Loose » Zarry ✔

Part 10

The first show of the tour is in Cleveland Ohio. Zayn enjoys himself thoroughly and he really appreciates the fans and how lively they were for him. But after he does his meet and greets and after signing a few autographs, he's gone and being taken back to the hotel so he can get some rest. That's all he wants to do.

Hotels are his second home now. He doesn't worry about permanency anymore. He has come to accept that because he knows that as long as he wants to do this, hotels are exactly where he'll be staying.

Currently, he's lying underneath the covers and the TV is on low. The voices flow through the speakers and two women on a comedy show chat about being underpaid. It's a small thing that goes ignored and soon, the prerecorded laughter causes him to drift into a well needed deep sleep.

→→→→→

The next day, he wakes up and finds he has something totally unexpected on the brain. It's the two words Harry sent him.

No promises.

Was he only saying that because he was scared Zayn might leave again, or did he actually feel like things had changed between them so much now that Zayn should be fine with getting a handjob and then possibly never see him again?

Zayn cringes at the second half of that thought. He really hopes that he knows he isn't that kind of person. He isn't one to only care about him as long as he's giving him what he wants like those other men who pay for his services. He's so much better than all of them.

The sun peeks through the curtains and Zayn mumbles to himself because it means the day has officially started for him. He knows he's going to be traveling some more today, so he rolls out of bed and gets himself cleaned up. The whole time he is in the bathroom, Harry never leaves his brain. He thought he'd wash the thoughts away with the water, but apparently that's not the case. So when he's done and in a new set of clothes, he dials up his hairdresser.

After a few rings, she answers. "Hello?"

"Good morning, Hydie. How are you?"

"I'm good. You?"

"I'm okay. Have you had breakfast yet?"

"No. I haven't."

"Well, do you think you could come over to my room and have breakfast with me? I'll order room service."

She is silent for a moment. "Is something wrong?"

"Um... I want to talk to you if that's okay."

Again, she is silent. "Alright. I'll be there in five minutes."

"Thank you so much. I'll see you when you get here."

He hangs up the phone and grabs the room service menu from the table. He'd forgotten to ask her what she wanted to eat for breakfast so when he calls, he orders a little bit of everything. Five minutes later, just as Hydie had said, she knocks on the door. He wastes no time getting up to answer it.

"Good morning." She greets.

"Good morning."

"How are you?"

He sits down at the foot of his bead and he frowns. "My mind isn't in it."

She takes a seat at the little table in the corner. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not sure if going back to LA at the time I did was the best thing I could have done or the worst thing."

"Why do you say that?"

He shrugs. "If I'm going to say anything, you have to promise not to spread it. I haven't told anyone else yet, so if this comes back around to me, I will know it's you." He knows that's a lie because Tim already knows. He won't tell her that though.

She clears her throat and nods. "I promise."

He studies her to make sure she isn't lying and when he determines she's not, he continues. "Remember when you and I were talking in the dressing room at the Summer Party?"

"What about it?"

"Well... I was down about something."

"Oh. Am I prying if I ask what it was you were down about?"

He shakes his head no. "When I went to that nightclub the very first night, I saw someone I knew. It was the first time I saw them since a year and a half ago. They saw me too."

"Really?"

"Yeah. And some stuff... happened, I admit. But now... I suddenly can't stop thinking about them. I feel like I'm expecting too much out of the little time we've shared, but I can't help but to do it. The old feelings are creeping back in and I'm lost because I'm afraid that we're not on the same page. If I'm like this after the short time we spent together, what the fuck am I going to do if they don't feel the same way? What am I going to do when I go back home after this tour and they're not waiting for me?"

She gets up from the table and sits next to him on the bed. She softly rubs up and down his back. "Are they supposed to be waiting for you? Do they even know they should be waiting for you?"

"I asked them to be."

"And what did they say?"

"No promises."

It's quiet. She can imagine how something like that must really hurt. But there has got to be a way to twist that statement around to make him feel better. She figures it out. "I'm sorry, Zayn. But that doesn't mean they won't be there. Maybe they are only saying that because they are afraid to commit to something like that. Don't forget that you're famous now. If you say you last saw them over a year and a half ago, that means they knew you before you were in the spotlight. It's a possibility that they just have a hard time accepting you as the new you."

Zayn looks up to her. "You think so?"

"It's highly possible. Now, I'm not saying you should get your hopes up too high. But don't shoot them down either. You never know what's going on inside their heads. Maybe they're talking to someone else about you right now. Who knows?"

Zayn smiles, although he is pretty sure Harry isn't discussing this with anybody. He knows Harry too well to come to any conclusion that he would go spreading the things they did or talked about to anyone else. But the comfort that he receives from imagining it still helps a whole lot. "You're right. Maybe I should stop worrying."

"There is no maybe, Zayn. You have to. You still have nineteen more shows to do before you're back home."

He sighs. "Yeah. I know."

There is a knock at the door and right away, the person on the other side of the door identifies themselves. "Room service!"

Zayn huffs and he stands up to answer the door. There is a lady there and he offers to bring the cart all the way in the room so that she doesn't have to. She obliges and is grateful for his kind gesture.

He rolls the cart inside and stops it dead at the foot of the bed. He's grinning. "I don't know what you like to eat, so I ordered a bit of everything. Hope you're hungry, Hydie."

She nods and then watches him closely. She sees how the smile doesn't quite reach his eyes the way she normally knows it to do. But she sure hopes that changes sometime between now and the end of this final leg of the tour.