Louis' POV
There's nearly not a single word muttered once our food reaches our table. All of us had been starving, so we didn't dare waste a moment. Not even Tyler had tried getting us to act civilized, he was just as bad as us. Belches echo throughout the table, causing a few disgusted looks to be casted in our direction.
Even through the corner of my eye, I saw Mia scarfing down her food quickly. But she normally does that. Whenever I think about what she's already gone through on this little 'journey' of hers, it really gets me frustrated. I try not to dwell on it too much.
Knowing very well if she caught me watching her eat, I'd be a dead man, I give her privacy.
From across the table, I catch Harry's watchful gaze. He doesn't quickly glance away once I make eye-contact either. He's too busy watching me with concentration. I shoot him a puzzled glance in return.
"Hey Mia," Harry calls out, as soon as she puts pushes her plate away from her slightly, sitting back in her chair.
Her eyes go up, suspiciously - as they had when I first met her as well - confusion causing her eyebrows to furrow together. Despite how hard I'm trying to make her feel comfortable among us, the other guys haven't quite warmed up to her yet.
"What?" She asks, her voice sounding guarded, not at all the same tone she uses with me.
I watch Harry carefully as well, just in case he decides to do something to make an idiot out of himself. You never know with him...
"Wanna play a game?" He asks, a smirk on his lips. Both Mia and my faces twist into even more confusion. She glances to me and I continue to watch Harry carefully, "Chill out, Lou. It's 21 questions; it's harmless," He laughs and rolls his eyes.
This should bring me relief, but instead it makes me even more suspicious. 21 questions is a game we play with girls we're interested in and want to get to know better. The last time we played the game was when Harry brought Olivia over. I had suggested it just to irritate Harry and make him think I was hitting up his date.
So either Harry's interested in Mia - which I'm sure Olivia wouldn't be too happy about - or he's trying to get a rise out of me (which I have no reason to be irritated with him. I'm not interested in Mia like that).
Mia glances towards me, still confused.
"It's just a game we play to get to know people," I shrug, pretending not to care.
But the mere thought of Harry being interested in Mia makes my blood boil. He's already got Olivia, now he has to go and flirt with a girl that I bring around. Granted I'm not bringing her around like that, but still... He just can't help himself, can he?
"Um..." She hesitates.
I'm sure 21 questions is the last game she wants to play. She's far to mysterious and guarded to just give out pieces of information for free. Especially not to Harry and the others, who weren't exactly welcoming towards her in the beginning.
"It's a really fun game, c'mon!" Niall joins in, nodding enthusiastically.
For the first time, I bring my attention to the others at the table with us. Liam, Niall and Zayn are all looking at Mia with a friendly smile on their face. I know all this secretiveness with Mia is killing them. They hate that I refuse to tell them about her.
"Unless you're too shy, that's fine then," Harry shrugs, looking at her with that competitive gleam in his eyes.
By the new expression on Mia's face, I can tell she's taking that exactly the way Harry had intended; a challenge. That familiar stubborn expression takes home on her face again. I've seen much of it since I've met her.
"No, don't worry about me, I'm sure I'll be fine," She remarks back, with an obvious fire behind her words.
Harry can't help but to grin that damned cheeky grin, the one that wins over all the ladies. I glance at Mia to see if she's falling for it as I've seen numerous girls do before, but she only looks at him with an irritated glare in her narrowed brown eyes.
That alone brings a smile on my face.
"I'll start; What's your favorite movie?"
Despite how irritated I am that this game is being played in the first place, I turn in my seat to watch Mia as she deliberates her answer. I take notice of the way she purses her lips and looks into space as she's deep in thought, as quirk I hadn't noticed before.
"Inception," She answers, nodding her head, being absolute with her response.
I shouldn't be surprised. It's a very intellectual film and she seems like that type. It's also very complicated and mysterious, much like her. It's the perfect choice for her, really.
"I never did get that movie..." Niall shakes his head, frowning as we look to him for the next question, "What's your favorite sport?" He asks after he gets over the fact that Inception went right over his head.
I watched the film with the lads for the first time, actually, and Niall just kept complaining and asking questions. He's rather difficult to watch films with.
"Sleeping," She answers quickly, with a smirk, "I'm not a sports kind of person," She explains.
Niall wears a frown, obviously hoping he'd have something in common to make conversation with her, but so far she's the complete opposite of him. All Niall talks about is sports.
Mia frowns as well as Niall frowns, obviously feeling bad that she had answered it 'wrong'. But I let out a laugh to make her feel a bit more comfortable. She glances over to me with a small smile.
"Don't worry, I'm not either," Zayn, seated next to me, smiles at her. Her shoulders loosen a bit, as she relaxes once more, "If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, which would it be?" He asks, actually warming up a bit more than I thought he would.
Zayn's usually quieter when we meet people for the first time. When we were all in X-Factor, Zayn was always the quietest, until he warmed up to us, then I saw the real side of him; just as crazy and immature as the rest of us. He's great at appearing much more mature, which I'm sure Simon wishes we could pick up on.
