As much as I loved Brooke, she was awful at giving advice. We decided to have a sleepover tonight, because of our lack of time spent together since this school year has started and I had been trying to talk to her about Ashton for the past hour and a half. To put it nicely, she was no help at all. She compared everything I said to her to something that had to do with her relationship with Luke, as if Ashton and I were similar.

"He's so annoying, like, I told him straight up that I want to get to know him and he totally shut me out. Does he want to spend the rest if his life alone?" I complained. I paced back and forth in my room as Brooke laid out on my bed, flipping through a magazine she had found on her way in the house.

"Maybe he's shy. Luke was shy when I first met him." Brooke shrugged.

"He's not shy, Brooke." I said, letting out a groan.

"Maybe he's not ready to get another girlfriend yet. I mean, didn't he accidentally kill his last one?" Brooke chuckled lightly.

"I haven't gotten around to asking him about that yet, actually, so I'm not sure." I sighed.

I had honestly meant to ask Ashton about the car accident earlier today, but he wasn't having it. I had a plan to ease into it, instead of coming straight out and deciding to ask about his dead - ex? - girlfriend. Ashton completely ignored me as if I wasn't even there, smoking away without a care in the world.

"Come on, Dani. Try harder! I want to know what happened!" Brooke said enthusiastically. She was such a sucker for drama, I bet she was hoping that Ashton actually murdered his girlfriend, and the car accident was all just a big cover up. She would just eat that story up.

"I'm working on it!" I stopped pacing for a moment to face her. "I want to become friends with him before I decide to dig into his personal life."

"You like him, don't you?" Brooke smiled. She rolled over and lifted her arms above her head, tying her long hair up into a perfect bun.

"What? No. I've barely known him for a month! I'm just curious, that's all." I lied, me being curious was not all there was when talking about Ashton. He definitely had a strong affect on me even though half the time he didn't want anything to do with me. It sucked, because I was completely infatuated with this boy and he wasn't throwing himself at me like I was used to.

"You've got to be kidding me. He's completely taken over your life! You never want to talk about anything but him! You've got it so bad, Dani." Brooke laughed.

"He has not taken over my life! I just want to be his friend, can't I be friends with a boy and not have you question me?" I huffed, letting myself fall back onto the bed with Brooke.

She snorted. "You can't be telling me that you want to stay just friends with a guy like that. Have you seen him? He's gorgeous."

"Hey, you have a boyfriend." I warned Brooke, even though her cheating on Luke was totally out of the question. They were in love, and everyone knew it. The chances of either one of them finding someone else was impossibly slim, they were perfect for each other.

"I bet even Luke would turn gay for Ashton." Brooke said, a serious tone to her voice.

"Brooke!" I erupted into laughter, not being able to handle the thought of Luke having a little crush on Ashton.

"Shh, did you hear that?" Brooke clapped her hand over my mouth to silence me.

I pried her hand off of my mouth and stood up, walking closer to the window that was propped open just a crack. I heard a rustling down below us. There was definitely something there, but it was probably nothing major, maybe a bunny or a cat. I didn't want to freak Brooke out even more, so I lied to her.

"There's nothing there."

"Yes there is!"

"No, there isn't!"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Yes!"

"There's nothing there, Brooke! Just let it go!" I yelled, getting frustrated. I threw open the window all the way to prove my point.

There wasn't a bunny, or a cat, as a matter of fact, the source of the rustling had been from Ashton Irwin himself, passing between my house and my next door neighbors. I could only tell it was Ashton by the way the moonlight was just barely shining on his face, making all of his features clear to me.

"Irwin, what the fuck are you doing?" I screeched, more startled than anything.

"Just taking a little shortcut, Murphy." Ashton called up to me.

"Oh, my God." Brooke muttered. "You guys have little nicknames for each other, that's adorable."

I waved a hand at Brooke to shut her up, not taking my eyes off of Ashton.

"Where are you going?" I asked him.

"Home." Ashton chucked. He had another cigarette in his hand, the ashes falling from it much easier to see with the moons light shining on them.

"Then where are you coming from?" I rolled my eyes.

"Just went for another walk. I ended up going a little farther than we did last night." Ashton answered.

