Management didn’t even let Louis and I rest before our first interview. We were dropped off at a studio while the other boys were taken home. As I sat beside him waiting, Lou tapped his feet against the floor and hummed.
“What song is that?” I ask, curious.
He blushed, thinking I hadn’t noticed. “I don’t remember the name, but it’s the one Zayn sang for his audition.”
I thought for a second before replying, “Oh, it’s called Let Me Love You.” As he continued to hum the tune, I softly sang the lyrics.
You should let me love you
Let me be the one to
Show you everything you want and need
Louis joined me and we sang the rest of the song together. I couldn’t help but wonder why he’d been humming that song in particular, since it was basically a song about someone in love. Aw, was Louis in love?
“You know Boobear, if you love someone go ahead and let me know, is that the big secret?” I joke.
His head jerks up to look at me before his face turns to the floor and his cheeks brighten with a crimson color. “No, what makes you say that?” Right, because that totally just convinced me he was telling the truth.
“You know you can tell me, you don’t have to hide it!” I laughed, as his face got even brighter if that was possible.
“I said no, Hazza! I am not in love with someone!” But he still can’t manage to say it to my face, choosing to stare at the oh-so-fascinating ground instead.
“Which explains your burning cheeks and guilty expression. Come on, I can help you get her! It’s not like you have to worry about me, remember we’re not really-“
He slaps a hand over my mouth and I tug at his wrist until he lets go. “What was that? You idiot, now my mouth stings!” I rubbed at my jaw, glaring at him.
“I had to get you to shut up before you said anything else! We’re in public, at a place filled with press, do you really want to say what you were about to shout at me?” He said condescendingly.
He was right; I just almost blew the cover off our relationship. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking…” I sigh, turning away. I never do anything right anymore.
“What? No, Haz, of course you do things right. You wouldn’t be part of an amazing international band or have three best friends and me if you did nothing right. Stop saying that ‘cause it’s not true!” This time he’s the one to use my wrists and move my hands from my face, and he gently rubs the stinging part of my mouth for me. Interesting how he didn’t list himself as one of my best friends. Was it possible that he’d guessed what was going on or felt the same way about me? No, I was just overthinking it.
Wait a second… I didn’t say that part about not doing anything right out loud! Was Louis secretly a mind reader? He chuckled down at me.
“No, I’m sorry to say I haven’t developed that power yet. You’re saying what you’re thinking out loud, silly Haz.”
Just then I heard our names being called, so I stood and pulled Louis with me to what I assumed was the interview room. Inside was a plain wood table with two comfortable-looking chairs set opposite presumably our two interviewers. I smiled at them and noticed their eyes trailing between Louis and I at about my hip level.
Looking down, I saw that I still had Boo’s hand gripped tightly in my own from dragging him into the room. The interviewers didn’t know that and probably thought it was a romantic gesture as we were a “couple”. I didn’t bother to pull my hand away or comment on it, since that’s what they were supposed to think.
“Hi guys! Come on in and take a seat, oh and put on these headsets. Welcome back to London!” I wondered if the girls were fans of ours, but it didn’t really matter.
“Hello, ladies. The name’s Tommo, Lou Tommo,” Louis tried to imitate in his best James Bond voice, making them laugh.
“So, how are you guys doing today? How was your break?” asked the one in front of me.
I smirked at her, “Good, We love our fans and everything they’ve done for us, but it was really nice to relax and have some time to just be the five of us again like when we went to the bungalow, which we haven’t gotten to do in quite a long time unfortunately. By the way, I never got the chance to ask your name?”
“Oh, of course! Sorry, I totally forgot to introduce myself. I’m Olivia and this is Cristy, and we’re going to be interviewing you today. Now where were we?” She smiled over at the other girl.
Cristy smiled back at her. “What did you do while you were away? And where were you?”
“I’m sorry but we don’t know where we were. Harry liked to swim and cuddle with me watching movies. I liked that too, but I also had fun pranking the others a bit. Niall obviously enjoyed the limitless food, Liam tried to keep us all in control, and Zayn had a giant mirror in his room so he got to look at himself a lot. Wait, I take that back, it sounded wrong…” Louis laughed a little, realizing how what he’d said sounded.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure your fans don’t mind it,” Cristy winked at him. I felt that now familiar pang in my heart. Was I seriously jealous over an interviewer we were likely never going to see again? I frowned, not wanting to admit to myself that I was jealous of anyone near Louis.
Apparently I’d zoned out a little, because I was called back when I heard Olivia ask what I was thinking so deeply about. I couldn’t tell her the truth because it would totally give away our secret, and I hadn’t even told Louis yet.
“Um, I was just thinking about how Louis here almost killed Zayn with one of the pranks he mentioned,” I smirked at him, knowing this would start a debate.
“Hey! It was an accident! I thought we agreed I didn’t mean to and even Zayn forgave me,” he tried to defend himself to our now the now cracking up Olivia and Cristy.