I have a feeling Zayn and Mia would get along pretty well. They're both a bit mysterious and intimidating when you first meet them. I can just picture them having deep conversations in the middle of the night.
"Oh lord..." She sighs, and purses her lips once more. With a huff of her breath, I watch a piece of her chocolate brown hair that had escaped onto her face fly up into the air before slowly returning back to its spot, rested upon her cheek.
As she contemplates what seems to be the most difficult question on the universe, I resist the urge to brush that piece of hair off of her cheek. I can just imagine how soft her cheeks would be, if she ever let anyone touch them.
I shake my head with those thoughts. What in the world... I glance around the room nervously; if anyone had heard those thoughts I'd be tormented for the rest of my life. If Mia had heard my thoughts, I'm sure she'd have me in a headlock with no intention of letting me go.
Where in the hell did that thought even come from? Perhaps it's been longer than I thought since I've been with a woman... Mia is definitely not available, and she's the last person on earth that I should be thinking about making moves on. For some reason she trusts me and I'm not going to screw it all up because of my idiotic hormones.
I barely know the girl, it's not like I have feelings for her. Sure, she's kinda pretty... Okay, so she's probably one of the prettiest girls I've ever seen, but that doesn't change anything. She's also one of the least-available girls I've ever met.
I'm here to help her out, not fall for her.
"If I had to chose, I guess I'd say 'Wonderwall' by Oasis," She bites her bottom lip, not quite as absolute with this answer this time around.
The corners of my lips turn up at the song; one of my favorites as well.
"How does that one go again?" I ask, pretending to be confused once she looks over to me, probably seeing my reaction.
I can see the other lads look at me in confusion; we all love the song. I give them an confused look, that they see right through and get the hint to play along.
"You don't know it?" She asks, raising her eyebrows.
"I think I do, but sing it just to be sure," I request, revealing the real reason I'm pretending not to know. From across the table, Niall has to cover his mouth to hid his grin.
Mia's eyes widen as she lets out a scoff. She looks at me as if I had just spoken a different language. It takes every inch of restraint to keep myself from laughing out loud.
"You want me to sing?" She double-checks, to which I respond with a nod of my head, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, "Oh no, don't even think about it. I'm doing you all a favor, trust me," She talks quickly, shaking her head stubbornly.
"C'mon, just give us the tune, it's really bothering me," I complain, pulling out my best acting skills.
From across the table, Harry lets out a laugh, that he disguises for a cough. I'm biting the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing as well.
"Oh god..." She mutters, letting out a deep sigh.
We all wait in anticipation, wondering if she'll actually sing it, or if she'll just tell us to shove it up our asses and ask for the next question.
"I said maybe, you're gonna be the one that saves me," She sings quietly - and rather out of tune, I might add - barely being heard over the music playing in the restaurant.
Although she is far from being considered a good singer, her voice is rather pleasant to listen to. It has that same rasp her talking voice has, rugged and worn-in. I can practically envision her singing around the house as she cooks breakfast or something.
"Oh God, Mia, not even close!" Harry laughs loudly, throwing his head back.
The rest of us join in as well, unable to keep it in any longer. I try to contain it, but it's no use. The laughter just rolls right out of me, as if I had an unlimited amount of it saved up.
Mia's face turns a rare color of scarlet as she gives us the most deadly look I've ever seen in the entire world. She turns towards me and gives me a hard push, just hard enough to push me right out of my seat.
"Screw you all," She shakes her head, but I can see the faint shadow of a smile dancing on the edges of her plump lips.
As I sprawl to the restaurant floor, my laughter doubles. Mia folds her arms across her chest and sits in her chair with a stubborn expression on her face, refusing to even glance in my direction.
With the assistance of Zayn, I get back in my seat, scooting it a bit closer to Mia, without her noticing. Or if she did notice, she didn't object.
"Well, I was going to ask if you were a singer, but I think I already got my answer," I smirk, earning another smack from Mia. This time I brace myself, holding on to the table for support, "Okay, okay, no more 'Mia-tone-deaf' jokes, I get it," I give her a playful shove back.
For a fraction of a second, a smile appears for all of us to see. It wasn't just a smile either, it was one that reached all the way up to her eyes, causing little wrinkles to appear and parentheses to form beside her grin. Her chocolate brown eyes seem less chocolate and more 'hot cocoa' beneath the dim restaurant light. But with a blink of an eye, the smile disappears and her stubborn expression returns.
"Hm..." I wonder aloud, realizing I hadn't even thought of a question before.
"I'll go, otherwise we'll be here all day waiting for Lou to think of a question," Liam peeps up, being incredibly quiet this entire evening.
Knowing he's actually right, I keep quiet as we all direct our attention to him.
"What's your favorite One Direction song?" He asks, a smile pulling his lips up.
I wait for Mia to make some smart remark about being too old to listen to boybands, or something in return for the trick I just played on her. But she doesn't blurt out anything right away, instead she purses her lips and thinks about it.
