Getting Along

10. Say something

Gas station, On the road between Miami and Louisville, USA

“Niall we’re taking a pit stop.” Harry said pulling the curtain of my bunk back. I groaned but rolled down anyway and pulling my hood over my head. We walked together with the rest of the team into the convenience store. “Bro, my arm hurts from that girl at the meet and greet.”

I laughed, “That was crazy. I hate when they kiss me in pictures without asking to be fair…it’s weird.”

“They just had no concept of personal space. I don’t know, maybe they were young.”

“Harry, they told us about a million times that they were eighteen, and only ‘seven and eight years older than them’.” I rolled my eyes, “They would’ve been cool if they weren’t busy being…yaknow…”

“Fans?” He chuckled.

“No, that’s not the word I was thinking of…” We reached the door of the store and walked in, browsing candies and other snacks. I grabbed an arm full of sun chips and made my way to the check out. As I stood in line with Lora, I scanned over the magazines on the racks, snickering at the one with me and Hunter on the front.

“Look,” Lora said pointing to it. “You’re dating Hunter Tomlinson.” She hushed, “Oh no, but what about Ellie Goulding and Barbra Palvin? Niall, the magazine is requesting that you pick someone before a heart gets broken.” I laughed at her dry tone and propped my arm up on her shoulder.

“The one I picked knows I want her.”

“Want her back.” She whispered, just to avoid eaves dropper from over hearing us—though there were only three other random people in here. Lora of course knew about mine and Hunter’s rekindling relationship, but she, Boyd and Harry are the only ones of the team that knew. I hadn’t planned on telling Henry anything about it until we’d became official—not that he would ever have a probably with it. He never cared who I spoke to when it came to women.

Which is the way a manager should be—instead of trying to manage every aspect of your life as well as your career. But then again, Frank is Hunter’s boss, not her manager. I guess the rules are different. From what Hunter has said about him, he’s just terribly out of line a lot of the time. Whether it’s about how she addresses people around her, or who she dates. It irritated her and I wondered how she’d been putting up with him for three years.

She’s strong though. She’d never let her boss force her anything to anything she doesn’t want to do—no one could.

Once our food and drinks and whatever else we wanted was bought, we went back on the bus and go back to the road trip to Louisville. The show that night was one of the best so far I’d say. The crowd was energetic and loud. Hearing their voices echo through the arena as they sang along was always my favorite thing about being on stage, and as the week went by it just kept getting better. The posters were starting to get interesting each night too. It was all worth being exhausted at night.

You just can’t have a bad time on tour.

A week later, when we arrived in Raleigh, we quickly booked hotel rooms for people that wanted a real bed to lie in for the night. Once I got my key, I rushed up to my room, no bothering to wait for anyone else. The Interview was airing tonight and I had no intention of missing it—not really for the questions and stuff, but to see how Hunter and I looked to everyone else…or how the interview was put together to make us look.

I opened the door and threw my backpack on the bed before turning the TV on and flipping to the right channel. The interview was just starting when I got a text message from Hunter.