I lift my baby out of the crib and put her on my hip as the three of us make our way back to mine and Charlie's bedroom. "You wanna lay with mummy, Li? While I get Mar ready for school?"
"Babe, what time is it?" Charlie murmurs from the bed. Harry's no longer here, probably making breakfast. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I just heard a frying pan hit the floor downstairs.
"Um, " I grab my phone from the bedside table. "7:45. I'm getting Mar ready for school. Do you want me to tak-"
"Shit! Really?" She jumps up, clad in only her panties and my shirt. Wild. "I'm gonna be late. Well I mean, I am late."
"Wha...does it matter what time it is You don't have work."
"It does," she begins to explain, walking over to one of the closets and pulling out random shit. "I told Eleanor I'd help her with something today, and I'm supposed to meet her there at 8." She glances down at the phone once more. "Hm. That explains why she didn't come with Harry this morning. They told her last minute to be there at 7," she mumbles, more to herself, I think.
I was hoping we could spend the day together. "Oh. What is it?"
"She's uh, she's got a project-video shoot or something. And she wanted me to help her with it."
"Oh sick. Who's the artist?"
"Oh, um, I'm not really sure. She wouldn't tell me...probably didn't want me to fangirl or something."
"I could see you doing that," I laugh. "Texting my phone, being all like, Zee! Holy fucking shit balls it's Nicki Minaj or something."
"Daddy!" Mar bellows.
"Sorry, little guy. Daddy forgets."
"Hah, yeah," she laughs a little uneasily. She's racing around a mile a minute and before she can slip past me out the door, I grab her elbow, pulling her to me.
"Breathe. Good morning," I smirk before placing a soft kiss on her lips. "You'll be fine. You're gonna smash it."
"Like the little boy from Bradford?" She teases, bringing her arms around my neck and running her fingers over the buzzed hair there. So I guess after I smoked a shit ton at the grad party, I ran around telling people how 'I'm just a little boy from Bradford. And now I'm smashin' it.' Highly possible; I say a lot of shit.
"Break it up, break it up. Charlie, you've got to go. Eleanor's cursing me out," Harry interrupts. "I can see you giving me the finger Zayn."
"That's kind of the point."
Charlie's POV
"So nice of you to make it." I'm only twenty minutes late. "Here. Take this shirt and give it to Calum."
I've been trying to mentally prepare myself the entire cab ride here. And I don't think I'll ever be prepared enough.
Reevaluating my life choices right about now.
"Um," I knock timidly on the door before pushing it open. "Calum? I have your shirt." A couple of the video extras I guess, look at me weirdly (probably because I'm being super informal), but little do they know, we've got history. A LOT of history.
"Holy shit," Ashton breathes. "It's a small world after all. It's a small, small world..." He begins to sing.
"Ashton, really?" Someone else says. I don't even have to look up to know who that is. Do I want to look up? No. Do I kind of have to? Yes. "Ignore him. Like always." I look up at that, only to find Luke's eyes briefly on mine. But as soon as they meet, he's right back to playing on his phone.
Chapter 3
Start from the beginning
