She stared.
Of all the things Calum Hood expected a complete stranger to do, she, instead of screaming, stared at him.
“May I help you?” She put her eyebrows together to show confusion.
For a moment, Calum was taken aback, but remained his composure. He raised his chin even higher than it already was, and looked down at the girl seated on his permanent seat. “You’re in my seat.”
To his surprise, the girl scoffed. “I’m seated on this chair, therefore it’s mine.”
Calum resisted the urge to shout. “I’ve been going here for years whenever I’m home, and this is my permanent seat.”
“Does it have your name on it?” The girl raised her perfectly plucked eyebrow.
“N-no,” Calum stepped back. “But it’s mine!”
“I don’t think so.” She sang with a smug.
“Well, your name isn’t on it, either, so it’s not yours.” Calum debated.
“But are you seated on it? No.”
Calum frowned and stomped away, back to the counter of the small coffee shop where one of his three band mates stood waiting for his coffee.
“Michael,” Calum called from behind him.
He turned around with a puzzled look. “What?”
“A girl’s seated on my seat.” Calum said lowly.
Michael choked a laugh. “Yeah, right. Don’t mess with me, Cal.”
“I’m serious!” Calum whined. “Go take a look, come with me.”
After Michael received his coffee from the barista, Calum immediately pulled his friend by the sleeve and dragged him to the left side corner of the cozy coffee shop to show him the unknown girl seated on the long mahogany table they claimed as theirs.
Michael walked straight to the table with a mixture of puzzlement and annoyance evident in his actions.
“What are you doing here?” He straightforwardly asked with a scowl.
The girl continued to comfortably sip on her beverage for three more seconds before she replied blankly, “having a cup of coffee.”
“Here?” Michael raised his eyebrows and stabbed his finger on the wooden table. “Here?”
“Yes, here.” She rolled her eyes.
“You can’t sit here.” Calum chirped in from behind Michael.
“What is this, Mean Girls?” She snorted.
Michael looked at Calum with a skeptical expression and sat down across the girl with a glare. “Look, kid, this”—he jabbed his finger yet again on the table—“is our table. Not yours.”
“Who’s this our we’re talking about?” She made quotation marks with her fingers.
“Unbelievable,” Michael muttered under his breath.
“What’s your name?” Calum took a seat next to her.
“Four,”
“Like, the number?” Calum scratched the back of his head.
She nodded and turned her plastic cup around to reveal the loopy scribble of the barista. Four, it said. “Like the number.”
Calum cleared his throat. “Okay, Four, look, this is our table. Our, as in, his and my table.”
“Your table?” She raised her eyebrows and pointed to the two boys back and forth. “The two of you own this table? What are you, a couple?”
Michael clenched his jaw. “We’re in a band, and surely, you’ve heard of us.”
Four wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think so, sorry.”
Michael sneered. “You don’t need to lie, you don’t need to act cool around us.”
“I’ve never heard of you guys, sorry to burst your bubble.” She shrugged.
When Michael was about to respond with a sarcastic laugh, their two other band mates approached the table; one with a pair of sunglasses, and the other with a lip ring. They took their respective seats, Ashton beside Michael and Luke beside Calum.
“Who’s she?” Ashton nodded towards the girl in front of him and looked at Michael expectantly. “Did you bang her?”
Michael scoffed. “Fuck, no.”
Ashton’s eyebrows went together behind his heavily tinted sunglasses. “I don’t remember banging her.” He looked at Calum. “Did you—oh, of course you didn’t.”
“Hey!” Calum pouted.
“So why is she here if no one knocked her up?” Luke sipped from his own cup of coffee and started lighting a cigarette.
Michael shrugged. “No one knows.”
Four cleared her throat to get their attention. “I wanted a cup of coffee.”
“And you sat here?” Luke laughed.
“What’s so wrong with sitting here?” Four threw her hands in the air in exasperation. “It’s a free country, isn’t it?”
“This is our table!” Michael groaned, getting tired of saying the same sentence.
“She doesn’t know us?” Luke raised his eyebrows and looked at his other band mates questioningly.
“I don’t!” Four sighed. “And I don’t care, to be honest.”
“We’re 5 Seconds of Summer.” Calum said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, which, to Four, was not. “Worldwide famous band, touring the world, more than a hundred sold-out shows…” he rambled on until Four sighed yet once more, louder.
“Again, I don’t care!” Four rolled her eyes. “What does being in a band have to do with this table, anyway?”
“You actually need talent to sit on it.” Ashton hissed.
Calum rolled his eyes and ignored Ashton’s comment. “Four—“
“Four?” Luke repeated.
“Her name is Four.” Michael explained impatiently and motioned Calum to continue.
“Four, we’re a band. We’re a group of friends who dominate the world. This is our table, and we’ll find a way to make sure you never step less than a meter away from this table.” Calum said slowly, as if explaining it to a toddler.
“Are you new in town?” Michael questioned.
“Yeah, I just moved in this morning.” Four shrugged and sipped some more from her coffee.
“That explains a lot.” Ashton sighed.
“Okay, Four,” Luke cleared his throat, “this is a very small town, and everyone knows everyone else around here. You know what else everyone knows? That this is 5 Seconds of Summer’s table. Only the members of 5 Seconds of Summer can sit here. We claimed this as our table even before we became this famous.”
“So what does banging me have to do with this?” Four could feel her head start to pound from the information overload.
“We have a set of rules for this table.” Michael said, “and we have a few exceptions for people who can sit here.”
“And I’m not one of them.” Four rolled her eyes.
“Obviously.” Ashton grunted.
“Unless you want to have sex with one of us.” Luke smirked.
“In your dreams.”
