Liam
"He got it, then? The surprise. Not that it's a surprise, everyone knows you bought him a phone. He got it, though?"
Nudging Liam's feet off the coffee table in their dressing room, Louis dropped into the spot next to him and glanced over Liam's shoulder, nosily staring at his phone until Liam elbowed him away, nodding. "Yep. Went down better than I'd thought it would."
"Excellent. You can stop moping, now then." Scoffing as Liam tried to protest, Louis reached over and stole his mug of tea, taking a sip before silencing Liam. "You've been moping since we left London. Stop. Please. You're making us want to punch you."
"Even if I was moping, which I wasn't, we left London, like, a day, maybe two, ago. That's not so long, really. You can't have reached punch me levels of pissed-off-ness yet." Liam mimicked Louis and scoffed as his bandmate nodded, stealing his tea back and flipping Louis off as Louis said, "We all have. You've been waiting for him to get it, and you've been worse since we got to Manchester."
Liam rolled his eyes at that, having the grace to concede Louis might be right, at least about him being worse since they'd arrived in Manchester, where they'd perform a couple of gigs before flying out of the country. London had at least been one performance, close to home, yet Manchester was the real start of the distance and he was already hating it.
The previous phone calls with Niall had only reinforced his regret about leaving; Chloe was heartbreakingly upset, apparently at how she'd reacted to him leaving before, and he'd wanted nothing more than to go home to her and Niall and tell her that she had no reason to be upset at herself. He'd been debating it, dramatically considering sneaking back to London before realising that, a) he and Niall had been going in circles for days about the issue, and b) he loved performing again. The first performance in London ad proved that, and he'd tried to satisfy himself with the knowledge that he'd be closer to being there when Niall got the present he'd sent him.
The desire to go home was sated somewhat when Chloe finally spoke to him, sniffling into the phone for a while before she told him about school, the films she and Niall had watched when she'd been home from school for the day, and what she'd be doing in swimming class when she went later. That left Liam feeling much better, truly, and he'd tried to hide his grin when Niall sent him a video of Chloe's swim class, sheepishly captioned, 'I think this is how to send it?'
He'd failed at not grinning.
The grin had been what had tipped Louis off that his gift must have been received. It must have, because Liam had been enjoying a quiet moment watching as Niall mastered the art of sending photos and liking them via iMessage, and then Louis had been there, annoying as ever and stealing glances at Liam's own phone whenever.
Turning his phone off, Liam ignored the buzz of new notifications and gave him a pointed stare, raising an eyebrow as he asked, "Is there a reason you're here, mate? Or are you bugging me for no reason?"
"H's busy and Zayn's skyping Safaa." Louis reached for Liam's tea and prised the mug out of his fingers, swallowing the last mouthful and smirking victoriously as Liam sighed, the buzzing of Liam's phone attracting his attention. "Lemme guess...that's Niall?"
"And if it was?" Liam rolled his eyes as Louis grinned devilishly, pushing him in the shoulder and keeping his phone away from Louis, waiting pointedly for Louis to leave him alone before he checked his phone and grinned again, at another video of Chloe's swimming lesson. It was of the race held at the end of every lesson, with Chloe, unmissable in her turquoise costume she still wore, despite Liam having bought her the same as every other girl there, racing ahead of the other children, even those two or three years older than her.
That in itself, just being able to see that, and watch, made him infinitely glad he'd bought the phone for Niall, and provided a glimmer of hope that it would make tour easier, and would allow him to still get to see them, the everyday things he'd only had a few months to experience but would was and was all ready missing, things like swimming lessons or evenings in and the latest Pokémon cards Chloe had unwrapped.
It also provided him with a front row seat to witness Niall's foray into social media for the first time since the days of Myspace, and, over the first couple of weeks he was away, Liam spent the hours they journeys slowly easing Niall into the world of twitter and Facebook and even Instagram, all of were site with accounts that had been set up by Liam's management. Whilst his management and PR team were still technically in control and posting, Niall had been logged into those accounts and could see everything they post and everyone he was supposedly following, followed by, and messaging.
Apparently, Niall was following nearly all of Liam's family who had social media, everyone Liam was supposed to be properly friends with, and was followed by Ed Sheeran. He was also apparently messaging various people that Niall didn't even know existed until he figured out where the messenger functions were and was receiving daily messages from fans all desperate to know the definitive answers about him and Liam, whether Liam was bi, gay or just friends with him, and if he was the same Niall Horan from years and years ago.
