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The first time Ashton catches them kissing, he’s only been officially in the band for three weeks.
They’re at a party, all four of them, in the house of some friend of Calum’s. Ashton didn’t want to go, because he knows it will be attended almost exclusively by people the other three go to school with, so he won’t know anyone but his three band-mates, and even them he doesn’t know all that well yet. He likes them well enough, certainly – Michael is crazy and fun. Luke is so talented Ashton is in awe of him. And Calum is quiet, but really nice – but their friendship is still new, and the others know each other from way back and Ashton is like the new kid in class, so he’s not a hundred percent confident he can trust them to have his back if the party is horrible and he wants to bail.
He goes anyway, because he doesn’t want to let anyone down. He’s older, anyway, and he’s a drummer. He’s in a band now. He’s supposed to be cool enough not to care what a group of younger kids think of him. If the night sucks, he can just leave, and probably he’ll be able to convince Luke to go with him. Ashton has connected the most with their youngest member so far, and he knows Luke doesn’t really like parties either. He goes because Michael and Calum make him go with them. Because it’s what everyone else is doing.
It isn’t as terrible as Ashton’s imagining. There’s beer, and that always helps. Plus Calum sticks with him for most of the night, even though Luke and Michael disappear almost immediately. Probably Michael spotted some people he knows and dragged Luke off with him. Or the other way around. That’s equally as likely. They’re both this odd combination of shy and not. Ashton hasn’t figured them out yet.
An hour in, he notices that Calum isn’t by his side anymore. Ashton has a good buzz going and he doesn’t know when Calum disappeared, but he isn’t really interested in striking up a conversation with a bunch of drunk teenagers he doesn’t know, so he wanders off in search of a familiar face. He walks past a dark bedroom on the second floor, and pauses when he hears a soft laugh that sounds like Michael’s. Ashton pokes his nose into the room, and notices an open door across it that seems to lead to a balcony, judging by the cool breeze filtering in and the way the curtains are moving.
He goes toward it without a second thought – which, in hindsight, was stupid. He finds Michael’s skinny form and mop of blond-tinged hair, locked in an embrace with someone Ashton at first thinks is a girl, and then his stomach twists when he realizes it’s Luke. Michael and Luke – the new friends Ashton assumed were both straight and not, you know, in love with each other – are wrapped up together against the iron railing, kissing quickly, messily like they’re too drunk for finesse, with their eyes closed and moans passing between them and Ashton’s heart thuds in his chest.
They don’t see him, he realizes after a moment of standing there with his mouth open. He backs away slowly, trying desperately not to step on a creaky floorboard or bump into a piece of furniture and get himself caught. He doesn’t know what this is, what’s happening between them – whether it’s a one time thing because they’re wasted or something that’s been going on since before Ashton met them – but he sure as hell doesn’t want them to know he witnessed whatever it is.
Later, back downstairs, Luke finds him sitting alone on the end of a couch, squished against the arm to keep away from the two drunken strangers who are rounding second base at the other end. This is exactly why Ashton didn’t want to come here. Luke flops down next to him, seemingly unaware of the live show going on right next to him, and leans heavily against Ashton’s side.
“Hey buddy,” Ashton says, awkwardly. He isn’t used to how cuddly these guys are yet. Also, he just saw Luke swapping spit with another guy, but Luke doesn’t know that, which makes this all kinds of awkward.
“Let’s go home,” Luke mumbles.
“Whose home?”
“Mine. Yours. Whatever.”
“How drunk are you?”
“Drunk.” Luke giggles a little, and then paws at Ashton’s leg. “I wanna go. Please?”
“Get Michael to take you home. I bet he’d love to,” Ashton suggests, regretting it immediately and hoping Luke’s too intoxicated to fully understand what Ashton’s implying.
“Can’t find him,” Luke slurs.
“So I’m your back-up?”
Luke turns his head into Ashton’s shoulder, and rubs his forehead against it like a puppy. “Sorry. I’m a bad friend.”
Ashton sighs, and can’t bring himself to be mad. He just hasn’t managed to wrap his head around what he witnessed earlier. “No, you’re not. Come on, I’ll take you.”
He texts Calum and Michael, letting them know he’s leaving with Luke, and they both text back immediately that they’re coming too. They emerge from out of nowhere, suddenly right in front of Ashton, Calum piggy-backing on Michael, blowing into Michael’s ear while Michael harps at him to cut it out.
