"So then.." I paused for a minute to wipe the tears from my eyes, "then I was like 'well maybe you shouldn't have talked about it in the first place!" Roman and I both threw our heads back, laughing hysterically. More tears streaming down our faces.
"Oh gosh.. Too funny." We stopped and set our luggage on the sidewalk next to us to get a hold of ourselves and search for the car one of the waiters at the cafe's cousin was lending my mom.
"Uhhh, it should be tan. A tiny bit old, I don't know what year or model?" We scanned the lot but couldn't find it so I pulled my iPhone out of my back pocket.
"Hello?"
"Mom? Where are you?"
"At the hotel. What do you mean?" My mouth fell open. Did she forget?
"Uhhh, the airport?"
"Yeah.... What about the airport?" I could hear the seriousness in her voice, but maybe she was still just joking.
"When are you picking us up?" I glanced at Roman who was still looking around at the cars.
"Delilah, I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can." She told me, hesitantely.
"Why not?!" I yelled, expressing my anger and making Roman flinch. Now he was watching me.
"It's not a good idea for me to be around Roman a lot."
"What?!" I was still pissed and Roman knew. He grabbed my hand and rubbed the top, trying to calm me down. Me angry is not fun.
"Think about it. What if he starts saying things to someone and they-" Her voice crackled through the phone.
"Whatever." I cut her off and hung up the phone.
"What happened?" I shook my head, still frustrated.
"We need to call a cab." I told him.
"Okay, why?" Roman pulled out his own phone but continued looking at me with those deep brown eyes, awaiting an answer. I hesitated. I really didn't want to have to lie to him.
"She has to work." I swallowed the lump in my throat. Everything about lying to this guy who had been nothing but perfect to me, felt wrong in every way. He was already on his phone searching for a cab. I tilted my head back and took a few breaths. Crying was stupid. Their was no point. It was one tiny lie that he'll never even know about. I guess that's what made it feel so wrong though.
--------A few hours later---------
I knocked on the door of my bedroom at the contestants house and crossed my fingers. It took a couple of seconds, but the door swung open and in the doorway was a tan blonde with bright and excited blue eyes.
"DELILAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" She yelled, in her perky voice.
"MEGAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled back to her, just as loud and ran into her arms. We hugged and laughed and acted as if we hadn't seen each other in three years when in reality it had only been a few days.
I pulled my bags inside and Megan shut our door behind me. The room was really pretty. It reminded me a little of a hotel room but a very, very expensive one. On one wall was a flat screen with a long table kind of thing attached to the wall underneath it. The table stretched the entire lenght of the wall and at the end was a desk with a wooden chair and a computer. Across from that desk were a couple of comfortable looking chairs with a glass coffee table with flowers on it. Next to those and across from the flat screen was a large bed for us to share. The entire room looked very modern with its gray color scheme. There wasn't a bathroom but as I was walking down the hallway a few minutes prior I had seen two bathrooms, a guys and a girls right next to each other.
While I set my bags down and began to unpack, I was listening to Megan go on about how back in the day all the girls and all the guys were piled into only a couple different rooms and now everyone had to share with one other person and that was it. She explained things from what rooms were on each floor and what some of the maids and cooks and other contestants I hadn't met were like. Megan had already been here for two days.
"Want me to show you around and introduce you to some of the contestants?" She asked me the second we dropped all of my shoes, the last thing to unpack, on the floor of our shared closet.
"Sure." I answered. Apparently that wasn't a satisfying answer for Megan though because she crinkled up her eyebrows and eyed me. "What?"
"What's wrong?" She sat down on the edge of the bed, ready to hear me spill, even though my lips would keep shut.
"Nothing."
"Are you fighting with Roman?" She asked, now looking almost sad, trying to be sympathetic I guessed.
"No, we're fine. I'm just a little jet lagged." I lied. Surprisingly, I wasn't tired one bit from the flight but I wasn't going to explain everything about my mom to Megan. She still didn't know about us.
"Well then, do you want to go to sleep and I'll just show you around tomorrow?" I pretended to look at the digital clock next to the bed, even though I already knew it was 5 o'clock.
"No, I don't want to mess up my sleeping schedule, plus I'm actually pretty hungry." At this she lit up.
"Yay! I'll show you around and then dinner will probably be done by then!' I couldn't help but laugh at how excited she was. Megan sprinted out of the room like a little kid with me walking out behind her.
"So all of the rooms are on this floor and then everything else is downstairs. Those are the guys and girls bathrooms," She pointed towards the clearly marked doors and headed in that direction. The hallway wasn't really too fancy. It was just beige carpeted with a red print on the walls and a few plants and intercom thingys hanging on the walls. Our door was right across from the stairs leading to the downstairs.
"I'll introduce you to everyone at dinner, but this is Aaron and Declan's room. They're part of a boy band called 'Your Prince'." I stopped and looked at her. Then we both started laughing hysterically.
"That's the cheesiest name I've ever heard!" I fell to the ground, clutching my stomach and for the third time that day, tears came streaming down my face because I was laughing so damn hard. Who names a boy band Your Prince? How cheesy. After a few moments, I stopped hearing Megans laugh and tried to stand up and stop laughing so hard. However that was almost impossible, until I notied we weren't alone in the hallway anymore.
