The House Of Immortality

"You'll just be up here most of the time." Ashton told the new girl with a friendly smile, gesturing toward the small desk near a tall stack of CD cases atop a file cabinet, and a vintage looking coat rack.

The whole room, from what she could see, looked worn out and overused. Papers were stacked in messy piles on top of file cabinets, CDs and records and cassette tapes littered every shelving unit along the walls, and there were stray cords everywhere. Although it looked like a place she could barely function in, she could figure something out. Maybe for some extra brownie points, she could tidy up a bit.

"Okay." Jasey Rae replied, once her thoughts had been refocused on the desk. Peering down at the random pictures carved into the wooden desk, she ran a hand over the bumpy wooden surface. Intricate swirls, stick figures in risqué positions, and words and phrases littered every available inch. It was dizzying almost, how much was going on in such a small space. It was almost mesmerizing how-

"Like the desk?" She looked up at Ashton - her new boss - as he noticed her interest in the unintentional art piece and continued to speak.

"All of the social media geeks that've worked here before drew pictures on their first day." He explained to her, "I guess it became a tradition with the station. Everyone started doing it on their first day, and now it's just normal. " Her eyes shifted from his smile to the desk again, and she shook her head.

"Such a waste of a perfect quality desk." She smiled and looked back up at him.

"Hey! It was a creative idea, and I support creativity." Jasey raised an eyebrow as her smile twisted into a smirk. Ashton took note of the way her lips seemed to curve up in a perfect line. "Don't insult the way I run my business or I may have to fire you." He teased with a wink, resting his hand in the small of her back to direct her towards the studio.

Ashton Irwin... He wasn't someone that you would look at and think to be the boss of a radio station. He has the personality of a comedian with the smile of a kid and the face of an actor. His voice was chirpy and slightly annoying to Jasey, but she could get over it. His style screamed "I'm in a band" while his everything else screamed "I got all A's and B's in high school", which was good in a way, but it also contradicted with the rest of him. He would take a while to figure out. That is, if she "sticks around long enough to find out" as he had put it. Maybe he was just trying to flirt with her, but she was bad at assuming things when they weren't true. It was probably just another ones of those cases where he's trying to be friendly to the new girl by showing her things and saying nice things to her. He seemed like that kind of person.

"It's the mid-day show right now, and Kaity's the head of that. You'll become good friends with her, I hope. She's the only other girl that works here, you know. We don't really get many girls that want to work here, so she'll be glad to have you." He smiled down at her again; he seemed to do that frequently.

"I'm sure she's a nice girl. I've heard her show a couple of times."

"Yeah. Hey! Her show's about to end and Mikey can handle the studio by himself. I'll let you out early if you'll go to dinner with me?"

"Uh, I.. don't know..." She looked down at her shoes, her cheeks dusted with a light shade of red.

"Aw, come on. You told me that you just moved here, and I could be your first friend." Then he smiled that stupid, cute smile and she couldn't say no to that face.

"Okay," She grinned back at him and sighed, "I'll go to dinner with you. As long as we get pizza."

"Deal. You ready to go now?"

"Sure, I guess."

He walked behind her, leading her towards the front door, where she almost smacked right into a tall boy with hair that looked like the milky way. He was pale for someone living in Southern California, and he dressed similarly to Ashton. His eyes were definitely something else, and when she stared directly into them, she could actually feel her heart hurt.

"Sorry.." She said shyly, biting the inside of her cheek.

All he did was glance down at her and continue walking past them, offering a small smile to Ashton, and nothing to her.

"Oh..." She mumbled, walking out the door and waiting for Ash to catch up to her side.

"That's Mikey... You'll probably hate him at first. He doesn't seem very nice, but he's actually one of my best friends."

"Oh. I don't think he likes me all that much."

"He'll become nicer to you. Don't worry." He reassured her with another smile. There wasn't a moment he didn't smile, huh...

--

"So... That was the night show host?" Jasey asked, cutting off a piece of her pepperoni pizza with the side of her fork.

"Mikey?" Jasey nodded, and he sighed, "Yeah. Its been two years now, and he's still there. Surprised me, actually. I thought he would quit after a couple of months, but the listeners love him, and so does everyone else at the station." Jasey just about choked on her bite of pizza, and Ashton let out a chuckle. "Surprised?"