“I will drop you on your head, I swear to God,” Michael threatens.
“Are you guys wasted?” Ashton asks, not really interested in spending the rest of the night being a caregiver to three drunk idiots.
“Not really,” Calum answers with a shrug.
“He’s a lightweight,” Michael adds, nodding at Luke and grinning.
“Somebody help me with him, then.”
Michael lets Calum off him, and then helps Ashton get Luke off the couch so they can half-carry him out to the street. Calum’s house is the closest, so that’s where they head. Luke is funny when he’s drunk, yelling random sentences into the crisp night air that don’t make any sense and pouting when Michael teases him. It’s easy and comfortable again, now that it’s just the four of them, and Ashton manages to forget about everything else and just enjoys being with his new friends.
* * *
The second time Ashton catches them kissing, it’s backstage at their first show with Hot Chelle Rae.
The two of them disappeared from their dressing room, and Ashton goes to find them because he thinks they should all be together before they go on. It’s the biggest show they’ve ever played, and they should be amping up for it as a group. He finds them, cloistered together in a dark little corner. They’re just talking, even though they’re really close to each other, so Ashton is in the process of walking right up to them. Then he notices how upset Luke looks, and he stops, far enough away from them still that they don’t notice he’s there. Luke is saying something Ashton can’t hear, his lips moving fast as the words tumble out and his hands gesturing animatedly, and Michael has his fingers curled around Luke’s biceps, rubbing up and down; comforting.
“You’re gonna be fine. Better than fine. Amazing,” Michael says – his voice Ashton manages to make out because the air conditioning switches off and suddenly their conversation is audible.
Luke shakes his head, his cheeks flushed and his eyes scrunched up like he’s trying not to cry. “Mikey,” he mumbles, and Michael just steps in and kisses him, soft and almost innocent – calming him down with brushes of his lips against Luke’s. Luke responds, grabbing Michael’s shirt and kissing back, and then folding himself into Michael’s arms and pressing his face against Michael’s neck. Michael hugs him, petting through his hair and shushing him like a frightened animal.
Ashton turns around immediately and heads back to the dressing room, praying they don’t spot him as he’s walking away. He feels like he intruded on something he shouldn’t have, more than the first time. It wasn’t drunken and sexual this time, it was soothing and reassuring; something best friends should do for each other, but somehow that made it even more intimate and Ashton regrets that he saw it because they probably wouldn’t have wanted him to. Ten minutes later, Luke and Michael reappear in the room, and Luke looks okay again. A little jittery, but they all are. Ashton doesn’t blame him for being nervous. He’s nervous too. He smiles a little at Michael, because it’s sweet that he’s such a good friend, and they all put their arms around each other and jump up and down together to pump themselves up. Ashton doesn’t think anything else of it.
* * *
The third time Ashton catches them kissing, it’s their first night in their new house in London.
He shrugged off the first two times, one because alcohol was involved and the other because Luke was upset and Ashton thought Michael was being a good friend. After the third time, he starts to wonder if he shouldn’t have.
He spends hours in his room alone, unpacking and setting everything up so it looks like a real bedroom and not like a hotel. The pictures of his mom and brother and sister he hangs on the wall make him ache for home, but he’s happy to be here. The wheels are turning. This is just the beginning, and Ashton can’t wait to see where this new journey takes them. He imagines number one records, playing sold-out stadiums, all of it. This is his dream, and it’s actually coming true, and most days Ashton wanders around in a perpetual state of wanting to pinch himself to make sure it’s all real.
He heads for the bathroom when he’s finished, smiling when he hears Calum singing in the kitchen over the clang of pots and pans. Liz must be cooking – he can hear her laugh as Calum serenades her with a terribly off-key version of Dead Or Alive. Ashton pushes the door to the bathroom open without a thought, because the lights were off and the door wasn’t closed all the way and he assumed it was empty. He was wrong.
Luke and Michael spring away from each other, whipping around to face Ashton, surprise and fear written all over their faces. They managed to move fast enough so that Ashton didn’t actually see anything this time, but there’s no mistaking what they’d been doing a moment before Ashton entered the small room. Luke’s cheeks are flushed and Michael’s hair is mussed up and they’re both breathing heavy. Ashton stares at them, glances quickly back and forth between them, his heart racing just like the first time and his stomach in knots. He has no idea what to do, what to say, and Luke and Michael just give him matching deer-in-the-headlights looks and don’t say anything either, so Ashton turns tail like the other two times and practically jogs back to his room.