She knew who I was when I approached her, so she can't lie and say she's never heard of us. Though, I wouldn't be exactly surprised if she said she's never listened to our music, because she doesn't strike me as the type of girl who listens to what's on the radio.
"Over Again," She replies with a simple shrug of her shoulders.
Liam smiles warmly at her and nods. I think that's one of his favorites. It's one of our songs that has the most heart behind it. Whenever we're singing it live, one of us gets choked up. We wrote it together while a few of us were having relationship bumps. I think Zayn and Summer were fighting and I was really nervous that Juliet wasn't into me as much as I was into her and life was complicated.
I want to ask her a million questions about her answer; Why is it your favorite? Does it bring you back to painful memories like it does to me? I wish we were all alone so I could ask those questions.
"Good choice," Harry nods, not making some stupid remark to aggravate her or me, which surprises all of us.
"Your turn, Louis," Mia turns to me, meeting eye contact with me.
Just with a little glimpse of her dark eyes, I can see she definitely has a reason behind her last answer. Faded memories gloss over her eyes, leaving them looking less mysterious than usual. You can almost see the pain and emotion swimming around in them.
Would it be weird if I dragged her back to the tour bus and demanded her to tell me every little detail of her life? Never have I wanted to solve a riddle like this before. I'm starting to pick up little pieces, but I can't quite get the full picture yet. Unfortunately I don't have an image on a box to model it after. I just have this broken girl seated beside me in a dim restaurant.
"Tell me one thing nobody knows about you," I more demand than ask. I push a smile onto my lips so she doesn't pick up on the dying curiosity inside of me.
She looks away from my quickly, as if she were hiding from my gaze. The words I spilled feel wrong in the air. Tell me? Dammit, that sounds weird and creepy. I should have said Tell us. Why did I have to make it sound so personal, now she's going to feel claustrophobic and shut us all out again.
We were doing so well.
"I'm not afraid of anything; not the dark, not being alone, not dying. There isn't a single thing that I'm scared of," She tells us, after pursing her lips in thought, of course.
Yet again, her answer triggers another million questions in my brain. Like, if you're not afraid of being alone, why are you hitch-hiking across the country from some guy?
But I know well enough that now is not the time or place for questions like that. It might never be the time or place for them, as much as it pains me. I don't do well with unsolved mysteries. I just don't do well with puzzles in the first place. Perhaps that's why I took to Mia so quickly, she was a challenge that I didn't think I could solve, but can't help but to try.
"You'll last longer than the rest of us, kid," Tyler speaks up before finishing off his tall glass of beer.
Mia gives him the saddest smile I've ever seen. It caused my stomach to plummet into my shoes. Luckily we're all saved by Niall, who speaks up,
"You're not even scared of snakes? Everybody's scared of snakes!"
The tension is broken and we are allowed to return to the playful banter we're all accustomed to, besides Mia of course, but she's learning to adjust. Her sad smile revives a bit, making me feel 100% better already.
The rest of the lads burst into loud chatter, discussing extreme scenarios and asking Mia if she'd be scared of them. She'd laugh and give an extremely logical and intellectual response. All the boys take her smart answers as a challenge and come up with even more terrifying and absolutely impossible events, to which she'd continue stumping them.
I don't take part in the conversation, though it's right up my alley (trying to repute someone's theory with ridiculous scenarios). Instead I watch Mia carefully.
Mia; the girl who grew up in Northern California that likes to draw portraits and watches old, vintage movies that's not afraid of anything. Mia; the intellectual girl that loves inception and Oasis, yet still is a fan of our music. Mia; the girl with the saddest, most beautiful brown eyes I've ever seen that I can perfectly picture when I close my own polar-opposite blue eyes.
Mia; Mia; Mia.
It seems like that's all that's bouncing around in my head. It's been awhile since I've met someone this interesting - if I have ever met anyone this interesting - and I can't remember if this sort of infatuation is normal amongst friends? Did I feel this sort of curiosity when I met any of the other lads?
Of course not. I hadn't even felt this curiosity when I met Juliet... She had been much different than Mia. She pretty much spilled her whole life story on the first date. At the time, I thought I loved that. Turns out that I like this so much more.
But I can't like this so much more. Mia's extremely taken. She's as taken as taken can get. She's hitch-hiking across the country for this guy for christ sake.
I just have to nip these weird, dare I call them, 'feelings' in the butt before the escalate into something that I can't control. That would just ruin everything.
Why can't I show Mia that there are nice people in the world, willing to help another stranger with no strings attached? If I developed feelings for her and she knew, she'd be out of my life before I can say 'sorry'. I'd like to keep Mia as a friend, and that's all. She needs more friends.
Just call me Louis 'idiot' Tomlinson, why don't we...
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AN: Uh-oh, it looks like things are starting to get complicated... Or perhaps Louis can control his budding feelings for Mia. She's definitely not on the market.
I hope you're enjoying this story <3>
As always, PLEASE leave your thoughts/opinions/etc. in the comments below! It lets me know what I need to work on, what I should keep up, etc. So yeah :)
Love always,
-Never_Let_Me_Go