Settle Down // Irwin

13

It was Saturday and Jade had never been more nervous in her life. At any minute now Ashton will probably ring her doorbell and they will start the one-on-one tutoring session.

She had been alone with Ashton before. But she's been alone with nice Ashton. She had never been alone with the Ashton Calum always described. This made her extremely nervous.

She didn't even know what happened on Wednesday after the class ended. He stuck around even though he was being weird and making Jade feel nervous. He still was going to drive her home. But then he got even weirder. There is a part of Jade that thinks he was trying to be flirty, but flirt in an awful type of way. It didn't scare Jade it just made her nervous. It made her worried that Ashton might like her back. It made her worried that maybe he didn't like her back but knew about her feelings and it was all some big game to just have sex with her. Jade learned quickly that you should never have sex with someone for just one night, or when you are drunk, or when one of you is going to pretend like it never happened afterwards.

Jade had managed to get her parents out for the day for this. She wasn't sure she wanted them in the house for Ashton being here. Not if he was in the mood he has been in recently. He didn't even look at Jade the rest of the week. If she ever looked up at him he was sulking or pouting.

It probably had something to do with the cafeteria incident which was actually pretty scary. She has never seen Ashton that way before. She had never seen him so angry before. She felt so bad for Charlie and was trying her best to make Charlie seem more welcome at the school since Michael isn't talking to her and she cried in front of everyone. Maybe they were becoming friends but even then Charlie didn't actually really talk to Jade outside of math class, and if she did one of Charlie's friends would glare and glare and glare until Charlie got the message that we aren't supposed to speak.

Jade also felt, for some reason, bad for Michael and Luke. It was weird and Jade knows that Calum enjoyed it. He liked the fact that in that moment it looked like the three of then would no longer be friends but that was in fact the opposite. They still all stuck together. But their presence was less known in the school. They didn't bother Calum, or any of the other kids thy usually would. They barely spoke to anyone else on the football team.

On Thursday when Jade saw the three of them all come out of football together thy were the first out and luckily none of them noticed Jade.

Staring up at the clock in Jade's living room, where she had all the study stuff laid out on the coffee table, she realised that it was already five minutes past the time they set. She didn't panic though. Ashton only lived across the road it wasn't like he couldn't leave at the last minute. But then wouldn't that be even more of an excuse not to be late. He could arrive here on time and leave his house at the last minute.

This when Jade would usually start to panic but this time she is going to try not to. If he isn't here in five minutes she'll check if he is okay or if he might have forgot.

Ten minutes past.

Thirty minutes past.

Forty minutes past.

One hour.

Jade has had enough and was definitely panicking now. He must have forgot. Or maybe he was grounded and just forgot to text Jade. There is probably a reasonable explanation for all of this. Jade just has to go over to Ashton's and find out what it is.

Out of her front door and standing at Ashton's Jade feels a little more than hesitant. She didn't want to seem clingy or needy and jesus they weren't even dating she couldn't seem needy or clingy she was just curious why he was running an hour late.