stars and terrain (zayn malik)

Chapter 62

Zayn

Nothing is better than seeing that ring on her finger.

Nothing is better than seeing her stare at that ring on her finger.

Nothing is better than holding her hand with that ring on her finger.

She's mine. It's settled. She said yes and she wants forever like I do and the world could fucking end tomorrow and it'd be all right.

She said yes.

I didn't necessarily think she'd say no, but I thought she might tell me it was too soon. And maybe it was, but my life wasn't normal and my perfect girl wasn't normal and we didn't need to do things the way normal people did.

I needed to get her off of the market.

And now that's in plain for anyone to see on my Twitter and a headline on every major news site - even on major news channels, which really freaks out Charlie.

"How is that like... worldwide news?" Her big blue eyes widen as she pushes her palm towards my face, brandishing a picture from Alli of our engagement news running across the ticker of CNN.

"You're just that beautiful."

"It says 'Zayn Malik's engaged to model girlfriend,'" she smirks, dropping her phone back on the table and tucking her knee to her chest. "You're the worldwide news, Malik. I'm just along for the ride."

"Forever." I add, because it's my new favorite word to use when talking about her.

We're at a bar, because since the news broke it's hard to go anywhere around Paris. The bar at least ensures half of the crowds aren't old enough to make it in.

She sips at her French beer, which she'd ordered with her best accent and sounded so horribly un-French but looked so massively adorable, and just smiles at me across the table.

We're going home in the morning. As much as I hated dragging her away from the city she fell in love with, things were too crazy there. I'd forgotten how fucking mad European paparazzi could be. She wants to stop in England on the way home, but I don't have that much time before I have to leave for the Asian leg of my tour and I definitely don't want to spend it uncomfortably with my family. So I promise her that we'll try for next time and she seems all right with that.

Her phone lights up, and I can see Jane's name. Her face falls a little when she reads the message, but she rights it quickly.

"What's wrong?"

"Jane says stay off Twitter. But now I obviously want to know what's going on." She touches her phones a few times and I reach my hand out to grab hers.

"Don't. Charlie. Don't."

"I just want to know," she says, not lifting her eyes and pulling her hand from my reach, leaning back in her chair and lifting her phone closer. "Oh."

She bites at her lip and raises her eyebrows.

"Charlotte is a gold digger is trending." She sets her phone down and sips at her beer. "Worldwide."

"Fucking Christ." My hands ball into fists because fuck, could they have picked anything else, any other name. But they had to pick that one.

"It's fine." She lies, I can tell because her eyes won't meet mine and she's trying to peel the wrapper off of her beer bottle absentmindedly.

"It's not fine." I say too quickly, anger bubbling over. "It's not fucking fine."

I pull out my phone and open Twitter, typing furiously before Charlie can convince me otherwise.