Day one of my self-intervention included a completely new outlook on this whole pretending gig. I needed to stop being so aware of every little thing Zayn did; he wasn't my boyfriend. Which also meant that for the remainder of my time here, I would have to start acting more professional.
Professional did not mean act more like the real Perrie in any way though. She was a bitch, from what I gathered - so there was no way I was going to keep going along as I had in the beginning, blindly letting people hate me. No, they would love the new 'Perrie', and learn who Lela really was.
Confusing, I know, but at least it made sense to me.
"Hello?" Niall answered groggily when he answered his phone.
I was practically bouncing up and down with happiness, chirping, "Morning, sleepy head. You have twenty minutes to get ready, because I'm on my way over now."
He groaned. "Why? It's so early!"
I rolled my eyes, stopping at the red light. "No, it's past noon. We have errands to run today."
The Irish boy grumbled, "Make Zayn do them."
"You don't want to spend time with me?" I asked, using my guilt card that always worked. "I thought we were friends, and I was so excited for today, and..."
I didn't even have to finish before he groaned: "You suck. I'll be ready in fifteen."
I grinned, "Fantastic."
Hanging up, I drove all the way to the blonde-haired boys house, humming along to the songs on the radio. I stopped in front of his apartment and honked the horn, and then grabbed my phone to see why it had made noises when I was driving. Still humming to the radio, I scrolled through my twitter.
At the top was a grumpy morning tweet from Niall himself, telling his millions of twitter followers about how I was forcing him to get up and I giggled, rolling my eyes. My phone buzzed again, and I saw a text from Zayn.
Remember; party at 8 tonight. Don't let Niall forget! Xx
The little 'x's were his signature sign-off, but I couldn't help but smile and think it was cute of him. Double-checking my phone calender, I saw that Perrie had indeed helped me by putting in as an event: press thing 8 PM. She really was descriptive.
"Tell me where we're going again?" I heard a tired voice say as the car passenger seat opened.
I glanced at Niall and grinned. "Well don't you look nice."
He glanced down at his polo, and then up at me. "Don't get too excited, I didn't dress up for you. Where are we going?"
I took the fact that he repeated his question as a sign that he was still grumpy.
And if there was one thing I knew, it was how to make an annoyed Niall unannoyed.
"First stop: Nandos."
He grinned a crooked grin at me. "Okay, I'm starting to like this day a bit more."
~*~
"Oh, darling," My make-up artist said as she stepped back, a hint of a smirk on her lips. "You're by far my greatest creation."
I rolled my eyes and stood up to walk towards the mirror, but she stopped me. Turning around, I looked at her confusedly before realizing she was holding up my dress, silently saying that I should see myself when I'm a thousand percent made-up. So, handing me the expensive dress, she turned around, giving me privacy.
I learned quickly that there really was no such thing as privacy, though. You wanted to get changed? Your make-up artist and probably whoever was going to do your hair would be there, too. Among famous celebrities, 'privacy' wasn't something they got too often unless they were alone in their own house.
Which rarely happened.
"Okay, I'm done."
She turned around, took me in, and gasped. It was a tad of a late reaction, but I smiled anyway, and she lead me towards the full length mirror. I took myself in and gasped a bit too late too, and finally understood why. To soak me in, you needed to take every detail into perspective.
Lets start with the shoes. They were silver heels that had to be worth a couple hundred and they sparkled too - it wasn't overdone, though, it was just the right amount of glam you really needed. All my leg up until my mid-thigh were showing, leaving everyone to see my soft tan legs.
And that's where my dress started. It was a short, tight blue dress with cut outs around the neckline and it hugged my figure amazingly. In fact, it all looked kind of perfect together. And then finally, my face.
My eyes were glowing with the perfect tones of make-up, my face looked contoured and showed off my cheek bones too. And then my hair was volumized and let in long loose curls, nothing holding it back. I had diamond earrings on, but my neck was bare at my make-up artists' request.
"I look..." I said breathlessly, unsure of what the right word was.
"Stunning."
That definitely wasn't Annette, my make-up artist. I turned around and saw Zayn standing in the doorway with a smile on his handsome face, a tuxido on that made him look appropriately business-y, but the stubble on his chin making him look handsome and a bit boyish.
I quickly composed myself and sent him a brilliant smile. "As do you. I'm really liking that stubble."
He touched his grin and half-smiled. "Think I can grow a beard?"
"Don't push it," I warned jokingly.
But really. No beard.
Zayn smiled at me and held out his hand, saying, "May I accompany you to the limousine, miss Edwards?"
I placed my hand in his, enjoying the sparks I felt and the butterflies in my stomach the second our skin touched. "Why, of course you can."
We walked outside and into the limo, all the other guys in their respective limo's with their respective dates. Liam and Louis brought their friends since they've known for forever, considering it's probably hard to find a normal girl to bring to a party full of celebrities for the entire night.
