𝐌𝐑. 𝐏𝐀𝐘𝐍𝐄 ✧ 𝘻𝘪𝘢𝘮

twenty six

"What are you planning?"

Zayn startles from the message he was typing and looks to Harry who's staring over Zayn's shoulder at the screen of his phone. His best friend's face is disappointed and he's shaking his head as he goes to sit on Zayn's bed. "What are you doing?"

"I just want to talk."

Harry lets out a sigh and looks pointedly at Zayn who only looks down at his phone and the unfinished message before locking it and swiveling his chair to face his friend. "I just need to talk to him."

"I thought — I thought you were done with that," Harry tells him instead and looks at him with furrowed brows.

Zayn lets out a huff and shakes his head. "I thought I was too but it seems like I just pushed it far back into my mind. I still — everything's still there."

"And what is messaging Dylan going to do to help you with that? Do you not remember what happened last time you two had a conversation?"

Zayn rolls his eyes and doesn't think about that night in the hospital with Dylan and Jack. He likes to forget about that and all the other bad stuff. Lately all he's been thinking about are the good times with Liam.

After seeing him with that man (who's obviously something to Liam) it made all of his emotions and memories come back to him. He thought that his time away had made those emotions disappear but it seems like he was just keeping them at the back of his head until something (seeing Liam again) brought them back to light. He made sure not to message Liam and didn't look back after sprinting away from the store but he did manage to think about Liam the whole night after that (hasn't stopped thinking about him since).

Seeing him — seeing how handsome and gorgeous he looked was so difficult for Zayn because all he wanted to was just go right up to him and hug Liam and never let him go. He wanted to press their lips together and leave. He obviously didn't do any of that.

Now, all he can think about is who exactly that other man was that stood beside Liam and called him babe. He had no idea how to find out about him but when he did finally realize where he could get information — he already knew it wasn't going to be easy.

He wanted to message Dylan and ask the other boy to meet up with him — to talk because Zayn had a lot of questions to ask. He knows it's so so wrong of him to even ask Dylan to meet up but he has no other way in finding out the things he wants to know about Liam.

Because even though he knows that he himself is messing around with someone else — he knows it's different for Liam. Zayn isn't in love with Perrie and he doesn't call her babe or go shopping together or anything like that. They fuck and that's about it and he has no intentions of dating her.

Liam though — Liam seems smitten with this guy. He was smiling with him and calling him babe and the guy was calling Liam babe. Zayn just knows that what they have is way more than what he's doing with Perrie.

"I just want to ask him about Liam," Zayn mutters and expects the look of shock and bewilderment that crosses Harry's face.

"Why would you even think that would be an okay thing to ask him about?"

Zayn shrugs his shoulders, "I just — I know he doesn't care about like — me anymore right? He's dating his best friend, remember him? The big fucking burly dude."

Harry lets out a sigh and smiles and Zayn already knows that his best friend is picturing the guy. "Tyler with his eyebrows and — and beautiful eyes."

Zayn rolls his eyes and nods his head. "Yeah, him. So like obviously I don't think he'd care anymore if I talked or — whatever with Liam."

Harry breaks out of his trance and continues to stare at Zayn with an unamused look. "That's still his dad and you're still his ex boyfriend so, yeah, I really do think he'd care."