Ease [Cashton/Muke]

Chapter fifteen

"What are you doing here?" Maggie narrows her eyes at Michael as she and Ashton step out of the lift. Calum should be out of his meeting in 5 or so minutes but here Michael was, lounging casually on the leather couch in the top floor foyer.
"I would have waited in his office but you seem to have locked that." He quips.
"You know there's sensitive information in there. God, it's so easy to forget you run a company of your own. Though you do spend so much of your time here harassing Calum and I." Maggie rolls her eyes, dumping her KFC packaging in the bin.
"It is not harassing." Michael huffs indignantly.

"Ashton. This is Michael Clifford. Calum's best friend, though I can't imagine why, and CEO of Scorpion Technology." Maggie turns back to Ashton to include him in the conversation, sighing as she speaks.
"The famous Ashton Irwin. Pleasure to meet you." Michael grins.
"H-hi." Ashton gulps shyly because dear god why is everyone in Calum's life so rich and powerful.

Maggie opens Calum's office and allows Michael and Ashton to follow her in. Before someone has to try and save the awkward tension with some small talk, Maggie sees Holly approaching her desk.
"Oh!" Maggie jumps up quickly. "The meetings over then?"
"Yeah, they're just saying final goodbyes. Here's the minutes but I'm having trouble transferring the audio file." Holly replies, handing Maggie the notebook as she speaks.
"Michael!" Maggie calls over her shoulder.
"What?" He mutters, loud enough for her to hear but by no means yelling.
"How do we transfer a two hour audio file? You designed this technology."
"A two hour- oh my god." Michael says dryly as he approaches the two women where they stand next to Maggie's desk.

Calum walks out of the conference room with a satisfied smile, everything had gone to plan. He strolls back to his office and his smile widens when he sees Ashton in his office, sitting on an armchair playing on his phone.
"Hey Sweetheart." Calum says softly, beaming when Ashton looks up at him and softens. Ashton has been surrounded by unfamiliar people and places without anyone he was familiar with for two hours now so he happily gets up and melts into the arms of his dom.
"Hi. Missed you." Ashton mumbles quietly as Calum just holds him for a moment.

"Are you okay? Was everyone nice to you? Alec and Maggie?" Calum asks, a little off put by Ashton's comment.
"Yeah I just, I wasn't expecting so many unfamiliar things all at once." Ashton replies as he pulls back from the hug.
"I'm sorry sweets, now we can go home, just the two of us, and relax and talk about our day." Calum says reassuringly, picking up Ashton's bag for him and collecting the things he needs to be ready to head out.

"Oh Holly you're still here- Michael?" Calum says confusedly as he walks out of his office, previously having missed the familiar mop of dirty blonde hair hunched over his assistants computer.
"Oh hey." Michael grins, looking up. "I came to pick you up for our hot date but then I got roped into providing tech support."
"Oh shit, I'm so sorry I forgot. Let's arrange a time to call tomorrow."
"To talk about..." Michael trails, tacking on a silent ending that only Calum can understand, still clicking around on the computer.
"Yes to talk about that, we can't do it now, did you wanna be anymore obvious?" Calum says back sarcastically.
"Literally no one has any idea what you're going on about." Maggie deadpans. She may have worked with Calum for four years but it's nothing on their fifteen years of friendship.

"I was just gonna say to Holly, thank you again for stepping in. We'll be off now. See you in the morning Mags and I'll chat with you sometime tomorrow Mike. Be sure to arrange that before you leave." Calum says, grabbing Ashton's hand and waving goodbye as the other three mumble their own farewells and continue to sort out the damned audio file.

"Did you wanna pick up some dinner on the way home?" Calum says as he walks with Ashton toward the building's garage.
"Sure, sounds good." Ashton says, already more relaxed now that he's just with his dom.
"Go into contacts on my phone and under restaurant there's a heap of different contacts, all with a different last name for each place. Call whoever you fancy and order whatever." Calum hands Ashton his phone as they reach the cars, Calum hums at his options.

"Which car do you wanna take sweets?"
"I- I really don't know." Ashton replies, overwhelmed by the choices. Calum approaches the safe of keys then looks back at his various cars and decides on a small, bright blue, SUV.

Ashton decides on Chinese and after discussing the order with Calum they agree on getting a serve of pork dumplings, vegetable fried rice and some seafood noodles. He makes the call and they're at the restaurant 10 minutes later.

"You know," Calum hums as they wait for their order to be ready. "I've been meaning to give you a card."
"A card..." Ashton trails quietly. He's 95% sure he knows exactly what kind of card Calum is talking about but he doesn't want to jump to any conclusions.
"A debit card connected to my accounts."
"Oh..." Ashton doesn't feel right to take that from Calum but he has a feeling Calum is insisting.
"You don't seem sure." Calum ponders.
"I just, it's a lot. I feel like you spoil me too much. I don't deserve so much." Ashton stays quiet, not feeling comfortable with anyone in the shop overhearing -though it's mostly empty anyway.
"Hush." Calum says fondly, moving closer to his sub and wrapping his arm around the younger boy. "You do deserve it. You deserve everything. You know I can give it to you sweets, I want to."

Calum finishes talking and plants a kiss on Ashton's temple. Ashton just hums and they sit in silence until their order is called out.

A/N: all I have to say is that I'm officially starting three updates a week, the Wednesday will instead be Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday will stay as is. Thanks as always for the love :)

-Grace Williams xo