*im so sorry for this photo. It's the only Malum photo on my phone and I'm too lazy to find a new one...*

"Luke, when are your friends getting here? Should we wait for them?"

"Yeah," Luke dug his phone out of his pocket. "They called me 40 minutes ago when their plane landed, they should be here any minute." He told me.

I'd unpacked our stuff while Ashton finished an assignment for school he'd forgotten about, but once we finished the two of us met our friends in their room to see how they were doing. I was a little nervous about how they were going to do in the big city, it was very different than rural Minnesota, but they seemed okay for now.

Currently, Luke and Sammi were sitting on the bed closest to the window, and Sarah was in the chair across from the bed. I was lying on my stomach and Ashton was lying half on top of me on the second bed, with his chest and head on my back, arms tucked underneath me and his legs next to mine.

I still needed to tell the girls about our room, I don't think they had any idea what Ashton did. Once we all left the hotel and were out on the streets I would tell them.

"Okay, well let's plan out the rest of our day." I said, trying to nudge Ashton off of me. "I kinda need to get up, Ash," I said, turning my head to face him as best I could.

He whined.

"But I'm so comfy," he wrapped his arms around me tighter and squeezed. I giggled, trying to squirm away, but he was much stronger than me.

"I know, but I have to plan out our day. Otherwise we'll end up just staying here in the hotel room doing nothing."

"I'd be okay if we were in our room, but we wouldn't be doing nothing." He whispered, his breath tickling my ear. I felt my face heat up and looked over at my friends to see if they knew what was happening. Luke was oblivious, not looking at us, but Sammi and Sarah were watching intently, and I blushed even more.

"Ashton, quit it. Our friends are here, behave."

"That's so boring, babe." He kissed me before flipping us around so I was on top. He sat up, resting against the headboard, me still in his lap. "Okay, someone give Viola a laptop. She's going to plan out our day." Ashton announced.

"Bro, you really should let her go. You're making the children uncomfortable," Luke teased, finally paying attention to what was going on, grinning as he looked at Sammi and Sarah. Sarah threw her middle finger up.

"Fuck off, you're the only one who's making this weird."

Sammi slid off the bed and opened her backpack, handing her tablet to me.

"Okay, let's look at the list." I opened the Google folder I'd made and shared with everyone for the trip. Everyone had put in things they wanted to do this week. "So we're here, on W 94th street." I grabbed the TV remote on the bedside table and turned it on, quickly casting a map up on the screen so everyone could see. "Do you guys want to stick around here for the day, or maybe take the subway and go for an adventure across town? We can do whatever, I just need to know."

"I vote adventure." Luke says. Sammi nods in agreement.

"I wouldn't mind staying near here," Sarah says.

"Ashy? What do you want?"

He glares at me.

"A few things, actually. I want you to never call me that, and I want you to not be we-"

Just before he could finish that (probably horrifying) thought, there was a knock on the door.

"It's the guys!" Luke yelled, scrambling off the bed and rushing to the door.

I shook my head at Ashton who widened his eyebrows innocently.

"You're trouble," I reminded him. He  kissed my cheek.

"Geez, quit having sex over there, there's children in here." A boy with wispy white blonde hair covered by a black cap and dark facial hair said upon entering the room and looking at me and Ashton.

"Who's doing what?" Came a confused second voice, belonging to the really tan, short black haired boy who walked in behind him. They both looked like they could be in a punk rock back with the amount of black and leather they were wearing.

"Cal, avert your precious, innocent, baby eyes!" The white haired one said, dropping his bag and crushing the short one to his chest. "You'll never be the same again!"

"Shut up, Michael." Luke and Ashton said at the same time.

Ashton had told me about these guys. They were both, according to him, hilarious and a lot of fun to be around. They did seem pretty goofy, so I was pretty glad to get the chance to know them this week. I'm sure they'll add a certain level of excitement to the trip.

"Mikey, let me go!" The boy still wrapped in Michael's arms protested, struggling to get out of the headlock. He let the boy go, and he pushed Michael away from him, fixing his jacket and looking at the room.

"G'day, mates. I'm Calum." He said.

"I'm Michael."

The girls introduced themselves to them, since they already knew Luke and Ashton from swing.

"We're just about to head out and go on an adventure. You guys up for that?"

Michael and Calum nodded. Michael pushed his suitcase into the corner of the room and flopped face up on the bed Sammi was on.

"Let's get lit, y'all. I'm ready to experience New York!" He cheered. Sammi scooted back so Michael wasn't so close to her and gave him a weird look.

"Okay, why don't we do something easy," Ashton advised, running his fingers through my hair as I looked through possible itineraries I'd written up.

Everyone agreed with easy, and I looked through the shorter activities we could do.

"Why don't we take a subway to Times Square and walk around. Then we can split up if we want, and meet somewhere for dinner?" I suggested, not seeing something that screamed first day adventure.

"That works."

"YES Times Square!" Calum cheered, throwing a pillow into the air which hit the ceiling before falling on the floor.

"Why, Cal?" Luke smacked him in the back of the head. Cal gave him double birdies.

Ash and I left everyone in the room with 20 minutes to get ready.

