Louis’ POV
“So what’s the plan for today” she asks excitedly, her feet swinging off the kitchen table where she was sitting. We had a day off today so I finally had the chance to take her someplace she’d actually like to go.
“Well I’ve got tonight worked out so it’s just a matter of filling…” I say glancing at my watch “5 hours”
“Ohh what’s going on tonight?” she asks, perking up slightly.
“You’ll have to wait and see” I tell her with a wink. She scrunches up her nose in a joke pout face.
“Well what are we going to do now then?” she asks.
“Well I thought we could walk around, maybe go to a few shops?” I suggest. She’d gotten better with the fans at the studio and I figure it was time to go a little further. To get her to a place where fans wouldn’t be behind a guardrail. Where she’d have to actually interact with people. She frowns slightly and I can tell she’d reached the same conclusion about going out.
“Won’t people recognize you?” she asks. I nod and her frown deepens. “I don’t know…” she begins to say uneasily.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun. I promise. You’ll be fine.” I assure her. She hesitates for a second before giving a small nod. I could tell she was still unsure about this whole thing. Even so, she follows me to the car and we drive to Westminster.
“Why does this place sound so familiar?” she asks, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Uhhhhh” I say uncertainly. “The Buckingham Palace? The Westminster Abbey? The Cathedral?” I ask, grasping at what she might know.
“Oh yea! The Abbey! That’s where the royal wedding was right?” she asks, her face lighting up as she struck on it. She settles back in her seat, content she figured it out. A few seconds later she snickers quietly and I glance at her with a raised eyebrow, wondering what’s so funny. “It’s nothing,” she says with a shake of her head when she sees my look. “You just sounded so…British talking about palaces and abbeys. The only things we have back at home are barns and family owned stores.”
“Well I am British,” I jokingly remind her.
“No… really?” she says sarcastically, hopping out of the car as we finally find a parking place. She falls into step with me as we walk down the street. The road was lined with shops and I instinctually start heading towards the ones we normally go to. The second we step foot into the store we are noticed. I glance back, realizing we’ve picked up a tail as we walk around. Lauren pauses in front of a rack of jeans and I step up close behind her, shielding them from her view, not wanting to cause her to freak out quite yet. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. I hear the whispers and Lauren must have heard them also. Her hand freezes over a hanger.
“How many of them are there?” she asks under her breath, only loud enough for me to hear. I throw a quick glance at the people over my shoulder.
“Five” I reply lowly. She starts chewing nervously on her lip, tensing up.
“Just relax,” I say quietly into her ear, rubbing her arm softly. “Deep breathes, everything’s fine. Just ignore them.”
“Umm Louis?” a voice behind me inquires. My hand pauses on her arm as I turn to look at the girl behind me standing there with a camera. “Can I get a picture?” I glance back at Lauren who’s frozen solid, her eyes on the clothes, not looking at the fan.
“Sure” I say to her, letting my hand slip off Lauren’s arm as I turn around. It seems like that picture is what it takes to break the dam though. As soon as the fans realize I’m not brushing them off, a group starts forming around me. The next time I’m able to glance away from the cameras, I see Lauren at the back of the group.
“I’m gonna go” she mouths, pointing further into the store and before I have a chance to protest, she’s disappeared. Shit. I look around for store security or a salesman for help and when one finally notices the crowd, they make their way over and begin clearing out the people. It takes maybe 10 more minutes before I’m finally free. I give a quick shake of my head, trying to clear the questions they’d thrown at me out of my mind.
“Did you and Eleanor break up?”
“Is that Hunter’s sister?”
“Are you two dating?”
“Did you cheat on Eleanor with her?”
I knew there’d have to be some kind of formal acknowledgement of our breakup or else these rumors would never be put to rest. “Thanks” I tell the salesman before looking around for Lauren. My eyes land on her in the back and I walk over to her. She’s plucking at a silky top with a look of distaste on her face.
“Don’t see anything you like?” I ask seeing her empty hands. She forces out a laugh, looking at me with a mix of surprise and tiredness.
“Does this place really look like my kind of style?” she asks gesturing her arm at the clothes around us and I realize I’d made an even bigger mistake than I’d thought. This was the type of place Eleanor had liked, but it was quite obviously not her style. “Can we just… can we just go home,” she says tiredly and I feel my stomach sink. Today was supposed to be a good day.
“No please, just… we can do something else. Let’s go to a movie. We can go in after the lights are already out. Nobody will see us” I say, a hint of begging in my voice.
