I Need You Here With Me Now

Chapter 3

*Zayn’s POV*

“Tori get the hell off me!” I laughed. Tori, my best friend had come to visit me and she wanted a catch up, to know how I was doing with the band lately. But, she was too excited to see me, and ended up jumping on my knee and tickling me. And she knew how ticklish I was.

“No! Zayn I miss you, let me have my own way here!” she said, sitting back and pouting. I’m not going to lie, she was beautiful. She always had been and she always will be. But the only thing putting me off was that we’d been best friends for so long, and suddenly she seemed to be getting close with me. My phone buzzed on the table, making her sit back on the sofa beside me, allowing me to reach for my phone.

“Tori, I gotta go. You gotta go!” I turned to her, to see her twiddling her thumbs and looking at me with a confused expression.

“Why, Zayn? You barely spend time with me now!” she whined. I stepped towards her, took her hands and pulled her from the sofa. Her hand found its way around my waist as we walked towards the front door. From the side, I grabbed my cigarettes and my lighter and shoved them into my pocket, trying my best to hide it from her. She always hated me smoking, and I knew she’d do anything to stop me from it. I wanted to stop, for her, for my fans, for Niamh. But I was addicted.

“I’ve spent the last 10 years with you Tori! Let me have a life!” I laughed as I spoke the final words, and she tried to keep a straight and stern expression, though she knew she couldn’t stay like that for more then 3 seconds, and burst out laughing.

“Okay, okay. Have fun!” she suddenly said, giving me a quick, tight hug. I held her there for a second, making sure she knew I still loved her. As a friend, nothing more. She pulled back from me and smiled, before turning to walk in the opposite direction, back to her house.

As I walked down the street and turned onto the main road, I ruffled my hair and put my hoodie on, zipping it up and pulling on the hood. I grabbed a cigarette from my pocket and lit it, the thought of nicotine sending my mind to Niamh. She’d told me so many times how she was worried, how she wanted me to stop. After a few seconds, I threw the cigarette on the floor. I had to stop, for her.

“Zayn!” a voice screeched from behind me. I turned on my heel and there she stood, looking beautiful as ever. She ran towards me and jumped into my arms, making me lose my balance slightly. She threw her arms around my neck and I hugged her back. Even tighter than I’d hugged Tori.

Finishing her cup of tea, she looked at me from behind her long, dark lashes, and flashed a quick smile, before standing up and putting her hand in front of me. I took it, smiled back and led her out of the café. As she spoke soft words, I just looked down at her; I admired her petite size, how snugly her hand fit in mine. After a while of walking, she stopped, turned to me and looked up into my eyes.

“What do you think?” she asked, making my mind snap back to reality. Oh. I hadn’t heard what she was talking about.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied quickly. She turned her head to one side, looking at me with a smirk on her face.

“Okay Zayn. I’ll see you tomorrow at 7 then. Are you okay to pick me up?”

“Of course, I can’t wait!” I responded. I breathed out a sigh of relief, knowing this was the end of that conversation. I just hoped it wasn’t the end of our ‘date’.

We continued walking, hand in hand, laughing and talking about our lives recently. She had told me lots of stories about her new work and how she had some really nice colleagues. I felt really happy for her, I really did. We must have been walking for hours, it was now getting dark and she was getting cold. I offered her my hoodie, but she shook her head.

“We’re not far away now, I’ll be fine!” I wondered where she meant. I didn’t recognise this area. What were we close to? Suddenly, a sharp turn took us onto a brightly lit street, full of modern city houses. We arrived at the twelfth house, she turned to face me, and her arms found their way around my neck.

“Thank you for today, I loved it!” she whispered, her warm breath flying over my skin.

“It’s fine, Niamh. I’ll pick you up here at 7pm tomorrow okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine with me. Goodnight Zayn,” she smiled, pulling away from the long hug we just had.

“Goodnight Niamh,” I said, almost a whisper. It was hard to say goodbye to her. She turned and walked towards her front door, unlocked it, and pushed the handle. As she stepped inside, she looked over her shoulder.

“Oh, Zayn?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t dress too smart. I’m going to be casual. Don’t try too hard, you don’t have to,” she winked, and closed the door behind her. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I walked back along the streets to my house.

Arriving home, I sunk into my armchair and flicked on the TV. I couldn’t even concentrate; I wanted to know why I was picking her up tomorrow. I wished I had listened, instead of admiring her. She was amazing, in my mind.

*Rachel’s POV*

As I walked through the plane doors, I looked out of the window in the terminal and saw the rain pouring. Yeah, this was definitely England. Now all I could think about was who had come to pick me up. I walked through the doors, scanning the room for whoever was waiting for me. My eyes landed on Louis, who smiled and ran towards me.

“I told you it would all be fine! I missed you Rach!” Louis said, throwing his arms around me.

“I missed you too! Thanks for waiting for me by the way, it means a lot!” I replied, my head in his shoulder.

“Oh, Harry is here too, but he had to take a phone call. I don’t know where he went, I guess-” my heart pounded, my head spun. I didn’t want to see him right now.

I heard footsteps behind me; I was still in Louis’ arms, so unfortunately I couldn’t see who it was.

“Yeah, that’s fine. See you later, Caroline!” the voice said. My body tensed. Louis obviously felt this sudden tension, and moved away from me.

“Rachel! Oh my, you have no idea how much I-” the voice said, but the words were cut off when he saw my expression. I glared at him with anger and fear in my eyes.

“Rachel?”

“Harry…”