Olivia was the first to settle down. “How exactly did you manage that?”
“Well, I just wanted to mess with him and I thought I’d push him in the pool and go steal his hair products to hide them under my bed. But there was a slight problem because I didn’t know Zayn can’t swim,” Olivia gasped, “so when I pushed him in and ran in the house the other boys realized he was drowning and pulled him out of the pool, but he was knocked out. I kind of had to use my CPR skills on him. But he’s fine now, so no worries and no grudges held, right Harry?” He pointedly directs to me. I just continue smirking.
“So there you have it, Louis Tomlinson almost drowned band mate Zayn Malik while the group were supposedly relaxing out of public eye!” Cristy giggles. “Moving on, we heard you two have finally come out of the closet together. How does it feel to be able to be romantic and show each other off to the world? How long have you been together?”
And here come the awkward questions that Louis and I thought out answers to a few nights ago. I sigh, “We’ve been together since about the middle of our last tour. It’s always been a great relationship, but it was difficult to hide our feelings. Of course, we haven’t been out much since the announcement because of our group vacation, but I’m really looking forward to having him by my side all the time.”
As I said it, I decided it wasn’t as hard as I thought to lie to the cameras. I wasn’t entirely lying either, because it was nice to have my best friend close at all times and comfort each other when we needed to.
Louis grinned at the girls, squeezing my hand and leaning over to rest his head in the crook of my neck. I shivered when his breath hit my skin, but it was just because his breath was cold. I didn’t shiver because of emotion, just temperature.
“I can’t imagine being without him. We’ve grown so close, not just on the romantic level but also on the friend level. What we have is special and can’t be broken very quickly, and it’s something I never want to lose. Being able to show that to the world after so long is just incredible,” he adds.
He’s so sweet. I understand what the real meaning of what he just said is, and he said it in such a way as to not alert the media to what he was telling me. He wanted me with him like we always were, and he didn’t want our friendship to end either. He understood that our connection ran deep. Even though his words were slightly twisted to sound like we were dating, it was still nice of him to reassure me so completely. Overwhelmed by happiness, I hug him and feel his arms come around me to return the gesture.
“Aww, it’s a Larry Stylinson moment!” I’d forgotten about Olivia and Cristy by then, so my cheeks flushed a little as I let go of my Boo and turned to face them and the cameras again. “Oops, we didn’t mean to interrupt,” they guiltily said.
“It’s fine. Anything else you need to ask?”
“I think we’ve just about covered everything, boys! You’ll be getting more questions tomorrow in your individual interviews, which I assume you already know about.” We nod, and the girls stand and reach across the table to hug us.
“I’m Olivia,” she starts.
“And I’m Cristy,” the other interrupts.
Together they finish off, “And this has been our interview with Louis Tomlinson And Harry Styles of One Direction!” I hear a click, and the light on the camera goes off.
When we get home, Liam is sitting on the couch on his laptop. “Hey Li! Why are you still up, don’t you need some rest?” I greet him.
“I was waiting for you two. I’ll go now; Niall and Zayn went to sleep practically the moment we walked in. Night boys, see you in the morning!” he yawns, stretching his back before heading off.
“I’m tired too, Haz. I think I’m just going to get changed and put my bag in my room and try to sleep. You coming up yet?” Louis asks.
I gaze at the laptop Liam had left open. “Not just yet. I’ll come soon, though.” He nods before following in Liam’s footsteps.
Sitting on the couch, I grab the computer and watch the screen flicker back to life. What had Liam been doing that he’d dropped so suddenly when we walked in? I saw a web browser open, so I clicked it. The banner of the site we’d just interviewed with filled the screen. Scrolling down, I saw the headline “Larry Stylinson on Their Relationship, One Direction’s Vacation, and Zayn Malik’s Near-Death”. It was our interview from today, wow that was fast.
There was an article written about who we were, basically an introduction to people who weren’t our fans. It included our announcement from two weeks ago. Then there was the actual video of our interview and a few picture links. I clicked the links, intrigued, as I hadn’t seen a photographer in the room with us.
The pictures were of Louis and I in the waiting room. Of course the press had been watching; we never get a break from them around here. In the first, my back was hunched and Louis had one hand lifting my chin while the other was against my jaw. The next one was from behind of us standing in the doorway, our hands linked.
Playing the interview, I chuckled. Zayn was going to kill us for talking about it, but even I had to admit it had been funny. As the video played on, I thought about how happy and comfortable Lou and I looked.
We could actually be a couple. If I didn’t know better, I’d say there was no way we weren’t together. We were constantly stealing glances when we thought the other wasn’t looking, our hands were squeezed together, and one of us always blushed when something on the subject of our relationship came up. We looked totally natural embracing each other, and in the first picture we appeared to be gazing at each other lovingly. The media caught more than I thought they would, but it surprised me. We were actually pulling this thing off, and our connection hadn’t been ruined.
I couldn’t decide if it was good or bad that we looked like star-struck lovers.