10 Days

~7~

I tried to make sure that my outfit was extra cute for dinner. All of 5SOS, my sister and her new hubbie Ashton, and my parents all decided to have dinner together every night.

We were having small talk that I didn’t take much part in.

Michael was sitting to my left. Ashton and Kari were across the table. Ashton really was making an effort to talk to me and get to know me. I did appreciate that.

“So Aiden.” Ashton said to me at dinner, “Do you have a special someone?”

Oh God. Boyfriends and me is still a sticky subject around my parents. It’s not like I was still in the closet, but it was uncomfortable to talk about with my parents around since they didn’t totally accept it. Not that Ashton would know that.

“Um…” I said, trying to buy time. “No, not really anyone right now.”

“Have you had a boyfriend before?” Ashton asked. I immediately felt uncomfortable and tried my hardest to change the subject.

“Well…Kari do you think you’ll move into the tour bus when the band goes back on the road?”

Kari picked up that I was trying to change the subject. “I will!” She said. “But Ash and I will need our own bus.”

“Hey, we can’t let you take our boy from us!” Michael said.

“Sorry Mikey.” Kari said, putting her hand over his chest. “He’s mine now.”

“But we’ll have to borrow him.” Calum said.

After dinner, I walked out onto a deck to try and get to the pool to go for a swim. While in the pool area about to jump in, I could hear hear Michael and Luke talking a few feet down on the deck. I tried to hear what they were saying.

“Samantha’s so pissed that she wasn’t invited on this cruise.” Luke said.

“She’s pissed at you?” Michael asked.

“Yeah. At me.” Luke responded.

“This was all Ashton’s idea. It’s not like you created a conspiracy to leave her out.”

“Try telling her that.” Luke said as he got up in frustration and walked down the deck, towards me.

“Luke.” I said, catching his attention. He looked at me like he should know me but I didn’t. “Hey, I’m sorry for making that bitchy comment about Arzaylea being Samantha and everything back in Australia at the hotel. I didn’t mean to catch you off guard or offend you or anything.

“It’s fine, dude.” Luke said to me, curtly and dismissively.

“Are you enjoying the cruise?” I asked, trying to make conversation. I was doing this because, well, I was talking to Luke Hemmings and frankly he wasn’t being very nice to me.

“Yeah, it’s cool I guess.” He said while looking at his phone, not committing to his words.

Why was he treating me like I was irrelevant? I guess I shouldn’t have anticipated my meeting with him to be like a meet and greet after a concert.

I walked out onto the deck to see Michael alone. I decided that I would approach him. Maybe he would want to talk to me.

Notes