Lydia’s POV
“No sleeping with her.”
“No sleeping with her.”
“No sleeping with her.”
The stern tone Markus had used was nearly imbedded into the gray matter of my brain. The words echoing through my head on repeat as I sat on the plush leather couch, in an attempt to organize my now jumbled thoughts.
Louis had disappeared into his room quite some time ago, a worried crease lining his tan forehead and contradicting the anger behind his bright eyes.
Neither of us had spoken a word to each other or anyone else since Markus had so wonderfully interjected with his insulting remark.
Who the hell did he think I was? Some skank from off the streets?
It was thoughts like those that were running through my head, and I was left in silence to them as the only sound in the foreign apartment was that of Louis rustling around some unknown item in another room.
The apartment was one of those kinds you saw on magazine covers, it was entirely too big for just one person and incredibly square.
Everything was boring, from the white walls and carpet to the matching black and white furniture. Even the pictures were monochromatic with impersonal photographs of flowers and tropical beaches.
The place would have looked uninhabited if it weren’t for the muddy trails Louis’ vans had made on the granite floor as he kicked his shoes off, and left them wherever they’d happened to land.
Did I really look like someone he’d take home just for a night?
I brought my thoughts back to my current issue, it had been nagging at me now for such a long time that I wondered if Louis had in fact actually brought me into his apartment for that sole reason.
It wasn’t as though it had been easy for Markus to convince whoever was on the other line that I was an ‘ok’ choice of friend for the pop star. There had been a lot of bickering, profanities and “yes she’ll be out of there before a story can be made of it.” When Markus had finally hung up with a resounding sigh, and a rub of his hand over his shiny head. I expected the answer to be no, but when he’d nodded in our direction and started barking orders for the car to be moved to the entrance, it had suddenly sunk in.
I was going to Louis house.
He was going to answer my question.
I was going to Louis house.
Never once in the car ride had I worried about the prospect of other potential intentions. Clearly I should have though, because taking someone like Louis at face value –as I had- had obviously been a mistake.
“Sorry love, had to clean up a bit.” Louis unnaturally high voice scared me nearly a foot out of my seat, the soft shuffling of his feet coming to an irregularly beat with my fast pumping heart.
“You scared the shit out of me.” I remarked quietly, unwilling to look behind me and see him nearing the couch. All of my thoughts had left me even more scrambled than before, and slightly uncomfortable with the position that I had just half an hour ago been jumping with joy about.
“Alright, what’s up.” Louis didn’t pose it as a question, and he didn’t even sound a bit hesitant, as he nearly demanded an answer.
“Not-“
“Don’t give me the ‘nothing’- he mocked me, his voice raising an octave. “I know what you’re playing at Lydia. What’s going on?” He still wasn’t in my line of sight, his footsteps seeming to fade a bit into the background.
I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest and standing quickly, scanning the room for him. There was no messy headed brunette boy in my line of sight, but a bit of movement from another room caught my eye.
I shuffled over to the open door and cautiously stepped in, completely taken aback by what I was met with.
Louis was leaning over his nightstand. A precarious stack of CD’s balancing underneath him, his hand outstretched as if he was going to grab the curtain. He was nearly there too, just a few more centimeters and he would have it, but I couldn’t even clear my mind enough to focus on anything but the gray sweatpants that were settled very nicely on his hips.
I had grown very fond of his slightly spread apart gait, and the feminine curves that seemed to fit his body like a glove, somehow making him appear more masculine. However, I was unsure how I had missed the key part of any woman’s desire; his ass.
Oh. My. God.
The way his sweatpants hung loosely from his thighs, but stretched immensely tighter over the perfectly curved outline of his butt. Where on Earth had this man acquired such an unnaturally appealing body? It was as though every ounce of my being pulled me towards him, while my head scrambled to sort through the danger signs such a man could pursue.
“Lydia.” Louis finally grabbed the curtain and pulled it shut. His heavily accented voice snapping at me, as he turned to notice my intoxicated stare that hopefully had been dragged a little north before he caught the subject of my drooling.
“Do you sleep with a lot of women?” The words rolled off my tongue like an avalanche before I could stop them.
“No?” He answered me questioningly, his arms crossing over his maroon v-neck. His eyebrows had nearly disappeared into his forehead, the level of confusion more than evident as it was written all over his face. His answer however, seemed hesitant.
“You do, don’t you?” I again asked him the question before I could stop myself, a sly grin warily making it’s way across my lips as I shook my head in disapproval, but not in surprise.
“I’m not entirely certain where that came from?” Louis again avoided the question. Instead he posed his own as he fidgeted, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Markus’s warning, what was that about?” I kept my gaze locked on his, struggling to keep them from drifting back down to those mouth watering sweatpants.
