The President's Daughter (Liam Payne) Book 6

Chapter 42

“I’m sure you did fine,” she assures me.

“C’mon, blow out the candles!” Callum begs. I laugh and lean over to blow them out, pausing when I see Michael take a step towards me.

“Three steps back,” I order them, not wanting a face-full of cake. Trying to mask a look of disappointment, he and the others listen and once again I lean over to blow them out.

“I want cake!” Lux shouts, running into the room.

“C’mere you,” I say with a grin, standing up and scooping her up off the ground as she manages to swipe a handful of cake.

“Sorry,” Lou says, walking in shortly after, followed by the rest of the boys. “She saw them with the cake and…” she trails off with a shrug.

“Ohh chocolate!” Harry adds, walking up to the cake and swiping a finger through the frosting and popping it into his mouth. Good to know where Lux picked it up. With Lux propped on one hip, I turn, almost crashing into Liam who’d managed to creep up behind me.

“Congratulations,” he says with a smile.

“Did you know about this?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. He presses his lips together with a grin, making it quite obvious he did. “Hey Lux, I think Uncle Liam wants some cake, can he have a bite of yours?” I ask her, leaning her in his direction so she could shove the cake into his face. She giggles as he pulls away with cake all of his face, much like her own.

“Oh I’m going to get you for that missy,” he jokes with mock anger as he begins to tickle her. She starts flailing around, trying to escape him and soon I’m left with cake from her fingers all over my shirt.

“Thanks for that,” I say sarcastically to him.

“Look, I know you two are dating or whatever, but you can’t hog the guest of honor completely,” Lauren scolds Liam as she walks over with two plates of cake. “Here, I’ll trade you,” she tells him, giving him one of the plates and using the now free hand to grab my arm and pull me away. It’s really only twenty minutes or so before he’s back at my side.

“Shouldn’t you guys be headed back for the sound check soon?” I ask him. He shrugs and glances at his watch.

“We got a couple more minutes. I was hoping to steal away the guest of honor for a walk.”

“Why?” I ask, catching him by surprise.

“I dunno… just thought it’d be nice?” he asks questioningly. I give a nod, stuffing the last forkful of cake into my mouth before setting down my plate.

“Lets go,” I say through a mouthful of cake. Once out in the hall, we start wandering down the halls, seemingly aimlessly, in silence.

“So you’ve officially graduated huh?” Liam finally asks with a smirk. “Didn’t see that coming when I first met you.”

“Yea, I didn’t see it coming even last week,” I joke. He lets out a laugh, shaking his head with a grin.

“You’re going to stay with us for the rest of the tour though right?” he asks, surprising me. “I mean, now that you’ve graduated, you’re not really obligated to stay.” I hadn’t really thought about that. I’d assumed when I was sent here, it’d be for the whole tour. The fact that it was only until I’d finished school had never occured to me.

“Well it’s not official yet,” I remind him. “It’ll be another week until all the papers are sent in and processed.”

“I know… but still. We’ve got another three weeks of tour. You could skip out for the last two. Paul wouldn’t stop you.”

“I know…” I say feeling a bit uncomfortable. What was he trying to do? Get rid of me? Or worse, make me admit to wanting to stay with them?

“I’m not trying to tell you to leave or anything. We’d all miss you,” he says quickly. “Who else would fix our pants?” he adds jokingly and a sense of relief washes over me as he gives me the easy out.

“Well for the sake of your pants I guess I’ll stay,” I tease. He chuckles, bumping into me slightly as we walk.

“So what was your plan when you do get to New York?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“Well… like, what are you planning on doing.”

“I dunno,” I say with a shrug. “Partying. Seeing friends,” I offer. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well what are you going to do for money?” he asks. Once again I shrug, frowning.

“I dunno… I have money. I’ll be fine,” I say, growing frustrated with his questioning.

“Ok,” he says, putting his hands up in surrender. “I just thought maybe you’d want to get a job or something. Partying is fun and all but god knows I’d get bored of it after a while.” We fade into silence after that, ambling down the hallway.

“We should probably get back,” I mutter eventually. “They’re probably looking for you.”

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I'm so so so so so so so so sorry it's taken this long to update. Things have been crazy busy here and I've barely had any time to write. Updates definitely won't be coming as frequently as they used to but I'm getting back into a schedule for writing so hopefully it won't take as long to update again. Again, I'm so sorry for taking so long. I'd hoped to finish before I became an au pair but that didn't happen so now I'm stuck trying to do both. Hope everyone is well and let me know what you think so far :)