Even If You Don't

Calum’s POV; 20 minutes later

After coming inside from meeting fans, I strolled throughout the venue in search of Mari. I was a little puzzled when she wasn’t in either of our dressing rooms – where she could usually be found when she wasn’t outside with fans herself – but I did my best to remain calm. I didn’t want to seem like a clingy boyfriend who always needed to know where his girlfriend was, but as I was running out of rooms to check for her, I couldn’t help but feel a panic start to bubble up in my chest at the thought of her going missing.

“Please tell me one of you has seen Mari,” I said, hurrying to the stage since I could hear Luke and Ashton talking.

“She’s fine, Cal,” Ashton assured me as he turned to look at me, “Michael just texted me that they were eating lunch; They’ll be back soon.”

“She went on a lunch date with someone else?” I frowned, but he knew it wasn’t a serious question.

“Yeah,” he nodded stoically, his eyes narrowing at the blonde who had yet to speak, “Luke, would you like to tell Calum why Mari went out with Michael?”

“What does that mean?” I cocked an eyebrow, my gaze flicking between the two. Luke didn’t even make a motion to say anything, so Ashton went on for him.

“Luke here decided to take his anger out on Mari while we were trying to rehearse Waste The Night,” he informed me, “He yelled, she left, and Michael went to go looking for her.”

“Why the hell did you do that?!” I exclaimed, throwing my arm up.

“She kept messing up her part,” he murmured.

“Well, you certainly weren’t helping her with it,” Ashton rolled his eyes, “You can’t expect Mari to know what you want her to do if you don’t tell her.”

“She’s not a mind-reader, Luke!” I reminded him, “I have bad moods too, but I don’t take them out on other people for not being able to just know what I want without me telling them!”

“Whatever,” he grumbled, shuffling away from Ashton and I. I waited until Luke was out of hearing range to start talking again.

“How’s she doing?” I asked Ashton.

“Not sure,” he shrugged, “Michael didn’t say anything apart from that they were eating. I can’t imagine she’s taking it too well though – she told Luke that he should have one of the other girls sing it with them tonight. And you know she doesn’t really want someone else to – she practically begged everyone to let her do it.” I chuckled softly at remembering how desperate Mari seemed to sing the song with us tonight before letting it fade out. I sighed to myself, just accepting that I wouldn’t get to see her until she and Michael got back to the venue.

~

10 minutes later

The group and I – minus Luke, of course – were all sitting around on the stage, talking about anything that came to our minds as we waited for show time. We were in the middle of talking about the upcoming Australian leg of the tour and how excited we were to show the girls our home country when we heard laughter coming up behind us. Mari was riding piggyback on Michael, giggling about something he must have said.

“What’s so funny, Mar?” Ashton asked, clearly curious as to what was said that drastically changed Mari’s mood from the last time he saw her.

“Why didn’t you tell me anything about your time in school, Cal?” she asked with a smirk, making my eyes widen.

“Michael!” I shouted, making him laugh.

“I’m sorry!” he exclaimed, “She just knows how to get stuff out of me!”

“Well, I, for one, would love to hear these stories that have Mari sent into a giggle fest,” Kaylynn cocked an eyebrow with a mischievous grin on her face. I was silent for a moment, prompting Mari to speak again.

“They’re gonna find out one way or another,” she shrugged, “You might as well be the one to tell ‘em.”

I rolled my eyes but I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as she hopped off of Michael when he reached our little circle and stepped between Ashton and I before moving in front of me and sitting herself down in my lap. She sat down so she was facing me, wrapping her legs around my waist as well as her arms, settling herself against me. My own arms wound around her, hugging her close.

“How are you feeling?” I murmured into her ear as if everyone else wasn’t close enough to hear anyway.

“Better,” she whispered, nuzzling her face into my neck as I kissed the side of her head.

As Michael, Ashton, and I reminisced on our school days and the times before the band became as popular as it is, I could feel Mari’s body shake as she laughed along with everyone. She was pretty quiet throughout the time we were there, but as we were winding down to begin getting ready for the show, she finally spoke again.

“As fun as your embarrassing stories are to hear, I like listening to you talk about music more,” she told me.

“Yeah?” I hummed in response, “Why’s that?”

“I like how rambly you get-” I could feel her smile. “-when you talk about the first song you ever wrote or your favorite song to play on guitar… I like seeing your face light up when someone asks you how you got into bass or says they started playing because of you.”

“If you think he lights up when he talks about music, you should see him when someone mentions you,” Michael snickered. Before I could even scold him, I felt her grin again and press her lips to my neck, prompting me to squeeze her gently.

“You’re one to talk, Clifford,” Kaylynn snorted softly as we all got up, “Have you heard your reaction when someone even suggests food?”

“Are you implying that you don’t give the same reaction?” he scoffed as he rolled his eyes.

“No,” she stated seriously, “I’m implying that you seem to think you don’t.”

“No one’s blaming you for loving food, Mikey,” Mari giggled, her voice slightly muffled from how she had her head on my chest, “We’ve just noticed that you’re very…passionate…about it sometimes.”

“We have an entire song about it, you know,” Ashton reminded him, “I sing it at every show.”

“Ah, yes!” Kenzie chimed in, “The song so brilliantly titled Pizza and containing only one line! How could anyone ever forget your best song?”

“You know what?” Ashton tried not to smile as he grabbed her waist and started tickling her.

“Oh, get a room!” Mari shouted over Kenzie’s squeals, “You two are disgusting!”

“You’re one to talk, Miss PDA,” Vanessa laughed when Ashton and Kenzie finally quieted down.