Luke comes to visit him later, after everyone else has gone to bed. He appears in the doorway, staring at the ground and fumbling with the hem of his shirt, and timidly asks if he can come in. Ashton nods, and Luke closes the door behind himself and sits, legs tucked up under him, on the end of Ashton’s bed. He’s getting tall, lately, but right now he looks so small.
Ashton’s had a few hours to mull it over and he still doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to assume anything – doesn’t want to make it worse.
“We should’ve … locked the door,” Luke mumbles, and it’s such an obvious statement that it makes a giggle bubble up from Ashton’s throat. Luke laughs too, and the tension from the moment breaks a little. “Duh, I guess.”
“Yeah,” Ashton agrees.
Luke nods and stares at his knees. “Don’t, um. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“Who am I gonna tell?” Ashton asks, seriously, and then when Luke continues to look worried, he adds, “I won’t. Promise.”
“Thanks.”
“Can I ask what’s going on?” Ashton starts tentatively. Luke doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. Ashton would be willing to bet it wasn’t his idea to come in here – Michael probably sent him in, on a mission to make sure Ashton would keep what he saw to himself.
Luke shrugs and mumbles a non-committal, “Just … y’know.”
It’s on the tip of Ashton’s tongue to admit tonight wasn’t the first time he’s seen them together, but then he doesn’t. Luke clearly isn’t comfortable with this conversation, and Ashton isn’t fully comfortable with it either, even if he still really wants to know. It’s hard to remember, sometimes, that not every single thing any of them do isn’t the business of the rest of the band, because most of the time it is.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Ashton says softly, and Luke nods gratefully.
He shoots Ashton a brief smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and then he gets up and leaves, and Ashton’s even more confused than before.
* * *
He starts to notice things after that. Little things, between Luke and Michael, that he didn’t before. The way they look at each other sometimes, their eyes going all soft and out of focus and these fond smiles on their faces. The way they’re always finding an excuse to touch; sitting next to each other and cuddling on the couch like Ashton’s done with girls before but never with his friend. Calum does that too, sort of, so Ashton ends up following behind everyone else and they all start being in each other’s space all the time – but Luke and Michael do it the most. It’s more obvious with Michael. Luke tends to look at everyone, anyone, like he’s falling in love with them, but Michael isn’t like that. Michael has this special expression that’s only for Luke, and once Ashton notices it, he can’t stop noticing it.
Michael gets homesick one day out of nowhere and he mopes around their house, snapping at anyone who crosses his path, until Luke pulls him off to the couch and pushes him down onto it. He gets half on top of Michael and wraps him up in long arms, and Michael melts into him and gives in to letting Luke cuddle him until he feels better. Calum pretends not to notice, while Ashton watches them blatantly, because he figures if they’re gonna do this right out in the open, it’s his right as an inhabitant of this house. Ashton sees the way Luke drags slow fingertips through Michael’s hair, how he hooks an ankle over Michael’s calves so he’s completely surrounded by Luke like a letter in an envelope. He sees how, although grumpy and instigative all day long, now Michael mellows in Luke’s arms, like being there reminds him of the home they all miss so much.
Being around them sometimes is like watching the beginning of a romantic comedy, when the two leads are dancing around each other and the audience knows they’re going to end up together but the characters themselves haven’t figured it out yet. It’s sort of halfway between cute and exhausting. Ashton wants to know if Calum sees it too, but he can’t ask because he promised Luke he wouldn’t. He’s so much closer to all three of them now that they live together, they all feel like his best friends and his family rolled all into one, and betraying their secret is something Ashton can’t bring himself to do. Not after he gave Luke his word. A promise means something to Ashton, so instead he just watches, and wonders, and waits.
* * *
The fourth time Ashton catches them kissing, he doesn’t actually see it. He hears it.
They’re on the tour bus, coasting down a lonely highway. Ashton had been asleep for hours, and he wakes up with a start when the bus hits a pothole and bounces him awake. He blinks into the darkness, in the closed-in, too-small space of his bunk, and feels hot and claustrophobic all of a sudden. He can hear Calum breathing, his nose whistling on every other exhale, and that calms Ashton down – reminds him that his friends are close and everything’s okay.