“Can I get a popcorn?” she asks after a moment of consideration.
“Anything you want,” I tell her, a smile flickering on my lips.
“And M&M’s?”
An hour later, we’re seated in the dark theater, a tub of popcorn between us and a bag of M&M’s in her hand as we watch Iron Man get his face smashed.
“Ohh” Lauren winces after a particularly painful looking right hook. We had seats fairly far in the back because we’d come in late. Luckily, the theater wasn’t crowded enough where we’d had to sit in one of the front rows close to the screen. Those seats always left my neck hurting. Glancing over at her, I can’t help but to smile seeing how invested she is in the movie. My eyes take a mischievous tint as I let out a huge yawn, stretching my arms above my head then letting it land over her shoulders, pulling the oldest move in the book. She rolls her eyes, keeping them trained on the screen, but a smile appears on her face. I peek around her before reaching into her bag of M&M’s, trying to grab a few.
“Hey” she laughs, pulling the M&M’s out of my reach, realizing my intent.
I reach across her with my other arm, trying to grab them and accidentally knocking the popcorn over onto the ground. She tries to squirm out of my grip with a laugh but I soon have her pinned against me.
“Shhh” someone around us whispers angrily and the two of us freeze, looking at each other and trying not to laugh. She maneuvers her arms and manages to reach into the bag of candy she had pressed against her and plucks out an M&M. She holds it in front of my lips and when I open my mouth, she drops it in. I smile, closing my mouth and loosening my hold on her, letting the candy dissolve on my tongue. She relaxes against me, laying her head against my chest and looking back at the movie while I look down at her in surprise. I’d expected her to pull away when I’d loosened my grip. A minute or so later, she pulls back and lifts the arm rest up, removing the barrier and making it more comfortable before returning to her position resting against me. Her hands rested lightly on top of my forearms, which were wrapped around her stomach. Breathing in, I can smell the sweet scent of peaches from her shampoo. She absentmindedly began rubbing her thumb against my arm and as much as I try to concentrate on the movie, I’m aware of each jump of surprise or vibration from her laugh. When the movie ends, I’m too comfortable to move. I reluctantly release her as she pulls away to stand up when the lights go on.
“So what now?” she asks with a stretch. I pull out my phone and check the time as we walk out of the theater.
“Well we need to pick up a friend at Kings Cross and then I figured we could go get pizza or something for dinner.”
I watch her eyes bug out at that sentence and I look at her confused.
“Kings Cross? Like Kings Cross Station? Platform 9 ¾’s?” she asks, excitement overflowing her voice.
“Oh god” I groan, realizing why she was beginning to freak out.
“I forgot all about that! I need to get my picture taken there! C’mon!” she shouts, literally skipping a step. She obviously was a Harry Potter fan. She couldn’t sit still the entire drive to the station. She was like a child on Christmas. Actually, she was more than a child on Christmas. She was a child on Christmas hopped up on sugar and crack.
“You don’t even understand how much I love these books” she gushes as she drags me along. Apparently I wasn’t walking fast enough for her. “I had a Harry Potter themed birthday three years in a row.” I let out a laugh and she turns to me, narrowing her eyes jokingly. She comes to a stop so quickly, I almost take her out, crashing into her. She stumbles forward a step, looking up at the platform markers before her eyes trail down to the Harry Potter memorial before us. “Quick take my picture,” she says with a grin, stepping forward and grabbing the cart made to look like it was sunken into the wall. With a laugh, I pull out my phone and snap a picture for her.
“What about one of both of us?” I ask, walking over to her. She nods her head with a smile and I look around until my eyes land on a policeman strolling the platform. When I ask him to take our picture, he smiles with a nod, taking my phone. We pose so she’s standing between the cart and I, both our hands on the handle. He takes the picture before handing the phone back to me. Glancing back behind him, I see some girls with cameras out and realize there will probably be much better quality pictures of this on twitter later tonight. Didn’t matter though, ours would be on my phone to see whenever I wanted. I put the second one, the one of both of us, on instagram though.
louist91 Off to school!
When I look back up from my phone, I see Lauren still playing around with the wall.
“You look like you’re about to explode with excitement,” I tease, causing her to turn around.
“Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we all have,” she says with a fake British accent and I realize she must be quoting the series. I raise an eyebrow, trying not to laugh. “Oh shut up,” she says with a laugh, dropping the accent. “Just let me have my moment.” I glance around on the ground, seeing a discarded pen against the wall. I grab it, offering it too her.
