Paint You Wings // Ashton Irwin [au]

Thirty-four

Ashton's POV

I walk up the stairs with Emmie to her apartment complex, pinching her little love handles as she climbs each step. She swats my arms and tells me to stop, but being the persistent, joking boyfriend that I am, I continue anyway until she unlocks her door.

When we walk through the threshold, the apartment room is entirely dark, which is odd, especially since Julia should be home. Emmie flips the light switch by the door, illuminating the room, and lying on top of one another with their lips locked is Julia and Calum on the couch. I cover Emmie's eyes as a joke and watch as the two love birds detach from one another and look at us with complete and utter shock. Julia pushes Calum off of her and he falls to the floor with a loud thud. Emmie rips my hand away from her eyes so that she can see what is going on and laughs at the sight.

Judging by Julia's and Calum's swollen lips, reddening faces, and the few love bites scattered across their necks, they must have been going at it for a while. At least now I know why Calum wasn't home earlier.

"Having fun?" I teasingly ask them and place my hand on the small of Emmie's back and push her slightly to hint to walk further inside the living room.

Calum stands and dusts off his jeans as if he fell into a pile of dirt. "We were," he grumbles, but the girls don't hear him.

Julia straightens her posture with her legs tightly pressed together as she fixes her tangled hair as best as she can while trying to play it cool. "How did the studying go?" she asks Emmie who is grinning to the point where her eyes are almost squinted shut.

"Good," Emmie answers a split second after Julia finishes her sentence. "How was uh..." She points between Julia and Calum.

"Yeah, I should go now," Calum declares, grabbing his backpack that is sitting on the love seat and pulling his beanie that somehow made its way into the kitchen over his head. He stands next to me and bounces on his feet, waiting for me to do something. It takes a moment before I register why he is waiting for me and that's because he doesn't have his car; it's still parked in our driveway.

I nod in acknowledgement of his silent plea for escape. "I guess I should go too," I say. I lean down and give Emmie a kiss on her lips followed by her cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow," I promise before pushing Cal out of the apartment door. Emmie waves goodbye with a small smile before shutting the door and locking it after we exit.

Calum rushes down the stairs to my car and waits impatiently for me to unlock the doors. When I do, he climbs inside quickly and doesn't say a word. I don't start the car yet, instead I just stare at him with a smug grin.

"So are you two..." I trail off, not needing to finish my sentence because he already knows what I'm asking.

He sighs loudly. "Yeah, we're together now," he says. I figured so. Cal's not the type of person who makes out with a girl without having attachment to her. "Oh, and thanks for completely killing the mood. Ass."

I chuckle and start the engine. "Just think of it as payback for when you and the guys barged in on me and Emmie when we got together," I say, backing the car out and driving onto the main road to our house. "Sucks, doesn't it?"

"You're telling me," he mumbles.

The rest of the drive home consists of Calum bitching on how I ruined his and Julia's 'moment' and me telling him to get over it. At least now he knows how I feel whenever Emmie and I are interrupted. After parking next to his truck and scolding him for slamming the door shut this late at night, we head inside the house where the TV is blasting and a guitar is being strummed.