“I don’t make it a secret that I like Calum when we’re in public,” she reminded all of us, “I make sure everyone knows about it.” I rolled my eyes playfully but I definitely wasn’t disagreeing with her. “You two are the ones who act like no one can tell,” she went on, “You guys stare at each other all the time. I’m pretty sure ‘Ashton and Kenzie’ has trended on Twitter before!”

“You’re just upset because you and Calum have never trended,” Kenzie replied with a blush, the gesture of her sticking her tongue out at Mari being happily returned.

“I don’t need a Twitter trend to admit to everyone that something’s going on,” Mari replied sassily, “If I want to remind everyone, I’ll just kiss him when paparazzi is around.”

“That doesn’t count if you already do it anyway!” Michael laughed loudly as Mari wiggled out of my grasp and walked away toward the dressing rooms.

Mari’s POV

After coming out of the bathroom in my dressing room, I found all the girls already standing around the clothing racks looking for tonight’s outfits.

“Oh, Mari!” Vanessa squeaked, “What were you thinking about wearing tonight?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, stepping in between her and Kenzie to look at the clothing myself, “Maybe that shirt that Kenz wore when we were on Ryan Seacrest – unless someone else is planning on wearing it.”

“So your grey Hollister dress is up for grabs?” she asked hopefully, “It’s obviously an outdoor show, so I don’t wanna be wearing too much and get too hot onstage.”

“I told you guys it was going to be hot while we were here,” I reminded them with a giggle.

“Yeah, but we didn’t think it was gonna be this hot!” Kenzie whined, “This heat is too much! I can hardly even breathe when we go outside!”

“That’s why we plan our outfits for the weather and not the season like you guys do in England,” I replied, “You basically know what kind of weather you’re getting in London – you never know in the Midwest, especially Indiana.”

“I’m starting to think that’s why you moved,” Kaylynn shook her head.

“It is!” I laughed again, “You’re just lucky we’re not here in winter. I don’t think y’all could handle it.”

“At least you can put more on than you can take off,” Vanessa pointed out, “Americans are very vocal when they see any part of a woman’s body they feel is ‘inappropriate’.”

“Another big reason I moved,” I nodded, grabbing Kenzie’s striped crop top and a pair of dark blue denim shorts before heading behind our makeshift changing station just in case anyone came into the room while I was changing.

After coming back into the main room, I was digging through our trunk of shoes looking for my all-black Converse when we heard a knock on the dressing room door. Kaylynn shouted for whoever it was to come in – we thought it was Gabrielle, to be honest – and they slowly came into the room.

“Mari,” I heard Luke said, making me freeze, “Are… Are you busy…?”

“A little,” I grumbled – I was obviously in the middle of searching for shoes, so I was a little annoyed that he had to ask.

“Oh… Well… When you’re done, can I… I need to talk to you...” he said softly.

I felt a nudge on my arm, causing me to look over at Kenzie as she was looking for shoes as well. She nodded her head in the direction Luke’s voice was coming from, making me finally look over my shoulder. Luke was staring down at his hands as he played with his fingers and I didn’t know why, but it made my heart ache for some reason.

I sighed lightly and turned back to the shoe trunk, only to find Kenzie holding up the other shoe I was looking for. A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth and I thanked her before quickly putting both shoes on my feet and tying them.

“We can go if you guys want the room to yourselves,” Vanessa spoke up.

“No, we’ll leave,” I shook my head, getting up from the floor, “You guys finish getting ready.” They nodded and went back to doing what they had been while I made my way to Luke.

The walk to wherever Luke was taking me to talk was a silent one – and I had to admit, it was pretty awkward as well considering the fact that we hadn’t spoken to each other in a few hours. But the moment we sat down on the catwalk of the stage overlooking the venue that would soon be filled up with fans, he couldn’t keep himself quite anymore.

“I’m sorry about earlier…” Luke said, looking at the hands on his lap once again, “I was in a bad mood because… Well, I don’t even know why and that’s what makes it a thousand times shittier for taking it out on you…” He sighed softly and I heard him breathe in shakily. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like you’re not smart or that the other girls are better than you at reading music or whatever… I mean… You’re the only one of all of us who actually graduated, so you’re obviously a lot smarter than any of us…”

“Graduating doesn’t mean I’m smarter,” I reminded him, making him look at me, “I don’t use any of the things I learned in school in my everyday life. So you dropped out? Who cares? You’re already doing a lot more than any of the people I went to school with ever will. Dropping out doesn’t make you any less smart than someone who didn’t,” I shrugged, “Just means you knew what you wanted to do with your life sooner than everyone else. And I think it’s pretty cool that you actually get to do it.”

“So you’re not mad at me?” he asked.

“No, I am mad,” I nodded, noticing his shoulders slump out of the corner of my eye, “But I forgive you. And the next time you wanna yell at someone for not being able to read your mind, don’t.” I heard him chuckle lowly just before feeling his arms wrap around my shoulders and pull me into him.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured again, sighing in relief when I laid my head on his shoulder and hugged him back.

“I forgive you, Lukey,” I repeated, feeling him smile since his face was pressed to the side of my head. He kissed my temple before releasing me.

“You’re still gonna sing with us tonight, aren’t you?” he started chewing on his inner cheek, “We didn’t really need to practice the song anyway… We know you could probably do it in your sleep.”

“We could test that theory,” I mentioned as we both stood back up, “You’ll just have to push it back in your set so I have time to fall asleep.” Luke couldn’t help but laugh loudly, pulling me back in for another hug before immediately leaning over and throwing me over his shoulder so he could take me back to my dressing room.