I would never understand how men like him could pull sweatpants off better than I could pull a dress at the Grammy’s off.
“That, I, uh, I’m not a virgin?” He stated lamely, a slightly rosy color tinting his cheeks.
“Please tell me you’re kidding, you thought I didn’t know that?” I giggled unstoppably, the look on his face letting me know that he quite plainly meant every word he’d said. “You’re trying to tell me, that you,”- I pointed between us, trying to choke out the words before the next bout of laughter ensued. “were under the impression that I thought someone like you was a virgin? Have you looked in the mirror lately?” I snorted, my hands on my knees as I struggled for air. I was beyond the point of caring that I was a wheezing mess in front of a terribly confused celebrity, I was more amused with the idea that he even thought I would believe he was a virgin.
Then he did the one thing I did not see coming, he started laughing with me- and not the ‘I pity you that you think this is funny,’ but the ‘this is hilarious and I’m a complete asshat for thinking you didn’t already know that,’ laugh. “That was dumb wasn’t it?” He gasped through the words with me, both of us gravitating towards the bed as we clutched the stitches in our sides.
His face was a bright red, the creases deepening in his face the wider his joyous smile got. His laughter was probably the hidden cure to cancer, it just made a bit of happiness filter up into your heart every time you heard the catch in his voice, or saw the way his eyes crinkled in the most charming of ways.
Having the same idea at nearly the same time, both of us shoved our faces into the plush, unmade bed in what I assumed to be his room. Slowly staunching the flow of laughter as I breathed in the light scent of detergent and the now semi-familiar waft of expensive cologne.
“I don’t sleep around, no.” His voice was muffled by the comforter, but the slight edge of something besides laughter coated his words and I knew he wasn’t being completely honest.
“How many?” I rolled over so my back was on the bed, my feet still holding me up on the floor as I stared at the ceiling.
“You really did come here to get answers,” he teased, and I didn’t respond. This was his way of adverting the answer.
“Alright,” he finally sighed and the weight on the bed shifted right as two hands swam over my vision and tucked themselves under my armpits.
Louis pulled me all the way up onto the bed, and dropped me so I was laying like a rag doll across his legs.
“Wow, thanks for the accommodations!” I snorted at his grin. He was pushed up against the pillows, legs spread completely out and crossed daintily at the ankle like the European fuck he was.
“Well come up here?”
“On you?”
“Yes, on me. Unless you have an issue touching me and then you can stay over there.” He rolled his eyes, and shifted so his arms were behind his head.
“Uh,” I trailed off, locking onto his pink lips in an attempt to sort out an answer. That was a stupid idea however, because if anything it disassembled my thoughts even more.
“Just come up here.” The exasperated sigh was as evident as the amused smirk painted itself across his lips.
Breathing in the last ounce of my dignity, I rolled my eyes and crawled over to him, trying not to state my approval as he kept his eyes on my face and never once went to look down at the small gap between my shirt and skin.
I layed down with a huff, crossing my arms over my chest and turning to look at him. The view was weird from my position, the tiny bit of stubble coating the underside of his chin and lining his defined jawline was suddenly in sharp contrast with the outline of his long eyelashes.
“So?” He drew out the word, the question lingering in the silent air.
“I don’t know what I want to know,” I admitted sheepishly. There were so many questions I had for him and I’m sure he had just as many for me.
It was very odd the way this had happened, our friendship had become quite quickly a very intimate thing. I felt more connected to Louis than I had to nearly anyone else in my life, and it was because of the similarities we shared in not only our personalities, but I think in our life choices that made it that much easier to speak to him. I just sometimes had to take a step back and remind myself, the whole world knew his name.
“I had a really rough two years, not on camera but behind closed doors.” All the humor that was constantly in his voice disappeared quite quickly, and was instead replaced with an almost frighteningly serious tone as Louis began to explain just one part of himself
“With the music? Or your girlfriend?” I prompted him, fully understanding that he had come to a place where he expected me to decide exactly what I wanted him to talk about, and for now, my biggest concern was not how many women had been in bed with him.
“No, not with the music. The music had always come very easy to me, but it wasn’t until two years ago that I finally picked up a pen and started making my own sense of the world.” Louis stopped for a moment, a strangely haunting silence filling the air around us as I attempted to understand how someone who seemed as carefree as him could feel all these emotions. It seemed odd to me that even in just a few short sentences, I could feel the weight of his words pressing against my chest- and suddenly it was quite simple how he could remain happy but still feel as though he was lost, and that was because I did the same thing.
