Storm | Ashton Irwin AU

chapter ten // linger

Ashton

He untied the red bandanna that was around his head, shaking his unkept curls free. It was Friday night, and Ashton was drunk and bored. He had no reason to be at this stupid party, but he was officially no longer grounded and he didn't want to spend his first weekend of freedom at home playing video games.

"Remind me why we came here?" Ashton turned to Luke who was sitting on the couch beside him.

Luke shrugged, "Because you thought my idea to stay at your house and play Xbox was - and I quote - "lame'" 

On the opposite side of the room, a brunette was pressed between Michael Clifford and the living room wall. His hands were travelling over her body and Ashton wondered what Willow would think if she were here. Willow, he thought with a sigh.

The party would have been more fun for Ashton had Willow been there but she apparently she was at Girl's Night. In all honesty, Ashton would have preferred to be at girl's night. If Jasmine would have let him. 

"I don't know what she sees in him," Ashton muttered, watching Michael separate his lips from the girls for just a moment and then moving to her neck.

"He isn't that bad," Luke reasoned, earning a mocking laugh from Ashton. It was such a Luke thing to say. He was annoyingly nice but obscenely shy at the same time. Most people thought he was a little strange. 

"He isn't good enough for her," Ashton said. "Why can't she like someone like... like...," he paused for a moment. He couldn't think of anyone who was good enough for his Willow. "I'm going to get some air," he told Luke before going outside and laying on the driveway. 

Ashton rested his head against the pebbled concrete, looking up at the blanket of darkness. There seemed to be more stars stitched into the sky that night. It reminded him of Willow's eyes, all wild darkness and full of magic.

He closed his eyes for a moment and immediately regretted it. He felt dizzy, like he might throw up. When he opened them again, he breathed in the night air. It smelled like Spring, a combination of freshly mowed grass and smokey barbecues. 

Ashton thought back to his bed, and how his pillow was beginning to smell like Willow. Like coconuts and coffee beans. He pulled out his phone and started typing a message, with one eye closed to steady his blurry vision: I likee cudddling you in my bed. We shouldd cuddle more otfen. 

Willow

"That was definitely not better than Dirty Dancing," Jasmine protested, taking the Footloose dvd out of the dvd player.

"Yes it was! Ren is so hot. Dirty Dancing is a good movie, but I don't know, Patrick Swayze just doesn't do it for me," Zoe shrugged, scooping a handful of popcorn out of the bowl and shoving it into her mouth. Literally, shoving, like she hadn't eaten for a month.

"You can't say that!" Jasmine said with wide eyes. Then she leaned in closer towards Zoe and whispered "It's disrespectful, he died..."

"That doesn't mean I have to say he is hot!" Zoe argued.

So far, girl's night had been surprisingly enjoyable. Willow wouldn't go as far as saying it had been fun, but definitely enjoyable. Jasmine had hired out a bunch of old 80's movies, served up an endless supply of snacks and even delighted Willow by getting Tom to buy them a bottle of vodka. 

The fact that the bottle of clear liquor remained unopened was a sign the night was going better than Willow expected.

Beth had barely spoken a word, not unexpectedly. She was sitting to the left of Zoe, her legs drawn up so that her chin was resting on her knees. 

Zoe and Jasmine were in a heavy discussion of rating the leading men in the pile of DVD's from one to ten when Willow's phone buzzed and she swiped it open, reading the message from Ashton. 

I'd like that. You give good cuddles, McDrunky, she quickly replied.

"Who was that?" Jasmine teased in a sing-song voice, pausing from her and Zoe's discussion. In case you were wondering, Bender from The Breakfast Club was in the lead with a rating of a 9.5. "If I had a time machine, I would go back to the 80s and bang him," Zoe declared.

"No one," Willow sung back to Jasmine, locking her phone as she spoke. 

"Puh-lease," Jasmine said (that was a trademark word of hers.) "Look at you, biting into your lip to hide your blushing smile. I bet it was Michael."

Willow didn't even realise she had been smiling. She tried to stop, but she couldn't. Her cheeks kept pulling themselves up into a grin.

"Willow has had a crush on Michael since the 9th grade," Jasmine turned to Beth to explain, like Willow wasn't in the room. 

She didn't bother to correct her and say that it was actually Ashton. She hadn't told Jasmine about the cuddling yet. With Michael, Willow told Jasmine everything but Ashton was different. Willow liked that her and Ashton shared things that were completely secret from everyone else.

"It's hardly a crush," Zoe added. "They just enjoy exchanging saliva. At parties, behind the science block..."

Jasmine and Zoe laughed knowingly, and Beth perked up, looking a little more interested in the conversation. After catching Beth looking at her three times, Willow decided to take the first step.

"Is something on your mind, Beth?" Willow tried her best not to sound intimidating, Jasmine had lectured her about that earlier in the afternoon, before Beth and Zoe arrived. 

"I'm not intimidating at all!" Willow had argued. "You are. You walk around like you have everything all figured out, it's scary for the rest of us," Jasmine told her, as she poured popcorn and chips into snack bowls. Willow had laughed then, mostly to herself, because she felt like she was the only person in the whole of Year 12 that didn't have it all figured out. 

Beth looked slightly startled, her blue eyes small and glossy, like a deer in the headlights. "Oh, I just..." she stuttered for a moment and her vulnerability somehow made her seem all the more sweet, as much as Willow didn't want to admit it. "It's just that I thought you liked Ashton." 

"I do like Ashton," Willow said with force. She tried to smile afterwards, to take away from the intensity of her tone, but it seemed to stick at the corners of her mouth.  

"I think what Beth means," Jasmine came to Beth's rescue. "is she thought that you liked Ashton like that." 

Like that?

Three sets of eyes stared at Willow. Well, two technically. Beth's were looking slightly to the left of Willow, but she was obviously waiting for a response and just as much as the other two girls were, if not more. 

Willow looked down at her phone in her lap, she could see another message from Ashton but she didn't swipe the screen open to read it. She felt too itchy and distracted, because she didn't know what to say. 

"He is my best friend," she said eventually. "Let's watch American Horror Story."

song for this chapter is linger by the cranberries.

dedicated to @cliffsideclifford