“Wake up! Rise and shine!”
There were five boys jumping on Kol’s bed and it took her a few seconds to completely wake up. She looked around, mortified, and she brought the sheets up until her chin.
“Wake up! Wake up!”
“How the hell did you get in here?” she asked, not moving as her eyes darted around the room. It was a good thing that she started packing last night, or all her clothes would have been strewn recklessly around the room.
“Maria told us to wake you up, since she got on an earlier flight than the rest of us!” Niall said, lying down next to her and propping his head on his hand. “She gave us the key and all. She said that we couldn’t possibly do any harm within the day.”
“She obviously doesn’t know us very well,” Louis said, sitting by the bottom of her bed as he stopped bouncing on top. “We’ve got some evildoings planned now that she’s gone.”
“I don’t think you could do anything worse than all the pranks you’ve played yesterday,” Kol said, remembering the accumulation of pranks the night before. Harry had hidden in the closet once she went in to finally get some sleep after a long night, and he almost gave her a heart attack when he scared her. Zayn had replaced her normal clothes with one of the schoolgirl ones, claiming that some animals had torn it apart because of the flowery scent of her perfume, which didn’t even make any sense.
They had a few drinks once they got to the hotel room, since they could chill out. Kol even got to know a few members of the crew, since they had the drinks with them.
“Why aren’t you getting out of bed?” Harry asked, sitting on her other side.
“Do you sleep nude?” Kol asked Harry in a conversational tone.
“Most of the time, since I find the heat rather nasty at night,” Harry said. His eyes widened. “Why, are you naked underneath right now?”
Kol rolled her eyes and smacked him on the head. “No. I’m just in a shirt and underwear, which is why I’m hesitant on leaving my bed. I’m not to keen revealing so much, since these two have their girls and I don’t want any fights.”
“Oh, we’re sorry,” Liam said genuinely, standing up. “ We really didn’t think of that scenario, did we?”
“No, we didn’t,” Louis said, standing up as well. “I thought you were more of a pajama and fluffy slippers type of girl. Come on lads. Let’s give the lady some privacy.”
Louis took Harry and Zayn’s arms and had to tug them out of the room. Liam got Niall in a chokehold. Kol could hear them banter as they exited the room.
Kol took a few minutes to completely wake herself up. She splashed her face with a bit of water and she got into comfortable clothes for the flight back to New York. She wore jeans, four-inch black wedge boots and a loose gray long-sleeved cropped top. She had received instructions from last night to head to the boys’ suite once she woke up. She would clear out of her room and bring her luggage with her toward their room.
Once she checked that she hadn’t left anything, she lugged the suitcase out of the room and went to the neighboring one. She knocked twice and was greeted by Niall, who was munching on something, once again. Kol vaguely wondered if he got high, what with him eating all the time. They all looked relatively clean to her, so she ruled that out.
“Woah, you got taller,” he said, letting her through as he took her suitcase for her and took it in. He lined it where the rest of the luggage had been filed into a straight line. He looked down at her feet. “I was dared to try on heels in an interview once. Jesus. I didn’t know how to walk in them straight.”
“It’s easier in these,” Kol said, flipping one of her calves up to show the wedge heel. “The smaller the radius of the heel, the more difficult it is to walk. It’s physics. It’s something about gravity.” She saw the blank looks on their faces so she added, “And I won’t expound on that since you guys don’t look interested in it.”
“I just prefer my trainers,” Zayn said, eyeing the shoes. “I don’t understand why girls wear those.”
“They look extremely uncomfortable,” Liam added.
“And you sometimes are taller than the boys,” Harry said. “That’s not a very attractive quality when blokes look for girls. We generally want someone shorter than us, I think.”
“Why are you complaining?” Kol laughed. “I’m the one wearing them, and you all are still taller than me in them. You don’t have to feel insecure about it.”
“She does make a fair point,” Louis said from the couch. “But I do agree that they’re not the most comfortable footwear for practical people.”
“I got used to it. It’s kind of my job, and I have to wear higher ones, since I’m a lot shorter than the rest,” Kol said, fixing her hair in the mirror.
“It seems like everyone else is taller than us,” Louis said, looking around at the boys. “Do you think they picked her because she was actually a lot shorter? Maybe that was one of the only factors, really.”
“I love that tone of confidence you’re using about casting me, Lou,” Kol said, grinning at him through the mirror. She was simply having a bad hair day. Her hair was all over the place. She tried flattening it out with her hands, as well as brushing through her locks a few more times. She didn’t want to straighten her hair in front of the boys either. While they had already seen the process of hair and makeup, she wasn’t comfortable with showing her own beauty routines.
“Here, take a leaf out of our book,” Harry said, tossing her one of his beanies. “You can keep it too if you like. Niall has a few caps, but I don’t think they’re your style.”
“Do you have a twitter, Kol?” Niall asked, taking out his phone.
“Yeah, but I hardly use it,” Kol said, turning around once she decided the beanie looked good enough on her head.
“Found it!” Niall snapped a photo of her and posted it on the social networking site. Niall’s eyes widened and he said, “Jesus Christ. I shouldn’t have done that. I acted on impulse.”
