Behind The Limelight

09: Music and Games

Ashton felt like he was hyper aware of every passing second. It seemed like time had slowed down just to torture him as he stared out the window, pretending as if the man he hated more than anything in the entire world wasn't just a few feet away from him. Maybe he should've stuck to his guns and denied Ryker's offer of driving him home, because being in the same car as him was definitely worse than waiting in his trailer for a couple of hours.

At least Ryker wasn't trying to talk to him, something that he had feared, but then again it had only been five minutes and they still had around an hour left. Knowing Ryker, there was no way in hell that he was going to stay quiet for that long.

Ashton kept switching the radio stations, dissatisfied with the songs that all of them were playing. His constant tinkering must have annoyed Ryker, as he finally broke the silence.

"Can you stop messing with the goddamn radio?" Ryker spoke.

"I'm trying to find a decent station," Ashton muttered. "Can I just connect my phone? I can't listen to this bullshit anymore."

"You want to connect your phone so that you can what? Make me listen to your early 2000's emo rock for an hour?" Ryker scoffed. "No thanks. I'd rather listen to whatever is on the radio."

"You used to love my music taste!" Ashton exclaimed, furrowing his brows.

"I tolerated it," Ryker replied.

"But you used to come with me to all the concerts," Ashton recalled with a confused frown.

"Yeah, because you loved them and I lo—" Ryker paused, "—and I was a good friend."

"Yeah right," Ashton snorted. "As if anyone would willingly learn all the lyrics to emo music and sing at the top of their lungs just because they want to be a good friend."

"What can I say? I took the best friend title seriously," Ryker retorted.

Ashton rolled his eyes but said nothing. He knew what he wanted to say would spark another fight between them, and he was too tired to argue with the other man. He wanted the hour to pass by as smoothly as possible, so he bit his tongue and kept his mouth shut.

"Fuck it, I'm just turning it off," Ashton grumbled, shutting the radio altogether.

The pindrop silence was way worse than whatever crappy top 100 songs were playing on the radio, but Ashton wasn't going to give in. If Ryker wouldn't let him connect his phone and play his own music, then Ashton wasn't going to listen to anything.

"Why do you have to be so stubborn all the time?" Ryker asked.

"I'm not stubborn!"

"You are," Ryker said.

"I'm not," Ashton retorted.

"You are," Ryker repeated.

"Nope. Am not," Ashton argued.

"Yes, Ash. You are."

"No, Ryker, I'm not!"

"The fact that you're arguing with me on this is just proving my point, you get that, right?" Ryker said with a smirk, making the fellow actor narrow his eyes at the dark haired man.

"Just because we're stuck in this car doesn't mean we have to talk, you know that, right?" Ashton retorted.

"You're not letting me play any music so I at least need some other form of entertainment," Ryker replied.

"Entertainment? You call annoying me entertainment?" Ashton questioned.

"Well," Ryker shrugged lightly, his eyes on the road. "It is fun to annoy you."