laugh a little.
"That's not nice." He says, rubbing his hands over my stomach.
"Well I'm not the nicest person." I reply, turning my body to face him.
"No you're not." He grins smugly at me. I kiss him and his hands move down to my lower back. I run my hands through his hair and he smiles. I pull away a little and rest my forehead against his. "I'm gonna miss you so much." I say, upset. He puts his hand on my cheek and rubs it with his thumb.
"You have no idea. But hey, it's only a couple of weeks, I'll be back before you know it." He says, trying to remain positive. I can tell he's hiding his disappointment but it's nice to have him try.
"I know, but 3 weeks can be a long time when I'm not next to you." I admit.
"I know babe, I know."
"And I just feel like if you go, bad things are going to happen."
"Hey, Dan..." Ashton says lifting my chin up with his fingers. His hazel eyes stare into mine and he smiles. "The worst is over. Everything is going to be okay." He says and I lean in and kiss him as I run my hands through his curls and I feel his hands rub up and down my back. I pull away slowly and he rests his lips on my forehead.
"Do you promise?" I ask.
"I promise."
END OF BOOK ONE