"No, it's just... How do people like that asshole?" She already didn't like him, and she thought it would be necessary to tell Ashton. After all, he had been working with Mikey for two years apparently, and he had to know how to deal with him.

"He'll get better, don't worry. He was just late, and he's only nice to me because I'm his boss. Kaity loves him. So does our friend, Calum. Don't worry." He reached out and touched her hand in a comforting way, causing Jasey's stomach to sink. She really did think he was cute. Not really her type to date, although his smile was irresistible. Seriously, how could you disagree with that face?

"I'll take your word for it. It's not like he seems like a bad person."

"He really isn't."

She nodded and focused on eating her giant slice of pizza, looking up at Ashton periodically to find that he was watching her eat. It came off as a bit creepy, but he was just so cute... She couldn't help but smile back as she chewed, shaking her head. "You like to stare at people, don't you."

"I like staring at pretty people."

"Oh... Um." Her cheeks turned pink, and she wiped her mouth with a clean napkin. "Thanks, I guess."

She was confused, since no one in Seattle had ever thought she was pretty. Actually, that was probably because she had no friends. She wasn't 'stoner' enough for the stoners, she wasn't 'hipster' enough for the hipsters, and she wasn't 'mature' enough for the business people. No one had really ever talked to her in school, which was good since she had always hated the people at her high school anyways. She didn't stay in contact with anyone and she always sat on the internet at home instead of going out to make friends. Now, it wasn't any different. So, maybe it was good to have Ashton around. He could introduce her to people and she could actually make a life for herself here.

"I really do mean it. You're very pretty."

"Aw, Ashton. Stop. Please." She whined, smiling to hide the fact that she wasn't complimenting him back.

"So, uh," Ashton started, pushing his thick framed glasses up the bridge of his nose, "I think it's important that we exchange numbers. You know, to keep in contact about work... and stuff..." He smiled shyly as he slid his phone across the table, and it stopped in front of Jasey. A new contact page was already opened with her name, 'Jasey Rae Holton' typed in, and the cursor was blinking in the phone number box. She looked up at him and shook her head, smiling as she grabbed the phone and carefully typed in her cellphone number. Pressing the home button, she clicked on the camera app and took a picture with her eyes crossed and pouty lips. It looked really dumb, but she chose that as her contact picture anyway. She added a heart eyes emoji next to her last name, and she handed the phone back to Ashton.

"There ya go." He looked down at the screen and smiled as he saw her contact picture and the change she had made to her name.

"Cute picture you took there."

"Did you see my name? It looks cuter like that." His smile grew so big that his dimples looked like craters on his cheeks, and he looked away from her for a few seconds to recompose himself.

"Yeah, I think so too."

"Aww. Thanks!" She replied sweetly, looking down at her own phone. "Wait. Shit. I have to go meet my new roommate. Thank you for taking me out. Here," She took ten dollars out of her wallet and left it on the table. "To pay for my part of dinner." She explained.

"No need," Ashton countered with a shy grin. "I've got the bill, Jas. It's okay if I call you that, right?"

"Oh, okay. Yeah, as long as I can call you Ash." She smiled back at him and stood up from the table, sliding her arm through her purse strap. "I'll see you tomorrow at work."

"Sounds good. See you tomorrow."

"Bye!" She said excitedly, walking away from the table and toward the front door of the pizza place. It wasn't a far walk to her new apartment, and her roommate hadn't been there when she put all of her stuff inside. Hopefully 'Valerie' wouldn't mind the clutter of boxes that were scattered around Jasey's new room. If she got yelled at the second she got home, she would have to find friends so that she would never have to be home. But hopefully that wouldn't happen.

She thought about friends, and the radio station, and that night show host, Mikey, as she walked along the sidewalk through the bitter LA night. Maybe his show was still going on... She grabbed her headphones from her bag and plugged them into her phone, clicking on the radio app she had downloaded a couple of days before. Once she found the right station, she clicked on it and heard 'Sweater Weather' playing through the headphones. As the song ended, she heard a guys voice and she sighed. Well... He spoke, and when he did, she got chills. Maybe it was from the breeze, or maybe it was from hearing the boy with the galaxy hair speak. Who knows... She continued to walk, listening to him talk about the upcoming contests and what songs would be played next.

Ashton still sat at the pizza restaurant, smiling down at his phone that now had the cutest girl in LA's number. All he had to worry about was when would be the appropriate time to text her.