something better. | calum hood

2 : a loss for words.

CALUM
January 2022

He'd been staring at his notebook for the better part of an hour.

The only thing written on it was this is not a blank piece of paper, signed off with a smiley face by one Ashton Irwin, who was in his living room with the rest of the guys, watching Luke and Michael throw insults back and forth as they played FIFA. In reality, they were supposed to be looking for their opening act for their tour in three months — but work and play tended to overlap whenever it came to them cracking down to business. It usually made for a funny song intro every now and again, something to throw on the record for their own amusement.

However right now it was just leading to Calum being frustrated and Luke getting his ass handed to him in a video game, so nothing good seemed to be coming of the overlap.

He really doesn't know where the writer's block came from. He'd just sat down one day with an urge to write, but when he picked up the pencil it was like his brain turned to TV static. Put the bass in his hands and his fingers would fly freely with a million different ideas for a bassline.

But you can't write a song with just the words ba da ba ba in place of lyrics. Unless you're One Direction — which Calum certainly was not.

So instead he suffers in almost-silence, while Duke sniffs at his calves like they're the most interesting thing in the world and he glowers at the sentence as though it personally offended him.

In the midst of his glowering, there's a knock on his door frame that has him looking up.

"Havin' any luck?" Ashton asks with his typical grin. Calum just grimaces and shakes his head in shameful surrender.

"Right where I started."

"Well put the pen down for a sec, we're gonna start looking at bands for an opener."

Calum is almost too quick to abide by the request. They were always particular about the opening act — which usually ended up in a lot of internet-scrounging and asking friends for their input. When he walks back into the living room and Duke takes the liberty of jumping onto the couch, Michael's already opened up his laptop while Luke scrolls through his phone with furrowed brows. He glances up, gives Calum a nod and a smile as he throws himself unceremoniously onto the couch and Ashton moves to the kitchen to grab a beer.

Calum cranes his neck to look at whatever Luke was looking at on his phone, namely a band he didn't recognize.

"What're you thinkin'?" he asks, and Luke glances at him momentarily.

"Sierra sent me a bunch of bands she and her friends saw that were doing smaller tours back when everything started opening up. Comin' up empty so far."

"Lot of people are already booked for the year, considering..." Michael pipes up from his spot, hunched over his computer. Calum just grunts in understanding as Ash makes his way back holding four beers by the necks and passing them out. They weren't the only people touring this year, considering everything that was postponed two years ago was resuming now.

There was also that sentimental aspect to it — they got put on the map opening for One Direction all that time ago (whether or not they were good was something they could debate about, but it definitely taught them a thing or two about stadiums and stage presence). Calum couldn't help the part of him that wanted to see whoever was opening for them go farther after the fact. It was nice to think they were uplifting someone else's art with a thirty-minute set.

"Oh God, not him," Calum says immediately, and Luke laughs, tilting his phone as though Calum needed to see better.

"Why not?"