"I'm really sorry, I gotta get to the meeting." Liam finally apologized, edging slowly away from her. She nodded quickly, blushed and hurried away. He caught up with us, and forced out a, "She's a sweet girl."
"Who wants to keep you in her basement," Louis added with an evil grin.
"Last time I checked, we were mad at Zayn. Can we go back to that, please?" Liam flicked his finger into Louis' face. I tried my best to sneak into the room, because I knew the second I was there, the subject would be dropped. Louis knew exactly what I was doing, though, and immediately grabbed ahold of my arm to keep me from going in.
"What's going on with her? If you're happy, good for you mate, but we know how these girls are. They treat us with indifference, then the truth comes out once you're attached." Louis said, suddenly both guys were completely serious. I sighed, knowing he had just gone through his own break-up. It was hardly an easy one, yet he hadn't acted any differently. He brushed it off, not once breaking down. But the sincerity in his voice now, just made me feel even worse.
"She's different," I argued weakly, knowing his argument did have validation.
"How many times have I heard that in my lifetime? Let me count…" Louis gave me a look that I knew all too well as his way of saying 'get off it, tell us what's actually going on'.
"It's not about the fame with her, she knows so many things about all these different celebrities… She could go out and destroy dozens of lives, but she doesn't. She's different, I swear."
"You thought that with Taryn," Liam pointed out.
There it was. The Taryn card. Somehow everything always came back to her, how she ruined everything for me and played me for the attention. It might have happened over six months ago, but to my bandmates it seemed to have happened in the past week. Though, Niall and Harry didn't focus on it as much as Louis and Liam did. Niall offered to ruin her life, but once I had said no, he left it alone. Harry gave me some unintelligible advice, followed by a horribly told joke, and that was the end of that.
The other two, though, they were the most invested when it came to relationships gone wrong. Liam, although he would never actually admit it, was a fairytale guy. He wanted that ending that everyone was envious of, where he swooped in his silver armor and rescued the princess. He wants everyone else to have that same happiness, and even if he doesn't have a girlfriend, he is determined for us to be happy. Louis is the best guy to go to for advice, and he's the best friend in the world when you need someone to talk to. He becomes attached to whatever it is you need help about, and if it goes wrongly (as my relationship did) he becomes determined to make sure history doesn't repeat itself.
"It's so much more real than it was with Taryn. Joelle is a great person, you've met her and you like her." I shrugged again, hoping they'd let the subject drop. Having the conversation revolve around me was not something I enjoyed.
"She's great, actually, we're just worried about you, mate. You're not like Niall, catching us up on everything Natalia and him have done whenever we're apart for more than twenty-four hours, you keep everything hidden until we pry it out of you." The way Liam said these words, made me feel a bit bad.
I was never a guy who liked everything being on display and Taryn helped me retreat even further into myself. "She doesn't want to fall in love, but neither do I. We're good for each other right now."
"She doesn't want to fall in love?" Louis echoed me, his eyebrows flying up his forehead.
"No," I shook my head. "And that's a good thing. We aren't getting attached."
"Isn't that the point of dating someone though?" Liam asked in confusion.
"You don't have to fall in love when you date."
"No, but that's kind of the reason you do it. To find someone you can spend the rest of your life with." Louis snorted back in laughter and I struggled to find what was funny about this situation.
"You're just going to date and not fall in love with her?" Liam shushed Louis, his entire tone was laced with wariness.
"Not right now at least," I said trying to make it make sense. It made complete sense in my own mind, why was it so hard to find words to explain it?
"Elaborate," Louis said once he had calmed his laugh attack.
"Maybe we're meant to be and eventually we'll fall in love, but right now we enjoy each other's company. That's not illegal, is it?" I raised an eyebrow.
"Girls! Quit gossiping about boys and get your butts in here to discuss what you get paid for!" Harry yelled, poking his head out of the room we held our meetings in.
The three of us shared a look before heading into the conference room that had tables and chairs lined up in a professional manner. I grabbed the one closest to the door, falling into the seat and staring at the projected image on the wall. It had something to do with the concert, that's all I knew for sure. People were here to explain things to us and crunch numbers and tell us what to do to seem like amazing guys in the public eye. It was a typical typical Saturday for us, but I couldn't get Joelle out of my mind. All I could think about was getting to see her later that night.
Chapter Fourteen
Start from the beginning
