Coming Up For Air

2.2

"You've got a tendency in taking all your clothes off
Oh man hot damn you've got a body like ohh
You've got a part of me addicted to the moment
Oh man hot damn I've fallen hard like ohh
I like it."
-We The Kings, "I Like It"

☂Ashton☂

"Sorry I'm late. I brought Chinese." Ashton was flushed with cold and happiness as he shrugged off his jacket in the hallway of Luke's new flat.

"Food? Yes." Luke was smiling and looking at Ashton and Ashton suddenly felt very self conscious and very warm.

"So..." Luke said, gesturing around the space, "This is it. Smaller. But it's nice and it always smells like coffee."

"Coffee smells good. I like it here," Ashton told him. Luke was wearing low slung red basketball shorts. Ashton tried to look at things other than his hips. (He couldn't.)

Luke, luckily, wasn't paying attention to Ashton's eyes. He was eating Kung Pow chicken on the kitchen counter and swinging his feet and being breathtakingly adorable, and Ashton wanted to tackle him but Luke wanted to take things slow, so instead Ashton just smiledsmiledbeamed because Luke was his version of perfection.

"Yay. You should come here a lot. I mean--wait. Yeah." Luke blushed a little. "I want you to...um..."

"Want me to...what?" Ashton grinned as he hopped up on the counter next to Luke and took out the box of potstickers Mrs. Wu had given him for free because she liked him and he was a regular.

"I just want you to want to be around me. I guess." Luke said quietly, like he was scared.

"I do." Ashton told him quietly, because he was scared. Not of Luke, but of other people like his grandmother, and other things like the fact that she was paying for his university.

"Yay." Luke smiled and Ashton was capsizing into an ocean that was the exact shade of blue that Luke's eyes turned when he was happy.

They ate in silence for a while. Luke occasionally hummed snatches of songs and Ashton tapped a nervous rhythm with his foot, and the mutedness was kind of nice until it was pummeled to pieces by the noisy opening of the front door.

"Lucas! Come help me with the groceries!" Calum called. All Ashton could see was his back as he seemed to have opened the door with his elbow.

"Christ, Calum. Did you buy enough food?" Luke laughed as he jogged the short distance to Calum and grabbed a few bags off of his arms.

"Do you want dinner tonight or not?"

"Not."

"Wow. I was going to try to make you that rice stuff I know you like, but I guess you don't appreciate me enough to deserve it." Calum pouted and turned around. "Oh, hello. Ashton?"

"You guys sound like a married couple." Ashton observed. "Hello."

"We have food. Ash brought it." Luke said, putting a jug of milk in the fridge. "What rice stuff that I like?"

"The Spanish shit. I don't know. Maybe we are married, Ashton. Jealous?" Calum smirked and took a potsticker from Ashton's box and Ashton felt like he belonged.

"Cal, don't be mean. I like Ashton." Luke reprimanded with his head buried in a cabinet, hands loaded with different kinds of pasta he was organizing.

Ashton smiled. Luke liked him.

"Shut up, Luke. You're making him blush." Calum grinned at Ashton insolently. Ashton blushed more deeply and looked down. And flipped him off.

"You know," Luke began, popping up from behind the counter, "What would be nice?"