Back to Where We Started

Chapter 15

Once he was confident that Liam was out of hearing range and on his way to sit with Harry and Niall in the lounge, Zayn rounded on Louis. "What in the world is going on?" He demanded.

Louis huffed out an exasperated breath, shoulders slouched in defeat. "After the day we had, that little display from Liam and Niall set me off more than it should have. I'm sorry."

Zayn nodded, knowing what that felt like from past experiences of his own. Not wanting to snap at his friend, but also wanting him to understand that what he'd done was unacceptable, Zayn said, "I'm not the one you need to be apologizing to. Those boys have had to throw every expectation out the window for me the last few weeks, and now they're trying to readjust to not having to. Just the other day, I told them that they were all going to be on a short leash until I said otherwise. I think it's only fair that that applies to us as well."

Louis bit his lip as he glanced over Zayn's shoulder, watching the younger boys fidget while they had a quiet, mumbled conversation, likely fretting over the conversation he'd promised.

"I really messed up here." Louis sighed.

Zayn chuckled darkly. "Welcome to the club."

The pair settled into a heavy silence for a few moments, both lost in their own thoughts. Hoping to keep the other boys from worrying for too long, Zayn was the first to break the silence. "I understand where you were coming from, but neither of us can go around making declarations like that, ok? Not only is it not fair to the boys, but it's not fair to us. Neither of us should be solely responsible for wearing the hat of bad guy, but making declarations without talking to each other first is only going to make it impossible to back each other up."

Not wanting Louis to feel like he was being attacked, Zayn paused for a moment to take a deep breath and allow them both to think.

"I know I have to apologize to the boys, but I need to apologize to you as well. I know I put you on the spot." Louis said.

Zayn smiled sympathetically. "You can't beat yourself up, Lou. There's no use dwelling on what you did wrong. We've just got to make sure we're on the same page now and go talk to the boys."

Listening to his best mate, Louis couldn't help the smirk that settled on his face.

"What?" Zayn asked, confused by the sudden turn of emotion.

"S'just funny, innit? Last time we were on this bus, I believe it was me saying something along those lines to you. How the hell did that happen?"

Zayn snorted out a laugh. "We have got to get it together, mate."

"No kidding," Louis agreed with a laugh of his own. "So, what do we do now?"

Satisfied that they'd reached an understanding, Zayn gave Louis a reassuring smile. "Now, we get on the same page and go talk to the boys."

"Ok," Louis agreed.

"So, what exactly did you want to talk about with them?" Zayn asked.

"I just feel like, while we sort of scraped the surface about how we expect things to get back to normal around here when we talked to the boys the other day, we didn't really have the chance to lay everything out on the table. I mean, you said that they'd be on probation for further notice, but what the hell does that even mean?"

Zayn took a minute to think about that. It seemed pretty self-explanatory to him, but Louis was right, he'd never truly explained what he meant by that. "Ok, that's a fair point. Looks like we both need to pay attention to what we're saying and be prepared to back it up."