“Your wand” I say with a grin. She laughs, but takes it from my hand.
“Swish and flick” she says with a grin, making the motion with her wrist. I laugh as the pen taps me against the chest.
“C’mon Hermione, Stan’s train is getting in” I joke.
“So are you going to tell me what we’re doing now?” she asks after dinner. We’d gotten Stan off the train and then went to get pizza for dinner.
“You haven’t told her yet?” Stan asks with an amused expression. I shake my head no. I wasn’t sure she’d actually be too happy with the idea so I’d planned on keeping it a secret until we got there.
“Lets just say we’re meeting up with everybody,” I tell her, hearing Stan chuckle.
“Who’s everybody?” she asks skeptically.
“Erm…” I pause, looking at Stan for a second as we try to work out who all would be there.
“The lads, the band, some of Niall and Liam’s friends. Nick, Rita…”
“Danielle and Emily” Stan chimes in and I give a nod of confirmation.
“Ed-“
“Ed will be there?” she asks, perking up slightly. I nod, a small frown on my face. She was way too excited to see Ed for my liking. “Ok, lets go” she says. We slide out of the booth and I lay some money on the table before we leave.
“What is this place?” Lauren asks, looking up at the building when we arrive.
“It’s a club. We rented it out for the night” I tell her, urging her forward. “It’ll be fun.” When we get in, I see them setting up the stage and Harry hops off, walking towards us.
“Hey! You guys made it! I wasn’t so sure you’d convince her to come,” he says with a grin.
“What’s going on here?” she asks looking up at the stage with confusion.
“Karaoke my southern belle” he says with a cheeky smile.
“What?” she snaps, turning to face me.
“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to” I say hastily. “We did it a couple times this year and it was a blast. You can just listen if you like.” She takes a deep breath trying to relax and gives a small nod. The lads in the band settle on the stage. We took karaoke to the next level with live music. I urge Lauren over to where the rest of the group was already situated on couches and chairs.
“Everyone, this is Lauren.” I say introducing her. “Then this is Sean, Darragh, Andy, Maz, Danielle, Tom, Nick, Rita, and Emily, you of course already know the lads and the band,” I say giving her a quick run through of the names.
“Yea, I know you,” she says, looking at Emily. “You’re in Ladies First right?” Emily smiles and nods her head. “And you were in the Olympics weren’t you?” she asks turning to Tom. Tom smiles, nodding his head.
“You were pretty much the reason I watched the diving,” she says with a cheeky smile. Tom gives a surprised laugh while I frown.
“And you look familiar” Emily says with a friendly smile.
“Hunter Hayes is my brother. I think I crashed some Skype conversation once or something,” she agrees with a nod.
“That’s right!” Emily says with a laugh. “You made faces behind him for like 20 minutes. Each time he turned around, you were acting normal. He thought I was crazy,” she says. “I thought you were just a friend of his. I didn’t even realize he had a sister.”
“It’s not something I advertise. I don’t care for the attention” Lauren shrugs.
“It can get crazy sometimes,” Emily says sympathetically. As I look around the group, my eyes fall on Danielle. She was frowning at Lauren and a wave of unease sweeps over me. She’d probably already made up her mind not to like Lauren. Her and Eleanor had always been close and El had probably already ranted about Lauren and I to her. She turns her gaze away form Lauren looking at me, her eyes narrowing when she realizes I’m already looking at her. I silently beg her to give Lauren a chance, but her face stays stone still before she turns on her heel, taking Liam’s hand and heading over to a booth. Liam looks back in surprise, giving a small shrug before following his girlfriend.
“Lets get started!” Harry’s voice booms over the speaker. “Drinks are at the bar. First one to the stage gets to sing. The lads can play anything and if they can’t we’ve got an iPod dock. Only rules are keep it fast and keep it fun.” Harry says with a wink, hopping off the stage again.
“That’s my cue” Emily says with a wink, walking off towards the stage. On the way, she snags Zayn’s arm and pulls him out of his seat, hauling him along to the stage. I watch in amusement as the pair get onto the stage. It was quite obvious who wore the pants in that relationship.
Stan slides into a booth and I follow after, pulling Lauren down after me.
“You made it! That’s great!” Ed says, sliding into the seat across from us, four beers in hand. Lauren smiles, taking the bottle as Ed passes them out. I grab the one he slides to me, putting my other arm on the seat above Lauren. I knew it was petty and I was doing it because I was trying to show she was mine, even though I really had no claim over her, but I didn’t care.