“Why, what’s so bad about that?” she asked, peering over Niall’s shoulder as he scrolled down. There were immediate responses to the girl in Harry’s beanie. He had put in the caption: Kol takes fashion advice from Haz.
Harry was right next to her, but only half of him was in the photo, while Kol was taking her hair to one side.
“I thought we could delay your identity for a few more weeks,” Liam sighed, looking like he pitied Kol. “Prepare to get recognized by some of our fans when we get to New York.”
“If you get any…negative attention, just ignore it and give us a ring, okay?” Louis said, and for the first time, he looked very serious about it. “Some of them are quite aggressive when we get in close proximity with girls, especially for those three, since they’re the only ones single now.” He nodded towards Niall, Zayn and Harry.
“Do you even check your Twitter anyway?” Harry asked.
“Very seldom. I don’t have that much time for it,” Kol said. “Is it that bad?”
Harry looked at her and said, “You have no idea.”
The boys looked pretty serious about it, so she took out her phone and signed into her account. She had a private account, so she could only approve her followers. There were already over a hundred requests to follow her in less than five minutes. Although she had a private account, that didn’t stop from mentions showing up.
A lot of them were wondering about why she was with the band. They were all inquiring, but none of them were brutal or mean.
She showed it to the boys, who scanned the thing with mild looks of apprehension on their faces. Liam and Louis looked at each other worriedly.
“I think you’re all making too much of a big deal about this,” Kol smirked. “I’ll be right back though. I need to use the bathroom.”
While she was in the bathroom, the boys used that time to talk among themselves what they couldn’t say in front of her.
“You think it’ll be any bad?” Louis looked to Liam. He was the most levelheaded among the five of them, and would probably know what to do best in this situation.
“Can’t say really,” Liam replied, looking through the other mentions. “I remember the stuff that El got before, but Kol isn’t dating anyone from the band.” Liam and Louis suddenly looked up to the three, who were rapt with attention. “I don’t think it would be wise for you three to openly go after her at the same time though.”
“I know all three of you kind of fancy her in some way, but is it worth the trouble?” Louis asked.
“Imagine the hate she would end up getting if they even had an inkling that all three of you are interested in her,” Liam reasoned. “She’s a sweet girl, lads. If you three are just planning to go after her as sport, I really advise against it. She doesn’t need the trouble.”
“Considering that we all exchanged number with her last night, I don’t think that I see her as sport,” Niall said. “Come on, mate. You know me better than that.”
Liam looked at Zayn and Harry pointedly. “What?” Zayn asked, looking amused. “You know us too, mate. When we both want something, we go ahead.”
“No stopping you three, is there?” Louis grinned, raising an eyebrow at the three of them. “I just hope you chaps won’t fight about it. Let’s have a clean, fair fight, shall we? You’re not even certain if she’s going to choose one of you.”
“I love your confidence in our romancing skills, Lou,” Niall clapped Louis on the back. “You’re such a great friend.”
“You betting on your boy though, Boo bear?” Harry asked, grinning at Louis.
Louis just stared at him and blinked. “Haz, there are a lot of things that I know you can do. I’m with you all the way, one hundred percent…except for this Kol thing.”
“That’s a first,” Liam looked at Louis with a grin.
“Daddy Liam is starting to rub off on me, I guess,” Louis said, doing a ‘What can you do?’ gesture.
Kol returned to the room and the boys went back to their usual selves. Liam handed her back her phone.
They spent about half an hour in the room, until Paul told them that they had to head to the airport to catch their flight. The boys had been absolutely enthusiastic when they met the fans outside the hotel. They even gave out some of the cookies that they purchased from the hotel bakery. It took them ten minutes before the head of security convinced them that they should leave already, before they couldn’t control the crowd anymore.
“I forgot to ask. What are you guys going to be doing in New York anyway?” she asked, once they got into the van. “I mean, I’m really glad that we’ll be in the same city, but it’s kind of out of the way.”
“It actually isn’t,” Niall said, facing her. “Our manager decides our routes and stuff. We probably have some interviews and shows to do there for a while.”
“Don’t be a stranger when we get there,” Zayn said, from across her.
“I think it’s me who should be saying that, boys,” she laughed, settling into Niall’s side. He had his arm stretched out on the back of the seat. Harry was on her other side. He glanced at Niall.
“I want some of that too,” Harry said, looking enviously at the pair. He took Niall’s hand and caressed it on his face. Niall slapped him lightly on the face and took his hand, which meant that he had to remove his arm from around Kol.
Louis laughed. “I see what you did there, Barry.”
“Very clever,” Niall smiled at their dimpled band mate, who looked back innocently.
Kol looked around at all of them, feeling lost. She looked to Remy, one of their bodyguards, but if he did know what they were talking about, he didn’t give her a clue.
“You haven’t got a clue what we’re talking about, do you?” Louis said, leaning to indicate that he was speaking directly to Kol.
“Do you guys have to be so annoying about it?” Kol said, rolling her eyes.
“Sadly, that’s the point,” Liam said. “What do you say, Zayn?”
“I’m waiting until we get to New York,” Zayn yawned and he easily fell asleep.