"Maybe."

The tail end of his and Mali's conversation played out in his mind on the way home, specifically his response, his mind was practically screaming no, his thoughts in a jumble of memories and words that all had to do with Michael. He wanted to frown, let a very crisp no fall off his tongue and end the conversation, but also stop the catastrophic mess his mind had become since the attractive game designer had scribbled his way into Calum's life.

Everything else, body, skin, subconscious, heart was yelling louder than his brain, practically singing out some crazy verse from a love song that reminded him of the boy. Calum wanted to disconnect from that part of his body, how could he possibly be feeling this way?

Calum had been with other guys, one's that drive fast and expensive cars, one's that would swear Liverpool was their absolute favourite football team even though they didn't watch sports. One's that would bend over backwards just to get Calum to glance their way, despite him being straight to the public.

But no, a boy who couldn't be bothered to put up with his pick up lines and didn't care to baby Calum about not liking Liverpool, a boy who drank in the morning and held a desk job where he drew for a living. A boy that Calum couldn't stop thinking about.

Calum had nearly forgotten that he had company over, so used to arriving home to a peopleless place that was so quiet you could hear the rain.

It was quiet, which is why Calum had momentarily forgotten, he dropped his keys onto the table and unraveled the scarf with a tired sigh he often heard right after he got home from a game, it was the kind of tiredness that you felt all the way to your bones, made them feel like your blood had been replaced with sand.

He didn't catch onto the fact that he had three other boys staying in his house until someone snorted in their sleep, it came from the couch where Luke was sprawled out with a hand thrown over the side and directly in Ashton's face, who'd taken up camp on the small strip of carpet in front of the couch. Calum wanted to roll his eyes, he did have a guest room the idiots could sleep in, they probably didn't even bother looking.

He skipped out on making his late night cup of the tea so he wouldn't wake the sleeping morons up. Even though Calum was tired beyond compare, it would still be difficult for him to fall asleep with his tea.

Maneuvering through the dark was easy enough, even with Ashton on the floor, Calum was in his room in no time. Lucky enough to find himself in bed before the analog clock hit the one in the morning mark.

×

Even though he'd made it to bed before one, he never really got to the sleeping part. He had conditioned himself into believing the tea really helped him sink into a peaceful unconsciousness so he was still up when the sun began to rise, up when the clock struck half past six. He was up when the yelling started.