Four hours later, almost everyone has done at least one song, and pretty much every different combination of people had been on the stage. The lads and I had done the Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want it That Way’, the Irish lads had done ‘We are Young, but hearing Maz and Andy sing Britney Spear’s Gimme More had been the highlight of the evening. Andy had said ‘It’s Britney Bitch’ with such conviction; everyone was in tears before the song even started, especially considering how drunk they were. Harry had taken the role of the announcer for the evening and as soon as someone had finished, he was onstage calling up the next person. “Up next is someone who I’m sure we’re all dying to here” he says, looking over at our table with a grin. “C’mon Lauren, get your country ass up here”
“What? No, you said I didn’t have to.” she says instantly, shaking her head.
“C’mon, it’ll be fun. Nobody here is recording this. Fans won’t find out. No one but us will know” I say. She looks around uncertainly as others begin calling for her to go up also.
“You’ll do great” Ed says with a smile. She gives an unsure nod, but finally gets up causing the lion in my chest to wake. He could get her up, but she didn’t trust me enough?
“There we go” Harry calls, handing her the mic and hopping off as she hesitantly climbs up. I could see how nervous she was from here as she puts the mic back in the stand. She steps away from it for a second and turns to the band, giving them the song name I’m assuming. But to my surprise, Dan gives a nod before passing her his acoustic guitar. She fits the strap over her neck before returning to the mic. She starts playing a riff that oddly sounds like Dust in the Wind, yet it wasn’t.
I took my love and I took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I--
She begins to sing.
“Lame” Harry calls out, cutting her off to the shock of everyone. She looks at him with a mixture of surprise and embarrassment. “The only rules were to keep it fast and fun. That was slow and boring. We all know you can sing, we want to see you perform,” He tells her. “Show us your wild side country girl,” he says with a cheeky smile. “Unless of course… you’re too scared,” he taunts. Her eyes narrow and I can tell she heard the challenge in his voice. She sets the guitar back down and hops off the stage, marching back over to where we were seated. At first I think she’s just quitting until she begins rummaging through her bag. She smirks when she pulls out her iPod and grabs the shot on the table, throwing it back before jumping back onto the stage.
“Wait, what’s the song? Maybe we know it” Josh says from behind the drum set as she plugs the iPod into the speaker.
“Trust me, there’s no way you’d be able to keep up” she smirks, hitting play and walking back to the mic as the music starts. The change in personality is like night and day.
He pushed me 'round
now I'm drawin' the line
He lived his life
now I'm gonna go live mine
I'm sick of wastin' my time
Well now I've been good for way too long
Found my red dress and I'm gonna throw it on
'Bout to get too far gone
My mouth drops as I watch her and I’m not the only one. It was quite obvious why the band wasn’t included. You could hear banjo and violin in it and the song was exactly what Harry had asked for. Lauren was owning it, giving a better performance than anything I’d ever seen.
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
Need a little bit more of that sweet salvation
They may take me
with my feet draggin'
But I'll fly away on a sin wagon
Her hair was flying around as she moved around on the stage. It was unbelievably hot and to be honest, if she hadn’t been singing and had been dressed differently, I’d have thought stripper.
“I’ll fly away on a sin wagon” she finishes with a wink in my direction. Everyone’s speechless for a good minute while she stands there with a confident smirk, attitude radiating off her.
“I call dibs!” Harry shouts suddenly, his hand slamming down on the table he’s at. Everyone bursts out laughing and Lauren hops lightly off the stage walking back over to me with a smirk.
“I think she’s already spoken for,” Liam says with a laugh looking over at me when she leans against me.
“Well I’m officially a country fan” Andy grins.
“No kidding” Niall adds.
“I think you turned me” Emily jokes, earning a laugh from everyone. With another surprised shake of his head, Harry’s back on stage, calling Liam and Tom back onto the stage as the night moved on.
“See, I told you, you’d do great” Ed says warmly. She gives a nod of thanks, trying to hide her smile against my chest, my arm moving from the top of the seat to around her waist. She looks up at me with a smile, arching an eyebrow at me.
“That was beyond sexy,” I tell her with a grin.
“Damn straight it was” she tells me her grin widening as she turns back to watch Liam and Tom sing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, so the song she sang is over there --> It's called Sin Wagon by the Dixie Chicks.
Let me know what you thought of their first day out in public :)