"You went on a walk together?" Brooke exclaimed, obviously too obsessed with the idea that Ashton and I have spent time with each other.

"Is there someone up there with you?" Ashton chuckled, putting his cigarette to his lips and taking another drag.

"Just my friend, Brooke." I shrugged, and so did Ashton.

"Oh, her. Red hair? She's in my government class." Ashton nodded to himself. "She talks quite a bit."

"That's the one." I laughed, and Brooke tried to interject with a "hey!", but I didn't let Ashton hear.

"I better get going." He spoke, after we stared at each other for a long while. "Goodnight, Murphy."

"Later, Irwin." I gave him a small wave and shut the window again, not bothering to watch him as he walked away.

Brooke sat on the edge of my bed, he arms crossed over her chest. She had one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows raised at me in question, as if I had lied to her about something. I hadn't, actually. I had just told Brooke all she had needed to know.

"That was suspicious." Brooke blurted out, trying to hold back her laughter.

"He was just walking, no big deal." I shrugged.

"You two went on a walk together and you didn't tell me?" Brooke asked, cocking her hear to the side. That was another thing about Brooke, if I didn't tell her every single detail about what she was asking about she would assume I was hiding something from her.

"Yeah, last night. I saw him walking by the window and I kind of yelled at him. We just talked." I explained, using even less detail than I normally would just to piss Brooke off even more.

"About what?" Brooke bounced up and down on her spot on the bed.

"Nothing really, he told me about some band that he likes, I don't know."

I had actually meant to start listening to The Killers just to have something to talk about with Ashton, but I never got around too. I didn't want to be one of those girls either, the type to pretend to like something only because a guy was interested in it. I just thought that maybe if I found something in common with Ashton he would be easier to figure out.

"What band?" Brooke asked. "If you say Nirvana I'll shoot myself, every hot guy likes Nirvana."

"The Killers." I answered her, laughing a bit at her comment about Nirvana.

"The who?" Brooke laid back on the bed again, sighing deeply.

"No, not The Who. The Killers."

"Dani, oh my God." Brooke rolled her eyes at me.

"Whatever. He likes The Killers and he smokes, a lot. That's about all I've figured out so far." I groaned, hopping onto the bed next to her.

"Why do you think he smokes so much?" Brooke asked.

"I don't know," I shrugged. "He thinks he's a badass."

"He kind of is." Brooke laughed.

"Well, he tries to be."

"You're blushing." Brooke smirked at me. Sure enough, I felt my cheeks start to heat up.

"I am not. It's hot in here." I lied.

"You have a crush on him, Dani. This is hilarious, I can't wait to tell Luke." She reached across the bed to grab her phone but I stopped her.

"Don't tell Luke, please. He gets so weird whenever Ashton's mentioned." I said, letting out a sigh.

Every time I tried to talk about Ashton at lunch Luke got incredibly silent and spacey, like he wasn't even there with us anymore. We were constantly having to bring him back into the conversation and remind him to speak. I don't know what exactly was going on, but there was definitely something between him and Ashton.

"No he doesn't." Brooke shook her head, disagreeing with me.

"Yes he does! Did you not see him at lunch the other day? He freaked out!" I threw my hands in the air, frustrated that Luke wouldn't see what I was talking about.

"Oh, my God. You're right! Maybe he does have a little crush on him." Brooke giggled. She threw her phone to the side, not wanting to phone her boyfriend anymore.

"Even if I did have a crush on Ashton - which I don't, okay? - I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. Like you said, he's probably still in love with his dead girlfriend." I groaned.

"You should fix him." Brooke said suddenly, looking up from the magazine she was reading.

"I should what?" I asked, not understanding. Ashton wasn't some toy, I couldn't just pick up a couple of tools and fix him that easily.

"His heart has obviously been broken by this girl," Brooke pushed a stray hair out of her eyes, "you should fix it."

"Fix his broken heart?" I snorted, raising my eyebrows at her. That was the strangest idea I had ever heard. There was no way Ashton would even open up to me enough to let me "fix" him.

"Yeah, fix him."

-

it's just getting good okay just wAIT