wild life | l.p

Chapter Seven.

"You're a--"

"A loser, I know." Zayn waves her off, "But at least I have someone to make out with sometimes."

"Excuse me?" Arianne retorts, "What did you just say?" They're standing in the hallway now, making their way towards the waiting room. There's an announcement over the intercom indicating that it's lunch time for those in the facility, and Arianne needs everything around them to stop so she can listen to what Zayn has to say.

"I said I might have a girlfriend." He grins.

"Who? From here? What the hell, when did this happen?"

"I'll tell you if you text the Intern."

"Zayn!" Arianne shouts, "Tell me!"

"Can't." He smiles, "Next time." He hugs Ari quickly and then begins his walk back into the facility. Arianne calls after him, "Zayn!"

He laughs out loud, calling over his shoulder, "Text him, Ari!"

And then he's gone.

Arianne, still in a bit of shock hearing that Zayn might have a girlfriend, steps out onto the stale urine covered sidewalk outside of the hospital. It's busy downtown, being lunch hour people are out and about running from their offices to local cafés and restaurants, and Ari decides she wants to be one of them.

For a brief moment, she debates being spontaneous and texting Liam to join her, but she decides against it when she realizes her father will probably hear and want to join them.

The office is only three blocks away from the hospital, so she decides to do a bit of a walk by. She's not sure what the purpose of it is, because even if she did see Liam she doesn't think that she would say hello. Still, some small part of her thinks that even if she got a small glimpse of him walking around the streets of downtown, she'd be satisfied.

She realizes that what she's doing is crazy. It's not the kind of thing you want to admit to people-- that you're guilty of practically stalking someone because you want to see them, but you don't want to let them know you want to see them. She almost talks herself out of it, too. She thinks maybe instead she'll just go for lunch at a fancy restaurant and put it on her father's credit card. But, then she's only a block away and she can see her father on the street facing her, trying to hail down a taxi.

Ari curses, turning the corner quickly and hoping that he didn't just see her walking around. Somehow in her plan to attempt to see Liam the intern, she forgets that her father is just likely to be walking around the streets downtown during lunch hour. She stands around the corner of the building, peering around the corner a couple of times until she sees him climb into a taxi and take the opposite turn, driving away from her without being seen.

"Who are we looking for?" A voice says from behind her, and Arianne jumps at the sound.

"Not you!" Arianne blurts out like an idiot to Liam, who's standing over her with a coffee in hand.

Liam chuckles, "That wasn't my first guess."

"Good." Arianne sputters, feeling her heart start to pound. Her throat is dry suddenly, but still she tries to speak, "I was visiting someone."

"Who?" He smirks.

"A friend of mine." Arianne says defensively.

"Him?" Liam points towards the entrance of the building. There's a homeless man sitting there playing the few strings that haven't broken off of the guitar in his lap. It sounds like a complicated cover of a Beatles song, very out of tempo and the singing way off pitch.