Then he hears rustling, like sheets moving around, and a few soft smacking noises, and he’s confused for half a second before his hazy brain can place the familiar sound. It’s kissing. It’s Luke and Michael, it has to be, because there’s no one else. Ashton listens to them for a few seconds, to the soft sighs and a quiet chuckle that sounds like Michael, and then he tears his pillow from underneath his head and presses it over his ear.
* * *
The fifth time Ashton catches them kissing is only a week later.
It’s in L.A. and it’s in the early morning hours the night after a show. He wakes up because his bladder needs emptying, and then his mouth is dry and his throat feels scratchy from yelling too much on stage.
He wanders through the living room, on his way to the kitchen for a glass of water, when something catches his eye in the corner. Something is moving, slowly, in the shadows. Ashton frowns and rubs his eyes, but he can’t make out more than shapes. It’s just one of the boys, probably, but what they’re doing on the couch, in the middle of the night, in the dark, is beyond anything Ashton’s half-asleep brain can fathom. He gropes for the light switch, and blinks in the sudden brightness as he takes in Michael and Luke, huddled together in the corner of the couch. Luke’s legs are over Michael’s lap and his hands are fisted in Michael’s shirt, Michael’s arms around Luke’s broad shoulders as they trade slow, easy kisses.
Ashton closes his eyes briefly, because seriously? Now they’re getting up in the middle of the night and sneaking downstairs to do this? Ashton can’t help but wonder how often it actually happens – how many times they’ve been together over the months when he hasn’t walked in on them. In all the time that’s past since the first time he ever saw them, Ashton has never figured out what to make of whatever it is Luke and Michael have. At first, part of him had wondered if maybe they were just homesick and lonely, and finding comfort in each other was easier than navigating the complicated waters of dating someone while they’re always on the road. Lately, he’s not so sure that’s true anymore.
They’re in their own little world, caught up in each other, and it takes them both a moment to notice Ashton is there, even though he turned the lights on and that really should have been their first clue. When they do notice, Ashton raises his eyebrows at them in question. Luke at least manages to look guilty, while Michael just looks annoyed at being caught. As if it’s Ashton’s fault.
“Evening boys,” he says, trying not to sound sarcastic but not really achieving it. “It’s three in the morning.”
“Yeah,” Luke mumbles, guilt melting into shame. He tries to extract himself from Michael’s arms, but Michael tightens his grip and won’t let Luke go. Luke looks at him questioningly, and they have an entire conversation with just their eyes while Ashton stands there like a spectator. It makes him feel left out. Then Luke settles back into Michael, glancing at Ashton apologetically before dropping his gaze.
“Do you need something?” Michael asks, a slight edge to his voice like he’s daring Ashton to have a problem with what’s going on here.
“Do I …?” Ashton starts angrily, and then takes a deep breath and drops it. He doesn’t want to do this right now. Or ever, really. “No. Never mind. Don’t let me interrupt.”
He leaves them and continues into the kitchen for the drink he’d come down here for in the first place. Ashton isn’t mad at them. If they want to be casual sex buddies, he doesn’t really care. He just hates that this has been going on since forever and he’s not allowed to talk about it, to assign some kind of definition to whatever it is they are to each other. That’s what makes him uncomfortable, more than the fact that his band-mates are maybe secretly dating each other. He gets why they’d keep it a secret from the public, but he doesn’t understand why it’s being kept from him. He wonders again if Calum knows. Ashton bets he does. The thought pisses him off.
He fills a glass with lukewarm tap water and heads back in the direction of the stairs, but he stops, just around the corner from where Luke and Michael are, and peeks out at them from behind the wall. They’re talking, in low voices with their faces close together, so Ashton can’t make out the words being exchanged. He can only see Luke’s face, and he looks worried. Michael is petting his cheek, like a frightened cat he’s trying to soothe, and then kisses him again, soft and sweet, and Ashton didn’t think boys kissed like that. They look like they’re posing for the cover of a Valentine’s Day card. It would be cute if he wasn’t still so confused about what’s going on, and uneasy because he isn’t allowed to find out.
He walks past them again, planning on heading back to his room without acknowledging them, when Luke’s quiet voice says, “Sorry, Ash.”
