Elodie's POV
“So what’s going to happen with all our pieces?” I ask as we leave the building. I had photos of all the pieces on my phone, but I didn’t know what would happen to the originals. I’d grabbed a few of the charcoal pieces I’d done along and Liam had the one of him, but beyond that they were too large.
“I’m having them shipped back to my house in London” he says. “I needed to redecorate.”
“Wow, I feel used,” I tease getting him to laugh.
“So how’d I do?” he asks. “You didn’t climb out a window or escape in some big black car so that’s a good sign,” he jokes.
“Ehh, it could’ve been worse,” I tease.
“Mhm, sure,” he says with a grin, knowing I’m full of shit. He reaches over and rests a hand on my hair before leaning over and kissing me. “You’ve got paint in your hair,” he chuckles, running a thumb over my matted hair.
“I wonder who’s fault that is,” I reply sarcastically.
“It was your own fault. You fell first,” he laughs. I let out a laugh also, not denying it.
“Lou’s going to kill me when she see’s the mess I’m going to make of the shower when we get back.”
“She’s not going to let us onto the bus,” he jokes.
“We look like a rainbow threw up on us,” I say, continuing the joke.
“Wow, I don’t think you could have said anything grosser,” he laughs.
“Oh yea I could. I could’ve said it looks like we rolled around in unicorn diarrhea.”
“What?” he asks, in a surprised laugh.
“Oh yea, unicorns poop rainbows, didn’t you know that?” I ask with a laugh.
“No, I didn’t,” he chuckles.
Well now you do,” I say with a grin. We get to the busses and when we get out of the car, he grabs my hand, forcing the two of us to linger about outside while the security head back onto the bus. When they’re out of sight, he backs me up against the bus, out of view from anyone who could be watching, with that glint in his eye that lets me know exactly what’s coming.
“Wow, you’re sure confident now,” I tease as my arms wrap around his neck.
“Nah, I just know you,” he smirks, his hands loosely resting on my back as he steadily inches closer.
“Oh yea? Prove it,” I dare. He closes the distance, sandwiching myself between him and the bus as he kisses me hard, his hands moving to grip my waist. When his hands drop lower, my grip around his neck tightens and he picks me up. I wrap my legs around his waist with my back pressed against the bus. When we finally break apart for a breath, I let out a breathless laugh. His grin tells me how proud of himself he is.
“You going to let me down?” I ask.
“Nah,” he smirks, shaking his head.
“You just like showing off your muscles,” I joke, running my hands down his pecs.
“I think you mean I just like to hold you,” he replies. I give a small smile, feeling a small flutter in my stomach at his words. I bend my head to give him a short kiss, but he drags it out longer as he stretches his neck to follow me when I pull away. Only then does he set me down. When he backs up so I can step away from the bus, I feel my shirt stick a bit and when I look back I see I’ve left a paint stain on the bus.
“Oops,” he chuckles.
“Fuck off, Paul is going to blame me for this,” I say with a laugh, pushing him back a bit. He just chuckles, rebounding back and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“Go away,” I whine with a smile. He just laughs, leaning down to kiss me again. This time, we break apart when the bus door opens. I look over to see Lou standing on the step, shaking her heads at us.
“I didn’t believe it,” she mutters. “I’m going to make a paper towel trail to the bathroom and you’re going to clean up and we’re throwing away those clothes.” she continues. “Liam, you can either wait out here or go to the other bus because you’re not waiting on this one like that. God, your hair.” she says, shaking her head. He just chuckles, moving away from me and giving my hand a light squeeze before turning and heading back towards the bus. I follow Lou back onto the bus, and sure enough she grabs the roll of paper towels and begins to lay down a path. When I get out, the paper towels I’d walked on are gone and so are the paint clothes. I shouldn’t be surprised when I see Lauren waiting in the living room area. For someone who disliked when other people were in her business, she sure liked to know what was going on in mine.
“Where’s Liam?” I ask, glancing around the room to see if he was back from the other bus yet.
“The boys are kidnapping him for the night to talk with him,” she tells me. “That’s how it works around here. After the first date, the boys give each other shit and drag out the whole story and normally there isn’t a girl to do the same to the new girl, because we’re kind of, you know, all over the globe, but this time there is! So you’re telling me everything.” I glance back towards the bunks as I wonder if that meant he’d still be gone when we go to sleep. I hadn’t slept without him in the room for a while now. It had been comforting to know he was there.
“Well what do you want to know?” I finally ask her with a sigh, taking a seat in one of the arm chairs, kicking my feet up over the arm rest.
“Well what did you do? I saw Liam when he got back to the other bus and he was covered in paint,” she presses.
“I think-”
“Oh wait, hang on, hang on,” she interrupts, grabbing her computer. “I’m going to Skype Emily into this conversation. She wanted to hear all about it also.”
“Uhh… ok…” I say, slightly weirded out about it all. I listen as the computer rings until finally Emily appears on the screen.
“Hey! Are they back? I want to hear all about it! I’ve got to start getting ready for the show in like half an hour so we’ll have to be quick,” she says as soon as she answers the call.
“Yea, I’ve got her right here,” Lauren replies with a grin, turning the computer so she’s now facing me. “Ok, continue,” she instructs me.
“Well, I think he must’ve rented out an art studio or something. We went to this warehouse-like place and I dunno. Painted, sketched, tried out pottery which is a lot harder than I expected,” I tell them with a shrug.
“And you’re an artist right?” Emily asks.
“I’m alright…” I say with a shrug.
“She’s great,” Lauren says automatically. “I keep telling her she should do it professionally.
“No you don’t,” I say, looking at her in confusion.
“Well I do in my head,” she amends.
“Well it sounds really thoughtful. Very personal,” Emily offers.
