What Now? (Liam Payne) [BWWM] 2016

Liam

"Why are you so determined to know why this one girl seems to not like you? I've seen her twitter, she doesn't hold back." A friend yells out, body half masked by the mini fridge in the room.

I throw a pillow, earning a stream of half joking curses as he plops himself down on the sofa and turns his attention back to the basketball game on television. "I mean it," he says seriously between bites of an over sized burger and fries. "Why does it matter if she doesn't like you. You deal with that everyday and basically everywhere. Why is she any different?"

"I met her." I answer quietly.

"So? You've met others and they've taken their picture and trashed you again later or if you didn't stop to take yet another picture with them. First time meeting you, my arse," he grumbles darkly.

"That's just it mate, like she didn't ask me for anything. If anything, she was trying to help me. It doesn't make any sense." I murmur to myself.

He looks over at me, face skeptical. "Everybody wants something from you. I find that hard to believe."

"I mean it," I argue. "She and her friends more or less shielded me from outside cameras and i didn't feel like Liam Payne with them. To them... I was just Liam, the guy that had problems keeping his eyes off a girl."

"So that's it. You like her." Burger abandoned, he turns to study my face. I look away, watching the city down below my room. "Remember how it end-"

My gaze swings back to him, eyes blazing. "Don't even say her name."

Hands up in surrender, he mutters " I just don't want to see you like that again."

My phone chimes, diffusing some of the rising tension in the room. Sliding the lockscreen, I note that I have an incoming message. Opening the app, I ignore the countless messages of things that I've seen already and click on the one message I was hoping I'd get.

Toya.

Hey... I know you probably don't care about anything I have to say but I need to say it: I'm sorry. I never fully understood how much words can hurt until they were heaped on me for my own doing. I shouldn't have said any of the things I did, no matter how right I may have thought I was at the time. No one really understands what you go through and face in the spotlight and my apology probably means nothing now, hell... you'll probably never see this. I just wanted to try. It really was nice meeting you and getting to see you outside of the public persona. -T

I read and re-read her message, picturing her biting her lip like she did when she was thinking in the bar. If I noticed anything, it was how forward she is. I smile gently to myself.

"-Earth to Liam. Are you listening?"

Glancing up, I watch a knowing smirk flash across two faces. "It was her wasn't it," my mom states.

Handing her my phone, she reads the message and smiles. "It takes a big person to try to apologize Liam, so what now?"

I glance out the window again, taking in the city as the sun casts a comforting orange glow about the place.

"I need to see her again."

Firing off a quick message, I wait for the ping alerting me of her response and I kick my mother and friend out of the room, rushing to shower and get ready. So we've talked, somewhat.

Now what?