COMA | ziam

4: A Jealous Game

ah shit this is kind of a nothing chapter I had more I wanted to write but I just felt like I had to finish it so here you go! there will most likely be mistakes so i'll update again. enjoy.

"Who's the new guy?" Her voice was laced in bitter confidence, asking anyone, but me.

There was something about the beautiful woman that made something inside me ignite like flames, and I could only pinpoint it as jealousy. Like a green, ugly head that is hard to silence when someone that you envy, along with her easiness, touches a man I held very close to my heart just across from me. It felt like a form of betrayal, burning like coals against my skin, as Mr. Payne kept his eyes glued to the game below him. Past the meticulously clean glass of the VIP area that we all sat in. Already the insecurity of my position arose, of course I'm ridiculous for being so possessive, we were so strikingly different in so many ways, separating the fact that he was my boss.  I shouldn't even be in this room right now, feeling rather pathetic for being in the presence of such powerful people on their personal break with friends.

But I felt something more with him, laughably, I felt like we were friends at least.

"Zayn. My name is Zayn." I answered anyway, feeling a low rise of blush trailing up my neck.

Stupidly, I had already tricked myself in exposing myself to the people around me. Harry raised an impending eyebrow, he already knew how I felt the second I walked into the spacious room, filled with chairs so elegant and wealth, my hand attached to Elliot's but completely distracted by Liam. I couldn't pull my eyes off of him, even in a room filled with lions. He didn't notice but everyone else did, and when I had broken away from my embarrassing gawking at Liam as he lovingly played with Elliot and animatedly chatted to the men across the room, I forgot I was in the presence of Liam's close friends. It seemed so overwhelming when Harry poked my arm and I had turned crimson, staring into the eyes of Niall and Louis who smirked at me from the chairs sitting across from me. A breath from the man who had invited me to this lifestyle and got me this job had told me, "You need a better bluffing face, Z, everyone is getting suspicious." My heart flung from any lapse of air, astonished I had made myself so obvious.

We all sat here pointlessly as Liam hung around the room and I felt so out of place. I questioned Harry's gaze with my own, asking if he knew that I found myself falling into an fixation with my boss. He didn't answer. I forced myself to have a conversation with Louis and Niall, being lighthearted but my mind was so beyond it.

So when I answered her, as she finally acknowledged me the first time the whole night, Liam now sitting beside her now but not paying any attention, there was something very evident between the woman and I. A warning, maybe. A sign in our eyes not to overstep a boundary which was Liam, but she seemed to like to show me that she owned him, even if the relationship was fake or not. I had a feeling it was, just to keep the paparazzi happy and stop talking about the man's love life, but it didn't stop my envy for her to be any less strong. Harry had told me briefly that she was around to promote herself but Liam didn't seem to know or care - supposedly from Harry he needed a pretty distraction, and I hated the her for being it.

The woman, Sophia, laughed promiscuously at me when I told her my name. I feel humiliated by her, knowing she would sit in Mr. Payne's lap if Elliot wasn't so close.

"I didn't ask you. What does he do, anyway." She mocks me and Louis overhears, and I fret that there will be a problem that Liam has to address but he doesn't seem to even know anything but the shallow waters of what was going down around us. The game, Elliot, the small talk, but not the fighting between us all.

Everyone seemed to hate her as much as I did.

But sometimes his eyes would lift from his child's and my breath would hitch when our gaze would connect so suddenly. Seconds of attention felt like glorious hours, and I wanted to be stared at by him constantly. He would trace his tongue across his plump bottom lip so my pants would grow hot and uncomfortable against my skin, a quick smile in my direction, and then he'd be erased from any sort of consciousness to what was going on around him. At Elliot's birthday party, we all fought like idiots. Some better than others. And he didn't have any part in it, and maybe he just knew that this was how everything went, so he chose to stay away and I wish I could too, with him.