“Yea, I suppose.”
“Wanna tell her about your first date?” Lauren teases Emily.
“Hey! I had fun!” she says defensively.
“It was at Walmart,” Lauren laughs.
“What?” I ask, now confused.
“He flew out for only a couple hours! How is that not romantic?” Emily says, still protective over her first date.
“I guess that is,” Lauren allows.
“I’m confused,” I say, once again interrupting their conversation.
“He showed up at one of our shows. We went to IHOP for a super late dinner, and then were going ot go to a movie but the theaters were all over so we went to the electronic section of Walmart and watched the movie they play on all the TVs there before he had to take a red-eye flight back to make it to studio,” Emily finally explains.
“Wow.”
“Yep,” she chirps, obviously still fond of the memory.
“And yours?” I ask Lauren, hoping maybe if I keep the two of them talking long enough, they’ll forget the purpose of this chat.
“We went to this butterfly exhibit and then to a restaurant where you eat in the dark.”
“That’s… interesting…” I say a bit doubtful of that kind of thing as a date. It wasn’t really my taste.
“It was unique. I’d never had a date like it,” she says with a grin and a small shrug. “But back to you!” Dammit.
“What kind of things did you do? Can we see them?” Emily asks.
“Well most of them were too big to bring back. He’s having them shipped back to his house.” I say, grabbing the few tubes I did have with the pictures I had brought back. “I’ve only got a couple,” I continue, taking them out of the tubes and offering them to Lauren.
“These are incredible!” she says, gingerly holding the pictures in fear of smudging the charcoal.
“Lemme see, lemme see!” Emily orders and once Lauren has gone through them, she holds them up to the screen so Emily could see.
“Wow!’
“Ok, that’s enough,” I say, lightly tugging them out of her grip so I could roll them back up into the tube.
“How do you keep them from smudging in there?” Lauren asks.
“There’s these fixatives that I put on them once they’re done. It helps a bit,” I explain.
“And he had them there? Liam isn’t the best about the tiny details,” Lauren asks.
“Yea… it was a fully stocked studio,” I say, feeling myself become a bit defensive also. “I got the feeling Zayn might’ve helped him out.”
“That’s my boy,” Emily announces proudly.
“Did you show him the picture you did of him?” Lauren asks.
“Yea, I messed it up though. I forgot the mark,” I say, touching the spot on my own neck where his was. “I made another though.”
“Can we see it?” Lauren asks.
“He has it.”
“So you’ll get Louis to take a pic and then send it to me?” Emily asks Lauren who gives a noise of agreeance.
"We should form a girlfriends club," Lauren jokes.
"He's not my boyfriend," I say quickly, shaking my head.
"Well not yet," Lauren clarifies.
"5 dates! That was my rule," Emily chimes in. I continue shaking my head though. I didn't do boyfriends. I didn't even do dates. This was weird enough for me as it was without having to worry about labels.
“But you had fun right?” Lauren asks again for clarification.
“Yea, it was alright,” I say with a casual shrug. The two of them are silent and I get the feeling they’d been hoping for a more enthusiastic reaction, but that wasn’t the type of person I was. The two of them are silent for a moment before I hear some noise in the background of the skype call.
“Hey, I’ve got to go. You’ll tell me if anything else happens right?” Emily asks, directing the question to Lauren.
“Of course,” Lauren confirms. “I’ll talk to you later.” Emily gives one last goodbye before ending the call.
“So…” Lauren continues and I raise an eyebrow at her, waiting for what the next question will be.
“Did he kiss you goodnight?”
“Yes,” I say frustrated with myself when I feel my face start to turn red.
“And? Was it good? Was it suspenseful? Did he surprise you?” she peppers me.
“Oh my god, why are we talking about this?” I groan.
“Because! Thats what friends do! We gush about guys!”
“I’m not much of a gusher,” I say dryly.
“Yea, I’ve noticed,” she replies in the same tone. She goes silent after that, waiting for me to say something and finally I sigh.
“Fine, yes it was good. No it wasn’t a surprise but it wasn’t suspenseful either. And it’s not like we hadn’t kissed before so I don’t really get what the big deal about this one is.”
“Well.. it’s… it’s the first date!” she stutters, obviously not having expected that kind of reaction.
“So?” I ask and she opens her mouth to reply but I’ve left her speechless.
“Fine,” she finally replies with a frown.
“Well you know, if you ever do want to talk. About anything. You can trust me ok?” she asks and I give a small nod before picking up my sketches and heading back towards the beds.
It’s a couple hours later and I’m just beginning to drift off to sleep when Liam slides in behind me.
“Hey,” he whispers, laying down behind me, waking me up a bit.
“Where’d you come from?” I ask sleepily.
“The busses stopped for gas,” he whispers.
“Hm? Couldn’t stay away for a night?” I quietly tease, turning around to face him.
“Nope,” he shamelessly replies, his lips finding mine.
“And how were the boys?” I ask.
“Brutal. And the girls?”
“Awful.”
“Glad we’re in agreement,” he says with a small smile, kissing me again. “We should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow,”
“Yea… I guess… unless you want to…” I hint, playing with the edge of his collar.
“I do, you know I do,” he chuckles. “Just not right now. Not here with people around us. I want it to be-,”
“Special, I know,” I sigh rolling back over so we were spooning once again. It was also a great way to hide the smile as I pull his arm tighter around me.
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So some of you were sad about the lack of kiss in the last chapter. Hope this made up for it ;) Picture on the side is also Elodie's new drawing of Liam.
What did you think of Lauren and Emily's interrogation?
Let me know in the comments what you think! And don't forget to vote/comment/fan :)
Dedication for this chapter goes to therealife1 for the multiple comments haha :)