Note to self: do not drink heavily the night before you need to wake up early to go work out.
On tour I found that I typically liked working out at night. I was usually the one who hung out for a bit and then went to the gym to do boxing, light weight or run the treadmill until midnight and it sort of kicked in my adrenaline right before Zayn snuck in and he had this thing about liking me sweaty, but because I had made other plans instead, I found myself up way too early for yoga and cardio, hungover and on four hours of sleep.
"How you feeling Harry? You good?" Paul, my tour manager, asked me with a knowing look as I ran on the treadmill looking and feeling like absolute death.
"I feel great. Never been better," I lied through my teeth and kept running even though it felt like my legs were going to give out at any second.
After about forty minutes I ended up collapsing on the floor, sweaty and shirtless, breathing heavily with my arms by my side like deadweight. I really needed to chill out for a few days. I didn't even see him coming but it was Liam who ran towards me then and proceeded to jump over my lifeless body.
"You make a pretty good hurdle laying there like that, mate," he said, looking down at me.
"I wish I was a speed bump so someone could just run over me," I replied in a monotone voice.
"So I take it you had a good night last night then?" Liam asked, chuckling, looking rather amused.
"It wasn't too bad," I said while reluctantly sitting up.
Once I finally peeled myself off the floor I ventured to the lounge area. I spied a banana on the table and grabbed it because I was absolutely famished and then flopped down into an arm chair, slowly peeling the banana from the other end like I always did. I looked up briefly and saw a camera in my face, which only reminded me that I was never going to get any peace on this tour because everything was getting filmed. Well, not everything. I made a stupid face and continued shoving the banana into my mouth like a gorilla.
A couple of minutes later Zayn had walked in, sweat glistening on his forehead, and it looked like he had just finished a round of boxing. Why did he have to look so fit, I wondered to myself, but said nothing and decided to ignore him, finishing up my banana and looking around for something else to eat as I sat there, tired. He came up behind me then and squeezed my shoulders, so I glanced up at him briefly.
"Vas happenin?"
Zayn hardly ever said that phrase anymore, not since the beginning days when that ended up becoming his catchphrase, yet I couldn't help but feel a smile creep onto my face whenever he did still say it. He was such a dork.
"Trying to gain back my life force. How was your night?"
"It was chill. Didn't do much. I heard you went out though."
And by saying "chill, didn't do much" he probably meant that he fucked Perrie all night long and maybe I wasn't hungry anymore after thinking about it.
"I did go out and I'm sure that everyone will hear about it within the next thirty six hours," I replied, lifting myself out of the chair and walking away to go bother Lou and Tom.
Turns out it was more like six hours later that everyone learned about my steamy little night in Newcastle. All kinds of gossip on the internet surfaced about how I had quite an intimate time with a girl in a Newcastle nightclub, how I was dancing on all the locals and acting like a total drunk. Apparently I was so pissed drunk that I had to literally be carried out by the bouncers but that's not what happened, however, it was pretty amazing the way that people could exaggerate stories like this. To be honest, I wish I had had that good of a time.
We were back on the tour bus on our way to Scotland and that's when Zayn cornered me in the bathroom. I was having a wee and when I had gone to exit, Zayn slid inside and shut the door behind us quietly.
"Tell me, how did she touch you?" he asked in this slightly aggressive tone, like he was angry or something.
What? He couldn't be serious. A month ago Zayn had been the one who said he didn't care what I got up to, so what was he going on about now? I was pretty taken aback that he even had the audacity to question me about my night when his girlfriend seemed to be practically on tour with us. But because I wasn't looking for an argument, I decided to have some fun with it.
I leaned my hand out towards his crotch and grabbed it, looking him dead in the eyes.
"Maybe like this," I lied.
He shoved my hand away and then I folded my arms across my chest, looking straight at him as if I wasn't joking.
"So that's how we're playing this game then? Cool," said Zayn, taking a step away from me.
"Is there some rule book I'm supposed to be following? You have Perrie last time I checked. What do you expect me to do? Just lay in bed alone every night and wank it while you fuck her in the next room? That's boring."
I didn't even bother telling Zayn that my night with Chastity had been rather empty and meaningless, because frankly it was none of his business and I was feeling too petty to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. But soon after I told him that I wasn't planning on spending all my nights alone I noticed that his face softened and he took a step closer to me.
"I just miss your touch," Zayn said quietly while staring into my green eyes.
I didn't expect Zayn to get so soft on me and I felt myself grow a little weak. Ugh, stop looking at me, stop looking at me, stop looking at me, stop! My thoughts started to run wild again and I was pretty certain that Zayn's eyes were surely going to be the death of me, so I leaned in and pressed my lips against his because I couldn't help myself; I wanted him right then and there. Fuck tour buses. And of course there came the knocking on the bathroom door accompanied by Louis' voice just at the perfect moment.
"You lads alright in there? Does Harry need someone to hold his hand while taking a shit or what?"
We broke away from the kiss and stifled our laughter. This is what our life had become.