Liam’s POV
I was whistling when I entered the dressing room the next morning. The boys look up, raising an eyebrow.
“How’s it going mate?” Zayn inquires.
“Yea, you seem happy,” Harry adds.
“Why?” Louis says bluntly.
“No reason,” I say, trying to act casual. “Can’t I just be happy?”
“Yea of course,” he says with a nod. “But not whistling happy. That’s not like you.” I press my lips together and shrug, trying to mask my grin. I feel like I’m under a microscope as they study me.
“FUCK” Harry suddenly shouts, causing everyone to jump. “I told you we should have made a bet!” he says, turning to Louis with a moan. Louis returns the look before looking back at me.
“Dammit, you’re right,” Louis swears.
“What are you goin on about?” Niall asks.
“You know… the bet…” Louis hedges. “The one that’s always made when someone starts dating someone new…”
“Leave the poor guy alone,” Lauren scolds from her spot on the couch, but everyone ignores her, too focused on me.
“You guys didn’t make the bet?” I ask doubtfully.
“There’s no way that they haven’t before today,” Zayn denies with a shake of his head, discussing my life as if I wasn’t even here.
“Hey! When do you think we would have started?” I ask, unnecessarily offended.
“So you did last night!” Louis accuses.
“You’ve been sleeping in her bunk for weeks. I thought it started ages ago,” Niall muses.
Right then, Lou and Elodie walk in with the clothes for tonights show.
“What started ages ago?” Elodie asks and I can feel my face heating up.
“I don’t think-” I start saying, hoping to either get the subject changed or for her to leave before the boys could get her into the conversation.
“Elodie! Just the person we were hoping to see!” Harry crows. “Tell us, do anything fun last night?” he asks with a cheeky grin.
“I suppose you could say that…” she says, glancing over at me, obviously unsure what was going on here.
“You and Liam… you…” he trails off, wriggling his eyebrows.
“Why do you care so much about other people’s sex lives?” she questions with the casualty that I wish I had. “Turning a little blue there Styles?” Louis lets out a bark of laughter and Harry, now embarrassed also, quickly tackles him to the ground.
“Sorry about them,” I say to her quietly as I take some of the clothes out of her hands and help her hang them up.
“Eh, it’s whatever,” she shrugs. “I’ve had people asking me things like that for years. At least with them I know it’s not going to end up in the papers.”
“They mean well. They’re good guys,” I try to tell her and she nods her head.
“I know, it doesn’t bother me,” she says with a shrug, flashing me a smile, finishing hanging up the clothes. “How did that conversation even come about?” she asks.
“Erm.. well…” I say feeling my cheeks begin to heat up. “I was… erm… whistling…” I tell her. She snorts, looking at me disbelievingly.
“You were whistling,” she says flatly. “What were you whistling?”
“I’m Yours,” I mutter under my breath, even more embarrassed now.
“Oh my god,” she chuckles. “I’m dating an idiot,” she says to herself with a roll of her eyes.
“What was that?” I ask with a grin, surprised by her words. Now it’s her time to blush.
“I uhhh…”
“You said we were dating.”
“Well since we-”
“So does this mean I can call you my girlfriend?” I interrupt.
“Wait, slow down there. I don’t know about that…” she says quickly.
“C’mon, why not? We don’t have to tell the press if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, it’s not that… I just…” she says uncomfortably and I realize this must have something to do with what happened to her and her problems with trusting people.
“Hey,” I say softly. “You trust me right? You know I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know,” she says with a nod.
“We don’t have to label it if you don’t want. We can just be… us,” I offer, hoping to put her at ease. She pauses, looking at me as she considers my words.
“I’m not really… girlfriend material,” she says, looking as if she tasted something bad when she says ‘girlfriend.’ “If we did do the whole… thing…” she says slowly. “I wouldn’t be like Lauren or Emily. I can’t be that… nice all the time. If someone is annoying me, I’ll make it known to them.”
“Trust me, I know,” I chuckle, already aware of how transparent her feelings for others were. “And I don’t want you to be like them. If I did, I’d have tried to find someone like that.”
“Elodie, if you’re done with that, we’re in the other room and I have your test ready,” Liz says, her head poking in the room. Elodie lets out a sigh, looking back at her and nodding her head.
“If I say yes, you won’t make a big deal out of this will you?” she asks, turning back to me.
“No,” I answer quickly, shaking my head, hardly daring to get my hopes up.
“You’re not going to around telling everyone or getting all weird on me right?” she continues to question.
“Well, I’d probably tell the boys. And my family. And maybe some of my other fr-” I start saying before seeing her stony expression. “Ok,” I agree after that. She sighs again, leaning in and kissing me quickly.
“You better be glad I had fun last night,” she says before turning and heading towards the door.
“Wait, is that a yes?” I ask, calling after her. She flashes a thumbs up over her shoulders which I can only take to mean yes and I break into a grin.
