drivers licence || calum hood

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙍𝙀𝙀

"Like I said before, Ash. I don't like her like that! I hardly know her! Besides...You already know my motto! It's that love sucks and nobody should do it!" Calum rants as he clicks the buttons on his controller rapidly.

Ashton looks towards the bassist with a slightly concerned expression and shakes his head, "Cal...I thought you were kidding when you said that." He admits in a whisper.

"Why would I be kidding about that, Ash?"

"I don't know! I just didn't think you hated the thought of love that much!" Ashton groans, unsure of how to take any of this due to Calum's behaviour towards him at the moment.

"You know what happened last time!" Calum scoffs and scrunches his nose up in displeasure.

"I know, I know..." Ashton sighs, deciding to just drop the topic for now since he knew that he won't get anywhere if he keeps annoying Calum about it.

"Now can I go back to playing FIFA in peace?"

"In peace? You guys were just elbowing and yelling at each other five minutes ago..." Ashton trails off and frowns while looking at his bandmates.

"Yeah. That's our kind of peace, Ash--Not having you nag and bitch at us about whatever." Michael interjects. Ashton's face scrunches up into an offended expression, but chooses not to begin a fight with the bassist and guitarist; especially while they're playing a video game together.

With some hesitation, he heads out of their shared living room and instead into his bedroom to see what he could do about this predicament Calum has found himself in — despite his denial. "What an Idiot..." He whispers to himself, even though he can understand why Calum feels the way he does towards love; he just wishes things worked out differently for the bassist.

Truthfully, Ashton knows that all of this is none of his business BUT as the eldest he felt a need to look after his younger bandmates. He's always been like this ever since he was young, due to the fact he had no father figure and had to help his mother raise his two younger siblings.

"Okay, Ashton...Here we go." The drummer murmurs and unlocks his phone to look up Richie's Instagram to DM her. He knows this is all very odd, but he just wants things to work out, besides he also really enjoyed her company and wants to be better friends with her.

Getting a job at her local grocery store wasn't ideal, Richie would have much rather been on another acting gig or at least have gotten a job at one of her favourite stores, Hot Topic. Unfortunately, Richie had to take what she could get at the moment, which is a cashier gig at the closest Whole Foods.

She hated her boss, her co-workers and everything about the job. Especially since Monica and herself can't even afford to shop at the overly expensive grocery store, so it felt like she's in a place she doesn't belong.

Richie stands at her cash register with a bored expression and takes a slow glance around the store, trying to lay her eyes on anything mildly entertaining. As expected, the more she hopes, the more things don't go her way. There's not even one middle age mother trying to ask for the manager, which is odd considering it's something that happens a ton.

The fact that nothing was happening and the only thing filling the void was music playing throughout the store is slowly driving Richie insane.

She wants to quit this job, she has since the moment she got hired. The only thing that's keeping her from quitting is that she needs to help her older cousin out, especially in during the time she's not getting small gigs—like right now.

An exasperated sigh comes from Richie's lips upon feeling her phone buzz in her back pocket, in any other circumstance she wouldn't have even checked her phone.

But, she figured as there was no one at her register that she could pull out her phone and not have the manager or supervisor come over to berate her.

"Don't get too excited, it's probably just Monica telling you what's for dinner." She mutters to herself and unlocks her phone, only to see the notification is from Instagram not iMessage.

A surprised expression flashes upon her face to see the message was from Ashton Irwin. "Holy shit." She whispers and goes to respond to the DM but unfortunately had a customer come to her register.

Richie quickly tucks her cellphone into her back-pocket and looks towards the customer with a forced smile, "Hi, How are you doing today?" She asks, having to force herself to be polite even though the woman's daughter was giving her weird looks.

The girl had to be about twelve or thirteen years old but clearly is very judgmental and her mother doesn't seem to notice or care. "Shoot, I forgot something in the frozen food isle. I'll be right back. Ginny, stay right here with the nice cashier, Okay?"

Without another word the black haired woman was off in the direction of the frozen food isle, which leaves Richie all alone with Ginny. This is something she would have preferred not to happen, especially with the way the girl was staring her down while sipping at her Frappuccino.

Ginny chews on the plastic green straw and checks if her mother is coming, before returning her gaze to Richie. "I know who you are, y'know." She remarks in a bland tone.

"Excuse me?" Richie asks, confused to how a pre-teen could know who she is. The pre-teen rolls her eyes as if Richie had to be the stupidest person she had ever come across and lets out an exasperated sigh.

"You're the slut that's been hanging out with 5SOS." Ginny replies, this explaining the girls behaviour towards her.

"I'm not a sl—"

Before Richie could even finish her sentence, she's cut off by the mixed drink hitting her in the face. Not only did it get on her skin but it also found its way into her hair and onto her clothes, which doesn't fail to make her look like a hot mess.

"Oh my god." She whispers, horrified on how something like this could happen just because she was seen hanging out with a famous band.

It felt like time had gone still for a moment and was only broken once one of her co-workers, Carolina, had approached. "Richie, go home. I can take your shift from here." The blonde tells her, this probably being the nicest thing she has ever said or done for Richie in her entire time working at Whole Foods.

"Thank You." Richie rushes off into the staff room and looks in the mirror as she pulls her phone out to attempt calling Monica.

Unfortunately, the call had gone to voicemail signaling that Monica herself is still at work and won't be able to pick her up, meaning she'll have to walk home.

"Looks like I got my wish...Something happened." Richie laughs sarcastically and wipes some of the Frappuccino off her face with some paper towel.

She doesn't attempt to wipe the substance out of her hair and clothes, knowing that she'd somehow make it worse. After tucking her phone away and grabbing her bag from her locker, Richie flees the establishment as quick as she could.

Once she made it home, Richie takes a much needed shower and tries her best to relax after her incident at work.

After showering and dressing herself, she grabs her phone from the table to check Ashton's DM like she had intended earlier.

The message itself isn't anything special, but it includes Ashton's number and says to call him when she had time.

"Whoa." She murmurs and shakily begins to dial the number into her phone.

Almost right away Richie got an answer, which scares the shit out of her but she manages to keep her composure.

"Hello?"