Under my skin

Chapter 31 - Surprise!

Niall appeared with the men, who had gotten the photos transferred, and bidding everyone farewell, the three men left.

Since Niall was back, Paul let him know the details; tomorrow afternoon at 4pm we would all be leaving to go to the next location; Italy.

The boys all cheered, and together we had a group hug, and it was then I knew I felt safest with these boys.

“Now Ivy, do you have any business you need to attend to before we depart tomorrow?” Paul seemed so concerned, and I knew I could not only trust the boys, but I could also trust him.

“Well, I’ll need to get more of my things since I’m moving, but could we please do that tomorrow? I don’t want to go back there… at least not right now.”

“That’s fine!” interrupted Zayn, “and when we go, we shall call for law enforcement so your father can’t try anything, alright?”

I nodded, and remembered I had to call Beck – “Guys, do you mind if I call Beck back? She was really upset, and I told her I would…”

“From now on, you have no need to ask – what is ours is yours,” stated Harry simply, and they all gave me a group hug again.

“Thank you.” I said quietly, looking at the ground, and Niall squeezed my hand.

“Go make your phone call, the rest of us are going to start packing.” At this, he looked at the rest of the boys, who all groaned, and I burst out laughing.

I went into my room to make the call, and held my breath as I pressed call.

She answered nearly straight away, and sounded as demanding and upset as before. I sighed – if she was already mad, how was she going to react to me telling her that I was leaving?

“Ivy, it took you forever to call me! Seriously, I’m so upset right now.”

It took all my willpower not to scream down the phone at her, instead I breathed in and out, and spoke in a calming voice.

“I’m sorry, I could only just call you back, and if you want an explanation, I can give one to you right now. “

“Excuses won’t make up for it, but you can try,” she said in a very spoilt way; I rolled my eyes at her, once she listened, she would understand.

She never normally acted like this, but who knows? I guess that’s what guys can do to women.

“Before I start, you should know that… I’m moving from England Beck. Permanently.”

There was silence on the other end of the line – I wish I could have seen the look on her face.

When she finally spoke, she sounded stunned, and very surprised.

“But why now? You never even mentioned anything about it? Is it to do with your dad’s job?”

I laughed dryly.

“It’s to do with my dad, but not his job… Child protection services separated us.”

I told her what had happened in the last couple of days, and we talked and talked for about 60 minutes – it was a bit frustrating because there was a lot of background noise the whole time, but then I heard a knock on my door.

“Hold on a sec babe, one of the boys is at my door.”

I opened the door, and Zayn was there, smiling broadly.

“There’s someone here for you,” he grinned, and stepped to the other side.

From behind him appeared Beck; I stood there with my mouth open.

She looked serious at first, but then she started laughing, and I started laughing too.

We gave each other a huge hug, and she pulled a white bag out of her bag. I looked at it curiously, and she pulled out about six bags of lollies.

I did a mini-dance, and we both started giggling without stopping – only after about two minutes of the girl-craziness did I realize that Zayn was still standing at our door, laughing at us.

I poked my tongue out at him, and we closed the door, yelling, “Sorry Zayn!!”

Both of us collapsed on the floor, and Beck started a whole other round of laughing.

“I can’t believe I just shut the door on ZAYN MALIK!”

We kept laughing, and it felt like old times again: I guess that explained why there was so much background noise – Becky came and surprised me at the hotel, just like an amazing best friend.

But why exactly was she here when we had just been talking on the phone?

“So Beck,” I asked slowly, “How come you came here all of a sudden?”