How I'm going to pull off being friends with Lady Gaga, Adele, and Justin Bieber? I really don't know, but I'm going to have to try. When we got there, you could see the flashes coming out from the limo window before you even got out of the car. We'd done this whole thing before, I knew we could again.
Zayn got out first. I prayed I didn't fall of have an underwear shot by accident and I got out of the car, Zayn taking my hand to help me out like a good 'boyfriend'. Immediately, there were flashes that practically blinded me, and we began our strut down the red carpet as one of the hottest celeb couples.
We'd be headlining tomorrow for sure.
Why didn't that freak me out anymore?
Half for the heck of putting on a show and half because I just really really wanted to, I pecked Zayn on the lips as we kept walking, and he didn't miss a beat in smiling adoringly down at me - which I was sure he'd practiced. I wouldn't let myself get excited over something like that when there were thousands of reasons why he did it.
"You've gotten better at this whole thing, you know," Zayn said in my ear, so many interviewers and photographers and magazine representatives throwing questions at us.
I smiled, but I knew that I didn't know how 'I' acted before. "So have you."
It was probably a lie.
When we finally got inside, spent the first half hour to forty five minutes saying hi to a few important people and 'friends' of the boys, and then finally got someplace a bit quiet. Well, no where was quiet, but we were in the hallway which you could actually talk and hear each other.
"You don't like these things, do you?"
Zayn looked down at me and shrugged. "Not particularly."
I smiled, "It's obvious."
"I know. The boys always rag on me about it."
"Why not?"
He shrugged again. "It seems materialistic sometimes. A lot of times I wish I was just at home in some pajama pants watching TV or reading."
My insides warmed - this boy really was something. "I understand."
"Do you like to read?" Zayn asked. "I know I asked before, but you seem... different."
Lie? Or just be me? It seemed like every time he asked me a personal question I had a mini-panic attack and tried to make the choice between just being myself or trying my hardest to be like Perrie. Whether I realized it or not, though, I ignored the latter.
I nodded, looking off at celebrities entering the event. "If it's a good book, sure. What's your favorite book?"
Me and Zayn Malik started talking about books. We were out there the remainder of the hour, just getting to know each other deeper. He asked what my favorite book is, and I told him it was The Fault in Our Stars. Zayn said he'd never read it, and I silently vowed to drop the book off at his place sometime.
Eventually though, the boys came out one by one looking for us and forced us to go back inside and suck it up. Associate, they said, and add a few drinks to make it not that bad. We listened to them.
Two hours later and we were still there. Girls - famous and not - were all over Zayn, which admittedly, made me find a bit too much enjoyment in going up to him and pulling him away, saying I wanted to dance. It seemed like every time we talked at first, it was awkward and uncomfortable, like he was holding back.
But by the end, we were best friends again, in a world that was just ours. It was a nice feeling, let me tell you that much, and I got easily into the routine of having to loosen him up in the beginning, no matter how many drinks he'd previously had. It was like he was programmed to be tense all the time.
"'Hows the date going?" Niall asked when we had separated again as I went to grab another drink.
I glanced at him and fake-glared. "It's not a date."
He smirked cheekily. "You wish it was."
"Do not!"
"Do too. I see how you look at him."
"Just a few days ago you were telling me about how he looks at me."
"Exactly. You two look almost in love."
I shook my head. "No, you're just going crazy. Shouldn't you be with your date? I'm sure she's drowning in celebrities."
Niall grinned at me and took my advice to go find her, leaving me alone outside. I was practically freezing but trying to look composed as I looked over the stone balcony at the night view. Lights were lit up all around town, but no view could quite match the one I had right now.
But then smoke blew in my face, and I turned to see Zayn lighting up a cigarette. Drawbacks, also known as cons, to relationships were difficult. You had to make the decision of whether or not to accept them in your partner - even though this was fake for me - and I decided to spare my childish hatred of cigarettes for Zayn.
"That's going to kill you." I said plainly; even if I accepted it, I still annoyed him about it.
Zayn stared at the cigarette. "Unfortunately, I know."
I raised my brow. "Then why smoke it?"
He shrugged. He didn't have an answer for me.
I half-smiled. "You're cute, Zayn Malik. Even when you're smoking something that's going to kill you one day."
Zayn flicked the cigarette off the balcony after I said that.
He was putting the pack into his pocket as he said, "You're cute too, Perrie Edwards, when you bust my balls about smoking."
I was grinning ear to ear as he grabbed my hand to walk me back inside.
___________
GAH SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG
LONG STORY SHORT : MY COMPUTER GOT MESSED UP AND ALL MY FILES WERE DELETED, MEANING IHAD TO REWRITE THIS
OH YEAH and by accident i switched jems' name to carter in the end of last chapter oops but yeah sorry for the wait, i don't even have word installed so i cant check my spelling or anything so until i re-install it expect small-ish chapters :( sorry! but HAPPY HOLIDAYS <3