Ashton pauses, turning around and looking back at them. “For what?” He’s genuinely interested in the answer. He wants to know exactly what it is Luke thinks they should be sorry for.
Luke presses his lips together and doesn’t elaborate. He’s such an amalgam – how he can be so loud and confident when they’re on stage, owning every performance lately, and yet so shy and self-doubting in private.
Michael’s just looking at Luke – he’s sort of always looking at Luke, Ashton noticed that a long time ago – and doesn’t bother answering either.
“Are you guys, like … boyfriends?” Ashton asks slowly.
“Maybe?” Luke says, as a question, although Ashton doesn’t know who he’s asking.
“Because it’s cool if you are. We just … we should talk about it, don’t you think?”
“We’ll let you know when we do, okay?” Michael says. He finally looks at Ashton, and now he looks sorry too, all the irritation from before gone from his face.
It makes Ashton feel like shit, even though he’s not quite sure what, if anything, he’s done wrong. He nods and leaves them alone.
* * *
He hears them again, a few nights later. It’s faint, through the thin walls, but Ashton hears it all the same. The slow, rhythmic squeak of bedsprings. Needy moans – definitely from Luke – and low murmurs from Michael, muffled words that Ashton can’t make out but he understands their meaning all the same. He closes his eyes and tries to ignore it, tries to fall back asleep, but he can’t because there is sex being had less than ten feet from him and Ashton’s still a guy and it’s still confusingly hot, even if it’s his best friends.
Ashton wonders if they’re in love – if that’s what Michael’s saying right now, whispering words of love and hopeless promises of forever into Luke’s lips while he fucks him, long and deep. He wonders if Luke begs for it, if he can come without being touched, just on Michael’s cock buried inside him. He wonders if they hold each other all night long after it’s over. Ashton has a feeling they’re just cheesy and romantic enough that the answer to all those questions is yes.
He wonders if Calum is lying awake too, listening, feeling like a creep about it like Ashton is. Ashton can picture them so perfectly, not because he wants to but because he knows them both so well. If the quiet symphony of sounds is anything to go by, this is not just two friends getting each other off because they’re horny and it’s easier than finding a girl. That, Ashton would understand. He might not do it, but he could make sense of it. The way Luke and Michael sound, it’s like porn. But not the dirty kind, the romantic kind. The kind with soft lightening and lots of kissing and moans that don’t even sound fake. Friends don’t do what Luke and Michael are doing right now, that much Ashton knows for sure.
* * *
“Can I talk to you about something?” Ashton asks Calum one day, after a month of hearing them together every couple nights. He finds Calum alone in a rare moment in their hectic schedule.
Ashton’s been keeping silent for a long, long time, because every time he wants to talk about what’s been going on, he remembers his promise to Luke in London. The idea of breaking it still makes Ashton feel like a horrible friend, but he can’t keep it all in anymore.
“What’s up?” Calum asks, not looking up from his phone.
Ashton sits beside him on the couch and fiddles with his hands. “Um. Luke and Michael.”
“What about them?”
“You’ve known them a lot longer than me. When … like, before I was in the band. What were they … like?”
Calum does look up then, with a frown pulling his eyebrows together. Ashton’s stepping around it because he doesn’t know quite how to say what’s on his mind, so he doesn’t blame Calum for being perplexed. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Ashton sighs and rubs his hands over his face, fingers digging into his closed eyes. “I think they’re fucking,” he blurts out.
“Oh.”
Ashton’s hands fall away from his face and he gapes at Calum. “Oh? That’s all you have to say? Wait, fuck. You knew, didn’t you? You’ve known this whole time, I was the only one who didn’t.”
It’s something Ashton’s been worrying over, and he always pushed the thoughts away because he hated the idea that he was the only one in the dark. He was already the last to join the band; he’s already the odd one out because he didn’t go to school with the others. It makes him feel replaceable, like his band-mates have this rich, long history together that Ashton isn’t a part of. The only reason he’s with them in the first place is because they needed a drummer. But he’s in the band now, has been for a long time, and he works just as hard as anyone. It isn’t fair that he’s always on the outside looking in.
“I didn’t know,” Calum says slowly. “Like, they’ve never told me, in actual words. I just kinda … I thought maybe, they might be.”
“For how long?” Ashton demands indignantly.
“I’m not sure.”
“Since before I knew you guys?”