Niall didn't even know how to respond to those, let alone what to, yet it made Liam laugh a little, marvelling over how quickly fans could adapt and switch from pestering Sophia on a daily basis to Niall, and the part of Liam eager to see people's reactions wanted to encourage Niall to respond to them with any answer, just to see how it would be taken. Probably deathly seriously, no matter what Niall said, and it wasn't as though his PR team didn't have the ability to delete any response immediately.
They joked about it, though, and the thought of it made Niall smile, lighting up his face until the stressed, pinched look had disappeared, and by the time they hung up after that particular call, Liam was halfway across Delaware, Louis had fallen out of his bunk twice, and Niall was late to pick Chloe up from school.
Phone calls were frequently like that, ranging from stupid jokes to serious, in-depth discussions about Chloe's ever-expanding Pokémon card collection, discussions that ended with Liam buying and sending another pack to her, regardless of Niall's pleas not to expand her collection any further, both of them knowing that the smile on Chloe's face would outweigh the look of horror on Niall's as he had to pick up her cards from around the flat.
The phone calls left both Niall and Liam smiling, though, and Liam found himself counting the minutes until it would be time to call him, fidgeting through interviews, hotel room based meetings, and soundcheck, a grin spreading across his face as Niall answered, picking up the phone and telling Liam about the latest customers he'd dealt with, the new girl who kept him company on the night shift, screwing up deliveries that Niall would have to fix, as well as Chloe and her swimming, telling him all the details Chloe would forget to include.
There was one thing that they both never brought up, and did their best to avoid, brushing over it whenever the conversation turned that way, and that happened to be the matter of how long Liam had been away for, and how close they were to Chloe's next school holiday, how close they were to seeing each other again.
They were avoiding it, as though it were something secret, as though talking about it would make the wait seem even longer, as though they were afraid to mention it. In a way, Liam was. He was afraid that Niall had changed his mind about visiting and bringing Chloe, that he had decided it would be too much of an upheaval for her. He was counting the days and crawling up the walls and going crazy with the waiting and the distance, and he was really hoping there would be a chance for Niall to visit.
He was only ever distracted when they were performing, when he was home again, on stage, doing what he'd loved since forever, and that high made him really glad he was there, made everything seem worth it.
The high from performing was also the only thing keeping his hands from trembling when he checked his phone after a performance in Washington and found a missed call from Niall with a voicemail.
"Hey, Li. It's me. Guess I got the time zones wrong and you're busy but never mind. Just thought I'd let you know that Chloe officially breaks up for holidays on April eighth and there are two weeks before she's back at school. Just...if you still want, we could visit. She'd love to, I'd love to, just let me know if it's still an idea. Anyway, I'll call you later, or in the morning or whatever. I'd really like to see you, love to be there, but no pressure. Hope it was a good concert, Washington or somewhere, right? Anyway, call me back. I love you."
Grinning about ten times more, if such a thing were even possible, Liam paced around his hotel room, torn between calling Niall back and telling Louis or someone. It would be way past an acceptable time to call Niall, though, sometime past midnight, and he knew better than to disturb Louis or Harry. Everyone knew better than to disturb Louis or Harry. Instead, he occupied himself by checking ticket prices and figuring out which flights Niall and Chloe might want. It was one of the rare nights when they weren't travelling and no one was out, stunting or otherwise, meaning he had time on his hands.
He waited, though, refraining from falling asleep until he figured it was late enough to call Niall, pushing through until it was roughly six am in the UK.
"Liam?" Niall sounded sleepy, like he was barely awake, and the sound of his voice made Liam wish he was there, with Niall, able to take in the wonder that was early morning, soft, just woken up Niall. "How was the performance? I'm gonna guess it went great. Time zones must be out if you're calling this early."
Liam waited a moment as Niall yawned before he answered, looking over at the clock on the bedside table as he said, "It was good, great even. I'm calling super early, sorry, Love. I got your voicemail, by the way. You guys...you'd fly out? Cause I'd love to see you. Really. Best thing I've heard all day."
__________________________________
Ta-daah.
I think this is possibly the longest length of book time a chapter has lasted for. I mean, it covers over a month, maybe even longer.
Chapter after chapter that barely spanned a week and here we are, jumping right ahead to April.
That deserves cake. And I might even share it with you guys.
I mean, hypothetically. I can't afford cake, and even if I could, I can't share it with you guys.
I don't even share cake with the people I live with.
But I digress...
This chapter spans over a month of book time, so get ready for me to jump ahead to the next interesting plot point. Also, I'm torn between where I want the plot to go for this. I could have it end in, like, twenty more chapters, or we could be here for at least thirty to fifty more.
I'd love to see what you guys think of the chapter...