“I’d had a girlfriend before Camilla, she was completely normal and beautiful.” His voice morphed into a happy melody, his eyes clouding over in a dreamlike state and I allowed him to lose himself in the memory. “Belle was incredible, she was smart and funny and she went to Uni. Sometimes I’d go visit her when I knew she was having a rough time, or a big exam and I’d bring flowers or just come around to take her out for coffee. It was quite humbling to stay in her little flat on those days, not having anyone but the both of us around to joke and wrestle. We’d watch comedic romances or even just lay there and fall into the steady rhythm of our bodies fitting completely, and perfectly with each others.” As he finished that last sentence, a strange sense of sadness overcame me and I couldn’t really place my finger on why.
“She was with me for nearly two years, slowly overcoming the obstacles of dating an exceedingly famous guy. We both thought it would all work out, someday the comments and the bullying she received would stop. That was my mistake, my mistake was thinking that I could leave even for just a few months on tour and expect to come home to the same woman.
“Don’t get me wrong, we loved each other immensely, but when I came back it was different. She had different friends, we had different interests and instead of having a terribly horrible break-up, we both just mutually cut it off. I do believe she’s happier this way, and to be honest, it was incredibly rough at first, but I think it also made me happier.” He sighed forlornly, the worried creases making a reappearance in between his eyebrows.
“So normal girls are a no go?” I teased him attempting to make light of the situation, not realizing how that sounded coming from my lips.
“Moving quite fast, aren’t we love?” Louis bit his lip, bringing his arm out from under his head and slipping it behind my back.
“That’s not what I meant!” I covered my mouth with my hand, the blush creeping up my cheeks like a wildfire. Between his arm around me, tugging me into his chest and the way I had stated that last comment, I was surely about to die from embarrassment.
“That’s what I meant.” He shrugged, the light dancing in his eyes as he met mine. Both of us in compromising positions as I looked up to study him and he clutched me against him, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on my shoulder blade.
“So, the model?” I changed the subject, my voice coming out patchy and squeaky like I’d just morphed into a mouse.
“Ah, Camilla,” he shook his head. Her name rolled off of his tongue in a seductive way, and that was what finally settled most of the pieces about their relationship into place.
“I’m conflicted as to whether or not you used her, and something tells me that it was mutual.” I inferred, moving my head up on his chest to look him in the eye. He smiled a bit at me, more amused than insulted, the steady beat of his heart pressing against my ear.
“I do believe it was quite mutual now that I look back on it, but for a long time we did believe we were at least kind of in love. The problem with Camilla was that the attention had to be hers, or no one’s at all.” He explained, taking another breath to continue his statement right as a loud knock sounded at the door.
We both jumped up from out comfortable position, an alarmed look crossing past his features just briefly before it was overcome by an annoyed sigh, complete with an eye roll.
“Coming!” Louis shouted, hopping off the bed and leaving the spot where he had just occupied radiating a comforting sense of warmth.
The click of a lock along accompanied by an irritated growl travelled back to me, an amused giggle erupting from my lips as I pictured Louis expression as opposed to whatever company had come knocking.
There was the sound of mumbling voices and a loud profanity before the soft footsteps sounded closer once more.
“Markus says he’ll take you home.” Louis appeared in the doorway, his hands tucked into his pockets as he casually leaned against the doorframe. I don’t think he understood how appealing that was, and it didn’t look like he was in the mood to find out anytime soon. A deep-set frown was etched on his lips, letting me know that whatever had just happened, wasn’t any of my business.
“Alright.” I shrugged, hopping off the bed and walking past Louis without any intention of a goodbye or goodnight falling off my lips.
The door leading outside hung open as I exited Louis room, Markus’s bald head outlined against it, waiting for me. I slipped my shoes on and tied them, taking only a minute before I was out of the apartment, only the memory of Louis arm around me to comfort my irritated thoughts.
“Victor has your phone when you’re done throwing a damn fit.” Markus called back into the apartment, his big hand going to slam the door, but not before I heard the back end of what seemed like an incredibly tense conversation.
“I’m not fucking talking to her!” Louis enraged voice filled my ears with fear and curiosity, and even after Markus had long since started mumbling profanities about the feathery haired boy, I was still lost in the mystery of his last sentence.
I had to know why he was here, and not just the news story, but the story behind Camilla and the emotion he’d hidden quite well behind her name.
A/N
And I am a day late... i'm so sorry... i started writing this chapter late last night and I realized i had no energy left to finish it so I left it for this morning. I made it longer than I had anticipated and I am sooooo sorry! Thank you so much for waiting longer!
AND YOU ROCK! 20 VOTES! YOU GUYS ARE INSANE OH MY GOD I DIDN'T EVEN THINK THAT WAS POSSIBLE <3 <3 <3
Three exams this week.... ergudjafjwbafw
Anyways!
Next Update: Saturday March, 8th!
22 votes to an early update? :) You guys were so close this is so exciting!