Calum shrugs. “Maybe. They were like, enemies. For a long time. And then when they weren’t anymore, I don’t know, it was like watching people falling in love in a movie. I kept expecting them to tell me they were doing stuff. I was kinda jealous, actually, because Michael was my friend and then suddenly Luke was his whole world. But then they never told me anything, and then we were doing band stuff, and I don’t know, it was just them so I just kinda went with it.”
“The way they look at each other sometimes. I mean, it’s not just me, right? You see it too?”
“How could you miss it,” Calum says, and it isn’t a question.
Ashton shakes his head, trying to wrap his brain around how Calum could have just rolled with it all this time, when it makes Ashton so uncomfortable to have all these maybes floating around between their group. Maybe he needs labels more than the others do. “I’ve caught them kissing, you know. Like, a bunch of times over the last two years.”
Calum nods thoughtfully. “What did they say? When you caught them?”
“Nothing, really. They know I saw them, I know I saw them, and it’s just this thing that’s happened, and we don’t talk about it.” Ashton thinks about it, and realizes another pattern he’s noticed. “And then, after, for a while they’re not as all over each other as they usually are. Like they’re trying to stay away from each other for my benefit. But it never lasts that long.”
“Would you care? If they were together?”
“No, not … not like that,” Ashton says, and it’s true.
“Then what’s the problem?”
Ashton doesn’t want to admit it out loud, because it makes him sound like a child pouting over not being invited to someone’s birthday party. “It’s just like … I’ve been wondering, lately, if this was a secret you three were keeping from me. If it’s something they’ve been doing since you guys were in school together, and I didn’t get to know about it. If they think they can’t tell me.”
Calum shakes his head. “It’s not like that, man, I swear. I mean, yeah, I’ve kinda thought they had a thing going for a while. But they never told me about it either. They’re not keeping anything from you that they aren’t keeping from everyone else too.”
“They shouldn’t be keeping it from us, though,” Ashton argues. “Do you think they think we’d be mad? Or that we’d judge them or something?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t that piss you off? Knowing that half our band might be in love with each other and they’re afraid to tell the other half because they’re worried we won’t like that they’re gay? Or whatever?”
“We don’t know that’s why.”
“I can’t think of anything else.” Ashton slumps back against the cushions.
“I think Michael wrote The Only Reason about Luke,” Calum says, casually, like it isn’t a revelation.
Ashton blinks and considers the lyrics of the song they recorded a few days ago – he thinks about the emotion in Michael’s voice in his verse, how it blew them all away because it was so different from anything any of them had ever heard from Michael before; so intense and vulnerable. “Fuck. That makes sense. He was weird that whole week, when he was writing it. Maybe they had a fight or something.”
“Maybe.”
“What do we do about this?”
“Nothing. It isn’t our business until they make it our business.”
Ashton wants to argue, because they’re a band so it is everyone’s business – what happens to one of them sort of happens to all of them. But he doesn’t. He starts plotting in his head, imagining different ways he could catch them at it again so he can make them talk about it; none of which he’ll ever follow through on, because at the end of the day, Calum’s right. It isn’t Ashton’s secret to expose.
* * *
The sixth time Ashton catches them kissing, he doesn’t catch them. He sees it because they want him to.
He and Calum are lounging by the pool, unwinding from another long day in the studio, when Luke and Michael join them, and they’re holding hands and looking embarrassed but determined, and Ashton blinks a few times to make sure he isn’t seeing things.
“For real?” Calum asks.
Luke smiles at Michael and nods, trying to be brave about it. “Yeah. For real. Sorry we didn’t tell you sooner.”
Ashton groans, but happily. It feels like he’s light-years past ready to be able to have this out in the open. “Finally. Fuck. You guys were killing me.”
“Sorry,” Luke says again, sounding like he means it.
“So we can stop pretending we don’t notice now? Please?” Ashton doesn’t care that he’s begging.
“Yeah.” Michael squeezes Luke’s hand and then lets it go, and pulls two more chairs over. He sits in one, and Luke hovers for just a moment and then sits on Michael’s lap instead. He puts an arm over Michael’s shoulders and leans against him. Michael smiles and wraps his arms around Luke’s waist. “We’re not gonna go public or anything. But we don’t wanna hide from you guys anymore.”
“You weren’t exactly doing a good job of it anyway,” Calum informs him. “We both totally knew.”
