Both Sides of the Story [cake au.]

twenty-one

a/n: I was gonna hit y'all with an epilogue, I really was, but I figured I might give you a one chapter warning

[4 months later.]

"He's still scared, Calum. That's not something that's going to change in the span of a few months," Mikey sighed, looking at Calum pointedly.

Calum groaned, putting his head down on the counter of the tattoo parlour. "But I'm so in love with him, Mikey. I need him to understand that."

"I'm sure he does, Cal," Mikey murmured kindly. "But you can't forget that he knew Chloe for fourteen years, and she still did him wrong even when she claimed she loved him more than anything in the world. There's no doubt he's apprehensive of the whole subject, Cal. You kinda made it worse by just walking out the door when you could've resolved the problem easily. You can't really blame him." Mikey shrugged. He had said it so plainly, as though it was obvious.

Closing his eyes, Calum tried to think. Luke and he had had an argument a few days ago, leading to them completely ignoring each other afterwards.  He had asked Ashton for help, but someone who wasn't that close to Luke could only help that much. Calum sighed, his thoughts drifting back to that evening.

Luke had just been working on a tattoo, sitting across from Calum at the breakfast counter with his head ducked, when Calum said it.

"I love you so much," he murmured, loud enough for Luke to hear over the chattering of his daughters.

His hand froze, pencil stilling before dropping as he looked up at his boyfriend. "You- what?"

"I love you," Calum repeated, this time sounding more sure of himself. He had totally misinterpreted Luke's reaction. "It's okay if you're not ready, or don't feel the same way. I just want you to know that I'm in love with you."

Luke pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose, looking almost frightened. "Maybe you should... Hold off on that statement. "

"What?" Calum asked, furrowing his eyebrows. "Why?"

"It's only been, what, six months? Calum..." Luke sighed, closing his sketchbook. "I don't- You can't be in love with me. Not... Not this soon."

A bit irritated at that statement, Calum huffed. He leaned back in his hair, crossing his arms as his eyes challenged Luke's. "And why not?"

"You barely know me. This is still something relatively new. You can't already be in love with me." Luke was trying to reason, but Calum wasn't having it.

"Fuck, Luke, why aren't you believing me?!"

"I do believe you! I just think you need to think about it a bit more before saying something like that." Luke ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

Calum didn't respond to that immediately. Instead, he got up, pushing his chair in with more force than needed, and walked the two meters to grab his shoes.

"Are- Are you leaving?" Luke asked, his voice much quieter than it had been.

Looking up from tying his shoes, Calum saw that Luke was also standing up and had taken off his glasses. "Yeah. No point sticking around when you're trying to invalidate my feelings."