Elodie’s POV
“Happy Graduation to you. Happy Graduation to you. Happy Graduation dear Elodie. Happy Graduation to you.” The Aussies all sing, using the birthday song, as they walk in with a cake. I can’t help but laugh in amusement as they place it in front of me.
“The test hasn’t been graded yet. How do you know if I’ve passed?” I joke, glancing behind them at Liz who’s standing there also with a smile.
“I’m sure you did fine,” she assures me.
“C’mon, blow out the candles!” Callum begs. I laugh and lean over to blow them out, pausing when I see Michael take a step towards me.
“Three steps back,” I order them, not wanting a face-full of cake. Trying to mask a look of disappointment, he and the others listen and once again I lean over to blow them out.
“I want cake!” Lux shouts, running into the room.
“C’mere you,” I say with a grin, standing up and scooping her up off the ground as she manages to swipe a handful of cake.
“Sorry,” Lou says, walking in shortly after, followed by the rest of the boys. “She saw them with the cake and…” she trails off with a shrug.
“Ohh chocolate!” Harry adds, walking up to the cake and swiping a finger through the frosting and popping it into his mouth. Good to know where Lux picked it up. With Lux propped on one hip, I turn, almost crashing into Liam who’d managed to creep up behind me.
“Congratulations,” he says with a smile.
“Did you know about this?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. He presses his lips together with a grin, making it quite obvious he did. “Hey Lux, I think Uncle Liam wants some cake, can he have a bite of yours?” I ask her, leaning her in his direction so she could shove the cake into his face. She giggles as he pulls away with cake all of his face, much like her own.
“Oh I’m going to get you for that missy,” he jokes with mock anger as he begins to tickle her. She starts flailing around, trying to escape him and soon I’m left with cake from her fingers all over my shirt.
“Thanks for that,” I say sarcastically to him.
“Look, I know you two are dating or whatever, but you can’t hog the guest of honor completely,” Lauren scolds Liam as she walks over with two plates of cake. “Here, I’ll trade you,” she tells him, giving him one of the plates and using the now free hand to grab my arm and pull me away. It’s really only twenty minutes or so before he’s back at my side.
“Shouldn’t you guys be headed back for the sound check soon?” I ask him. He shrugs and glances at his watch.
“We got a couple more minutes. I was hoping to steal away the guest of honor for a walk.”
“Why?” I ask, catching him by surprise.
“I dunno… just thought it’d be nice?” he asks questioningly. I give a nod, stuffing the last forkful of cake into my mouth before setting down my plate.
“Lets go,” I say through a mouthful of cake. Once out in the hall, we start wandering down the halls, seemingly aimlessly, in silence.
“So you’ve officially graduated huh?” Liam finally asks with a smirk. “Didn’t see that coming when I first met you.”
“Yea, I didn’t see it coming even last week,” I joke. He lets out a laugh, shaking his head with a grin.
“You’re going to stay with us for the rest of the tour though right?” he asks, surprising me. “I mean, now that you’ve graduated, you’re not really obligated to stay.” I hadn’t really thought about that. I’d assumed when I was sent here, it’d be for the whole tour. The fact that it was only until I’d finished school had never occured to me.
“Well it’s not official yet,” I remind him. “It’ll be another week until all the papers are sent in and processed.”
“I know… but still. We’ve got another three weeks of tour. You could skip out for the last two. Paul wouldn’t stop you.”
“I know…” I say feeling a bit uncomfortable. What was he trying to do? Get rid of me? Or worse, make me admit to wanting to stay with them?
“I’m not trying to tell you to leave or anything. We’d all miss you,” he says quickly. “Who else would fix our pants?” he adds jokingly and a sense of relief washes over me as he gives me the easy out.
“Well for the sake of your pants I guess I’ll stay,” I tease. He chuckles, bumping into me slightly as we walk.
“So what was your plan when you do get to New York?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Well… like, what are you planning on doing.”
“I dunno,” I say with a shrug. “Partying. Seeing friends,” I offer. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”
“Well what are you going to do for money?” he asks. Once again I shrug, frowning.
“I dunno… I have money. I’ll be fine,” I say, growing frustrated with his questioning.
“Ok,” he says, putting his hands up in surrender. “I just thought maybe you’d want to get a job or something. Partying is fun and all but god knows I’d get bored of it after a while.” We fade into silence after that, ambling down the hallway.
“We should probably get back,” I mutter eventually. “They’re probably looking for you.”
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I'm so so so so so so so so sorry it's taken this long to update. Things have been crazy busy here and I've barely had any time to write. Updates definitely won't be coming as frequently as they used to but I'm getting back into a schedule for writing so hopefully it won't take as long to update again. Again, I'm so sorry for taking so long. I'd hoped to finish before I became an au pair but that didn't happen so now I'm stuck trying to do both. Hope everyone is well and let me know what you think so far :)