Luke laughs. “Guess not.”
“Why the hell did it take you so long?” Ashton asks. He can’t imagine doing this kind of will-they-won’t-they dance with someone for as long as Michael and Luke have been doing it.
Michael shrugs a little. “‘Cause we were stupid. Wasted a lot of time trying not to love each other.”
“I always loved you,” Luke says to Michael. There’s only a slight waver in his voice as he says it, like he isn’t quite comfortable admitting it in front of anyone yet, but is working on it.
Michael tightens his arms around Luke’s middle, and Luke cups his hand over Michael’s cheek and dips down to kiss him, right in front of Ashton and Calum, on purpose for the first time. When they pull apart, Luke smiles softly down at Michael, looking happy. It’s Michael’s face that hits Ashton the hardest, though. He’s looking at Luke with the most ridiculous hearts in his eyes. It almost takes Ashton’s breath away to see Michael, who always tries so hard to be cool and aloof with his emotions, in love with Luke and so completely unashamed of it. Ashton sort of wants to cry with how happy he is to have all this over with.
“Aww,” he coos exaggeratedly, intending to embarrass them, and grinning when he succeeds. Luke blushes, and Michael flips Ashton off, and Ashton just laughs.
* * *
The seventh time Ashton catching them kissing, it’s in the fucking middle of a twitcam.
They kiss all the time now, when there aren’t prying eyes around, so it’s been a while since Ashton’s caught them doing it when they weren’t supposed to. The whole thing is already ridiculous, like they always are. Ashton overheard Michael call Luke ‘babe’ at the beginning of it, and then cover for it terribly by telling Luke to shut up when Luke hadn’t even said anything. He rolled his eyes a little at that one. Near the end, Ashton stepped away from the group for a few minutes, and when he turns back, Luke is bent over Michael and Michael is leaning up and their mouth are meeting somewhere in the middle. They’re hidden – mostly – behind Calum’s upper body, but Ashton gets it full-frontal and there’s absolutely no way everyone watching won’t know exactly what they just did because Calum wasn’t blocking them completely. The smug smile on Michael’s face when he lets his lips fall away from Luke’s is way too much. Ashton grabs the laptop, trying to angle the camera away in time, and makes up something ridiculous about showing their fans the coffee machine, but he’s willing to bet the damage is beyond done.
He’s going to have to yell at them for it later. Right after he mocks them for the rest of their lives over how cute they are. The look on Luke’s face is way more endearing than it should be, all surprised and bashful over Michael kissing him in semi-public and not caring who saw.
“You are the two dumbest fucks in the history of dumb fucks,” Ashton tells them, the second the webcam shuts off.
Luke has the decency to look at least somewhat ashamed of himself. Michael just laughs and looks even more smug than before.
Calum frowns. “What did they do?”
Ashton realizes Calum didn’t see it – they were behind him, and he was looking down at his phone instead of at the computer screen. “They made out on camera.”
Calum’s eyes widen. “When?”
“Just now! While we were recording!”
“The camera couldn’t see it,” Michael points out. “We were behind Calum.”
“You were almost behind Calum,” Ashton corrects. “Your cover is so blown.”
Luke’s eyebrows stitch together in a slight frown, but Michael shrugs. “The camera didn’t catch lips on lips. We’ll say we were pretending if anyone asks.”
“As if that’s any less gay,” Calum points out.
“Well it’s about to get a lot more gay, so fuck off unless you wanna stick around for the show.” Michael grabs Luke and pulls him down – Luke lands heavily in Michael’s lap and lets himself be tugged into a kiss, deep and sensuous like they’re skipping right past the foreplay.
“At least let us leave the room first!” Calum cries, jumping up.
He shoves Ashton, and they run outside, averting their eyes as best they can.
“They’re so gross,” Calum complains, flopping onto a lounge chair.
Ashton watches them for a moment through the window – Michael’s hands on Luke’s cheeks while they kiss with their eyes closed – and disagrees. “I think they’re kinda sweet. When they’re not whipping their dicks out right in front of us. Or getting themselves caught on a webcam. Idiots.”
“That’s what I mean. They’re all cute and shit. That’s what’s gross.”
Ashton laughs and sits next to Calum. He puts his feet up, crossing them at the ankles, and leans back. “They get to be in love, and we get to tease them relentlessly about it. Everybody wins.”
* * *