Ease [Cashton/Muke]

Chapter eighteen

"I'm bored of him, can you please call Riersack while I'm at lunch?" Calum says as he reaches for his coat and gets ready to catch up with Michael for an hour. "How is Ashton supposed to make an informed decision about staying at school if the main problem is gone but then comes back Monday?"
"You want me to get a stalker who has verbally and physically harassed your submissive unsuspended?" Maggie groans.
"Something like that." Calum shrugs.
"I really do deserve the pay rise you were talking about while inebriated this morning." She mumbles.
"What?" Calum cocks his head sideways in confusion as lift opens.
"Nothing. Enjoy lunch." The assistant grins, waving Calum off as he steps into the lift.

Calum sighs as he steps out of the lift and starts walking through the foyer and out into the inner city streets. Whenever he goes out to visit Ashton in the suburbs it feels a world away. He imagines how things will be when Ashton does eventually move in with him. He's already looking forward it.

"Geez, what's got you grinning so wide?" Michael teases as Calum approaches the only place they ever meet for lunch on autopilot.
"Oh hi." Calum blinks, slowly coming to his senses. "How are you?" Calum asks as he sits down.
"Damn, you really are whipped for him." The older chuckles.
"What?" Calum furrows his eyebrows.
"You came in here grinning like a fool and your body was on autopilot because I asked why exactly you were grinning, though it's not as if I didn't know, and it's as if you never heard me."
"Hm." Is all Calum replies, looking at the menu for any new additions. That ever changing menu was one of the reasons he and Michael could keep coming back here and without getting bored.

"Shall we start with small talk, how's business?" Calum starts as he closes his menu and looks across at his best friend.
"It's the same as always. New features coming and decisions about which old ones to scrap -but we're not here for small talk." Michael says flatly. Calum says nothing. Michael can ask the questions he wants to know the answers to.

The conversation is momentarily halted as they order their lunch from the waitress but then Michael is launching his enquiry.
"Spill. I want all the details. We last properly spoke Thursday, before he had ever stayed the night? How was that? Why was he at your office yesterday? I feel that a lot has happened in six days." Michael purses his lips and leans back in his chair.
"Friday was mostly good. He slept in a guest room, which I didn't mind. We talked a lot. Then Monday the bad from Friday got worse, then yesterday it got worse again and so he stayed the night last night as well -so we could talk." If there's one person who Calum tells everything to, it's Michael. Michael hadn't been matched with a submissive yet but Calum still wanted his advice.
"What's this 'mostly good' and 'bad to worse' business? What's going on? Is he-"
"He's not doing anything." Calum is quick to squash any thoughts in Michael's head. "It's about what other people are doing him." Calum says frustratedly.
"You're gonna need to tell me more."

"They-" Calum stops himself to reconsider the best way to approach this. "Say you're in my situation, being that you've just been matched with a sub who's still in high school. If people your sub went to school with were bullying your sub because of who you were, what would you do?" Calum's voice is desperate and he sees Michael slowly break it down and understand the situation in his head.
"Oh my god..." Michael says quietly. "How bad is it?"
"Intially just teasing and verbal insults, then it escalates to your sub being spat on and shoved. Then," Calum pauses for a moment, needing to prepare himself mentally to talk about this. "Someone follows your sub home from school, just so they can pick on them for an extra fifteen minutes I suppose."
"Cal..." Is all Michael can manage to get out.

Between them it's silent for a few long moments, the sound just being the whirring and white noise of this fancy restaurant.
"What would you do?" Michael hears the vulnerability and desperation in his best friend's voice. The way his heart breaks because he feels responsible and he just wants to make everything better. Michael takes a shaky breath before he launches into a semi-considered answer.

"I would meet with the principal- okay based on the look you're giving me you have. Um, fuck, like, get all kids doing it suspended or expelled. This is hard. You're basically superman right now dealing with this and still doing your million business meetings and keeping your company afloat. I'm proud of you Cal."
"Thanks." Calum smiles a little, easily allowing the conversation to break as their lunch arrives at the table.

"I got the one who followed him home suspended." Calum drops casually.
"That's good!" Michael says encouragingly but the brunette isn't satisfied.
"Say it." Calum adds but Michael just looks at him as if he doesn't know what his friend means -and to some extent he doesn't. "Say what you would want to do."
"I-"
"Say. It." Calum demands, needing to hear the words from Michael's mouth.
"I would want to pull them from school." Michael sighs.
"Bingo." Is all Calum says before swallowing a mouthful of food.

"Wait- you've already done that?"
"Not exactly. Just mentioned it to the principal as an option."
"And-" Michael stops himself, looking around and realising they're yet to say Ashton's name. "Him?"
"That was what last night was about. He initially got up and left the table but he said that was just because it shocked and scared him how much he wants it. He's miserable. He's unsafe. It hurts me so much to see him go through it."
"Well then the decision is easy right?" Michael queries.

"What if I'm getting it all wrong? Sure he can just do his work at home, I can get him tutors, he's still going to graduate but; what if this isn't what's right?"
"Please." Michael scoffs. "Surely you've learnt by now in business that every decision we make is a risk. No one's ever completely sure of anything. This is exactly the same."
"Yeah. I suppose. It's just terrifying."
"He's unsafe Cal," Michael says gently. "This isn't a question anymore."

A/N: hello! I really like this chapter and I hope you all do as well! It's a double update today technically but it wasn't supposed to be, I was just stupid and left seventeen in my drafts for two days. Anyway. Thank you so so so so much for getting this story to over 1K reads that means the world to me and I'm pretty sure it's the fastest a story of mine has ever reached this milestone. All the love always :)

-GW xo