LOST II

Chapter 56: "Time or Practice?"

Many apologies for the delay. I'll make up for it. A BIG, BIG shoutout to sunrays_moonlight for all the love. 

More of this in the A/N. 

Without further ado, comment your reactions as you read!

First Draft: July 2018

Zayn was waiting for Salma to show up when his phone rang with an incoming call from an unregistered number. Frowning, he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Hello dog," an extremely annoying voice taunted. "Enjoying her snubs to your advances?"

It was Thomas.

Zayn's features turned stony when the rat's laughter rang in his ear.

"Now what does a gutter rat like you want?" Zayn growled.

"Respect, pup, show some respect," James drawled. "My call might just be the answer to all your problems."

"If I don't hear a useful word coming out of your mouth in the next ten seconds, I'm hanging up."

"Be my guest," James replied, "but then again, you'd never find out how to stop her cringing away from your touch."

"What're you talking about?" Zayn snarled, feeling his blood boil with jealousy.

"Calm your woof-woof!" James laughed, before sobering up. "Oh dear, it sure is amusing to see you be so clueless –"

"You scrawny piece of --"

"Easy, easy pupper! She's not used to a man's touch, much less a hound's, such as yourself. It takes her a lot of time to get used to the idea. It took her ages before she finally accepted the fact that I'll embrace her every time we see each other. So yeah, I've got that privilege now. I get to hug her. She hugs me back, just to let you know. We hug--"

"Are you about done?" Zayn seethed.

"Aww, do I hear jealousy?!" James snickered.

"Go to hell, Thomas!"

"Will you join me --"

Zayn cut the call, breathing heavily. He saw red in his periphery. He kept getting reminded of the time when James had wrapped an arm around Salma's shoulders and turned around to mock him with a smug smirk on his face.

Zayn was desperately trying to dissuade his sudden anger when James called again. Zayn ignored it. His phone started ringing a third time. This time, it was a different number. Glaring at the device, he picked it up.

"Who is this?!" he snapped.

"Zayn, its Dean!" came the rushed reply. "I'm sorry for James's annoying call. Please, I just want to talk!"

"Talk!" Zayn spat angrily.

There was a moment's pause, and then Dean cleared his throat uncertainly.

"Listen, we figured Sally would be uncomfortable around you --"

"She's not!" Zayn snapped.

Another very awkward pause punctuated the call.

"Okay. . ." Dean trailed off, quite obviously not buying into Zayn's claim. "but she wasn't around us in the beginning so we thought we could help incase it's the same for you."

"Why would you care?!" Zayn challenged.

"Honestly mate, I don't care about you but--" He stopped when James started talking in the back ground. "And James said neither does he."