"Oh, it's cheesy? This is coming from the girl whose name is Delilah." Megan was biting her bottom lip right next to the two boys who I was assuming had come out of the room next door. One of the guys had sleek black hair that fell in front of his face a little. He was maybe 16 and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and tilted his head back when I looked at him. My first thought: cocky. But so is Roman, I have nothing against cocky. I looked to his right at the other boy.
The second boy... He took my breath away.
I literally got light headed looking at him. Perfect isn't a kind enough word to describe him.
This guy belonged on tumblr, it was like he was pulled out of a movie or a book, I wouldn't be surprised if he was an Abercrombie model. Everything about him was unrealistic. I had to force myself to look away so I focused my attention on the black-haired boy.
"Actually my name is pretty fucking original. How many Delilah's have you heard of in your life?" The guy took a couple steps toward me. Considering we were all ready a few steps apart, I took one more back. Somewhere in the back of my head a voice was violently screaming "GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE." It was like blinking red lights and warning signs. I was scared to death and rooted to the spot. My legs wouldn't allow me to move the second time, when he took two more steps and was pretty much pressed up against me. All I could do was look into his blue eyes and try to stay calm. This guy seemed like the kind of guy who wasn't about to hold back.
"Hey, bro, cool off." My attention turned to the gorgeous boy who had a hand tightly gripped around the black haired boys upper arm. His huge eyes stare at me and he bit his bottom lip, sending shivers down my spine. I felt the other guys breath on my neck which sent a different kind of shivers down my spine. Somehow the boy helping me managed to pull the guy off me and pull him, still by his arm down the stairs. I stayed in my spot and watched them. Megan came up next to me and put a hand on my shoulder.
"He has anger issues, are you okay?" I could see the worry piercing her eyes. I nodded my head yes. But I couldn't shake the horrible feeling in my stomach.
"Let's go eat." I told her.
-----------------------------------
Down the stairs there was an entryway with the door opposite the stairs. One way lead to the living room, music rooms, and a miny gym, the other way led to the dinning room, kitchen, and offices. We turned left into the dinning room and made our way through to the kitchen. I couldn't really focus on anything, not the unfamilair rooms or the unfamiliar faces. A few people I recognized but when they waved to me, my own arm remained at my side. There were only a few people left surrounding the island in the kitchen where bowels of food were layed out. At this point, Megan was pretty much dragging me. When she stopped, I had to hold onto the edge of the marble counter. I wanted to puke.
"Delilah.. Are you okay?" A voice asked me, but it was too distant. The room was too hot and everyhting was going in and out of focus. I tried desperately to force myself to hang onto reality, to escape the blackness that was tryign to invade me.
"Honey, do you want to sit down?"
"Will she be okay-"
Voices voices voices everywyere and none of them were recognizable. I took one large breath in and slowly things started coming back. People were crowding me and making me claustrophibic so I turned and left the room. I ran for a bit until I found a dark room and flipped a light switch on. I layed down and closed my eyes.
-------------------------
I woke to the door creaking open and heard a male clearing his voice. It still felt really warm and I had to wait for my eyes to focus. My head throbbed.
"Are you okay?" Whoever had entered was now sitting beside me. I felt more warmth as a and rested on my upper back.
"Yeah." My voice was scratchy, it didn't even sound like mine. Now things were clearer. I was in one of the large music rooms. A huge glass window showing the darkness from outside took up one whole wall. I was layin on a couch in the corner. There were all kinds of instruments and microphones and other things strewn all over this large room. But I was barely focused on that, my attention was on the incredibly hot guy next to me.
"I'm really sorry about Aaron. He has.. issues." From process of elimination, I now knew this guy was named Declan.
"So I need to avoid Aaron at all costs, and that must mean you're Declan."
"Yeah. Declan Fisher." He smiled and his eyes grew bright. I had to take another breath to stop myself from passing out again. "But seriously, are you okay? What exactly happened?"
"I don't even know, I felt uncomforatable, it was too hot, then it was too crowded and I just.." I threw my arms out and let them fall.
"You dropped your phone, it started ringing a few minutes ago." He passed me the black device and it clicked on. 27 missed calls from Roman.
"That your boyfriend?" Declan asked.
"No," I answered. "I'm single."
"Good." Declan smiled and stood, holding out a hand to me, "because so am I."
-------------Author's Note----------
I AM SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SORRY!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I really shouldn't be using excuses but this week has been crazy and I couldn't find time to write whil I was in Illinois...... SO SORRY! I hope you don't hate me! This will never ever ever ever happen again! I swear on my life!!!
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut.... Soooo.... Declan, huh?? ;) In case you guys want to know what he looks like, I based him off of Sean O'Donnell. Go google him... You can thank me later! You guys all loved Roman too much.. I had to... Who do you ship more Roman Malik and Delilah Payne or Declan Fisher and Delilah Payne???? To also help apologize for being so late with updating, I'm going to have a little contest :D Here's how it's going to go, comment on this chapter (or if you're worried someone will take your idea or something than message me) ship names!! It can be for Roman and Delilah or for Declan and Delilah or both if you want (It can be their last names, too) GET CREATIVE!! My favorite two ship names (one for Roman and one for Declan) will be used in the story and the authors who come up with them will get shoutouts or if the two names come from the same author, I might work another little prize out with that person. If this goes well, maybe I'll do more little contests in the future :) This contest ends on Monday night at 6:00 pm!
I love you guys so so much! <3
xx, Ashley.