"Don't forget to wear comfortable shoes, you're going to be doing a lot of walking." I said, poking my head back through the door.

"But I thought we were going to take the subway," Luke complained.

I chuckled. "Fine, wear whatever you want, but trust me, you'll reach your fitbit goal and then some today." I turned and let the door close.

Ashton grabbed my hand and we walked to our room.

"Are you excited to be back home?" He asked me as he opened the door with the key card. He opened it up for me and I stood there, waiting for him to walk through. He rolled his eyes and walked in first.

"This isn't home." I said, grabbing my small backpack once inside and checking the contents. I needed my phone, wallet, emergency kit, and snacks.

"What do you mean?"

I shrugged.

"I didn't have the most amazing childhood, this place doesn't seem like a "home" to me." I stood in front of him, resting my hands on his cheeks. "My home is where you are," I said, hoping he wouldn't find that too cheesy. Instead of laughing at me like I thought he might, his eyes darkened and he pulled me into a kiss.

"You amaze me more and more every second, Vi. I can't imagine how I lived so much of my life without you. If you left me, I have no idea what I'd do."

I smiled.

"You'd be okay; you're handsome, smart, and you can do anything you put your mind to. You're super."

He kissed me again.

"Without you, all of that means nothing." He whispered.

I hugged him then, not being able to be close enough to him. Ashton was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wanted to believe he would be different, that this was the first relationship I'd have in my life that would last, that wouldn't hurt me. I guess we'd just have to see.

"If we stay in here any longer together, I'm going to go crazy." Ashton mumbled into my hair. I was stroking his back and he was nuzzling my head with his nose.

"I love you, Ashton."

"I love you, Viola. I'd do anything for you." He kissed the top of my head. "You ready?" He held me at arms length and just looked at me. I blushed, ducking my head.

"W-what are you doing?"

"You have the most captivating eyes. And don't even get me started on that smile."

"Enough," I pushed him away, turning around to hide my grin. How did he always set off butterflies in my stomach, with just a few words?

"I mean it. I'm going to keep saying it until you realize it's true."

I scoffed and finished packing up my bag.

"Do you have your stuff?" I asked him. He didn't do anything besides flirt with me the whole time we were supposed to be getting ready.

"Sure, I have my phone and wallet."

"That's all you're going to take with you?"

"What else do I need? I have you. And I know you'll have anything we could ever need, and more." He shrugged. "And all I need is you, anyway."

"Ew, barf!" a voice from the doorway called.

We looked over at the intruder and saw Michael leaning against the door. How he opened it without us noticing is beyond me. We must have been too wrapped up in each other.

"How long were you there?" Ashton asked, rolling his eyes at Michael's immaturity.

"Oh, long enough. Long enough..." he dragged his words out ominously, making a creepy face.

"Hey, don't make a bad impression on my girlfriend." Ashton said, picking his phone up. "She's important to me."

"Sorry. I'm Michael," he walked inside the room, letting the door shut and holding his hand out to me. "Nice to like, officially meet you." he said with a lopsided grin.

"Likewise." I nodded. "So how was your flight?"

"Great," he said, sitting down on the bench in front of the bed. "Cali and I stole a bunch of bags of peanuts from the steward and tried to throw them in each others mouths during the flight without getting caught."

I raised my eyebrow at him.

"The bags of peanuts or the actual peanuts?" Ashton asked with mock sincerity. Michael stuck his tongue out.

"And how did that go?" I asked.

"Oh, we immediately got caught. Like not even 30 seconds into the game."

I laughed. At least this trip wouldn't be boring.

"It's not like we could get kicked off the flight, so we kept playing. They did ban us from the snack cart, though for the rest of the time. That was sad." He pouted.

"I'm sure. You must be staw-rving." Ashton cooed, pinching his cheek. Michael tsked at him and pulled his face away, slapping Ashton's hand.

"I am, fuck you."

"Maybe the others will be too and we can grab something for lunch."

"Yes, this seems like my kind of vacation already." Michael said, standing and walking towards the door. "Ready to go?"

I grabbed my water bottle and clipped it to my bag.

"I'm good, Ash?"

"I'm all set." He shuffled over to me and took my hand. "This is all I need."

"Ugh, I take it back, I might be sick. This seems like a terrible vacation. Good thing I haven't eaten anything in five hours."

Ashton shook his head, following his friend out the door, me trailing behind. We walked down the hall to the elevator.

"I thought you ate peanuts on the plane?" Ashton pressed the button to call the lift to us.

"Real food, Asher, I'm talking real food. I didn't even have a good breakfast."

"We'll stop so you can get something." I assured him. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and looked up where the closest subway was. There was one five blocks away, and a pizza place was next to it. "How do you feel about New York pizza?" I asked. The elevator dinged when the doors opened, almost as in affirmation and Michael grinned.

"The universe says yes."

We all laughed and went downstairs to meet everyone else.

***

I'm super excited about this vacation. Do friendships like this exist or is this really just a trope for books/movies? My friends and I have some wild adventures, like the time I pulled an all nighter and went hiking at 2am and rollerskating at 5am, but I think it might be mostly fiction. 

What are your friends all like? Maybe y'all can give me more ideas for what they're going to do :D 

~ashtonfortherwin