The Pirate Dance in which we come back to London, see a show, and get a chance from Sienna.
DADDY
It's been about three months since we left London, and we're back. We've almost finished our tour, but our next batch of tour dates aren't for another few days, so we're back in our shared flat in London. Sometimes the lads and I prefer to stay in the shared flat, rather than go to our individual homes, because we know we would've ended up all staying at one house anyway, and it's pretty pointless.
The first thing Niall does when he walks in, right after me, is open Harry's bedroom door and put his suitcase inside. This makes some sense because his bed is in there. AJ's blow up mattress, complete with the girly sheets and a pillow from each of our beds, is still set up in his room, and I don't think any of us have the heart to move it just yet. Harry's not complaining, and Niall isn't either.
"GUYS!" Louis screams. "LADS!!"
"Are we on the telly again?" Niall asks excitedly. He get excited every time it happens, for some reason. I've somehow gotten used to the television appearances... not so much the concerts or awards or famous people or the support from fans.
"NO! WAY BETTER!" Louis screams. "SHANNON INVITED US OVER."
"Shannon?" Zayn asks, following the sound of his voice to the kitchen.
"Yes! We've been texting for a week or so now! I told her we're back in London and she invited us over to Sienna's flat! Says she's babysitting AJ this afternoon and they miss us and want us to say hi!"
"Really?!" Harry asks, bouncing up and down a little. He's drinking a glass of orange juice, but when he takes the first sip, he makes a funny face and spits it back out. "Orange juice has spoiled," he announces. Well, what does he expect? It's been months, and we forgot to ask Marcy to stock us back up with food. We'll have to go grocery shopping.
"Well, we can go. We have to go grocery shopping anyway, and the only things we have to do today are a few call-in interviews, and we can do those from Sienna's flat," I say.
"YAY!" Zayn cheers.
"EVERYONE PUT YOUR DAMNED SHOES ON! MOVE IT MOTHERFUCKERS!" Louis cheers. I can tell he's trying to get out his foul language before he's with AJ. "Wait," he says, pausing. He's looking at his phone. "Liam, why is Emma texting me?"
My head snaps up at the sound of her name. Emma... my girlfriend Emma! How could I have forgotten! Only the boys know about her. It's for her own good. I don't want her life to disrupted just because we're together.
"Did you forget to call?" Zayn asks, shaking his head at me. I whip out my mobile and dial her up. "I'll take that as a 'yes!'"
"I should call," I say, patting on my pockets for my phone. "Where'd my phone get off too?"
"Here," Harry says, holding up my phone. I start to reach for it, but he's grinning, tapping away at the screen. "Your password is so predictable," he chuckles.
"Very funny," I say, rolling my eyes. "Excuse me, but I'd like to phone my girlfriend."
"Phone on her on the way!" Zayn says, snatching the phone from Harry's hands and grabbing my by my collar so I'd follow him to get our shoes back on. I sigh. Emma's going to be cross with me... and the lads, for not reminding me.
The entire ride to Sienna's flat, Louis pokes my face repeatedly with the edge of his phone. While I'm chatting to Emma, while I'm giving Niall a back massage, while I'm arm wrestling Zayn, he's poking my face. It's ridiculous. I can tell something's bothering him, because he doesn't seem to be amused every time, like he typically would. I know for sure that something's up when Man Down by Rihanna comes on the radio and he doesn't shout for Tom to turn it up.
"Excuse me," I say, waving my hand in front of his face. "Have you forgotten that this is your all-time favourite car ride song, and that it's pretty much illegal for you to not mumble along and dance like a whore in your seat?"
"Could you just... let this one go?" Louis asks. He's chewing on the dead skin on the side of his thumb. Everyone will hear it when he chews it raw and makes it bleed. I reach over and swat his hand away from his mouth. "Oi! Liam!"
"You're going to make it bleed," I say, crossing my arms.
Niall and Harry are rubbing their bodies, wiggling, and screaming made-up lyrics along with Rihanna, but all Louis is doing is staring at me with this thoroughly unamused expression. I laugh a little, because he's being ridiculous.
"Just five minutes ago, you were exctied to see AJ, and now you're being a pouty little bugger," Zayn says, pausing in his own sexy dancing to address the problem. "What's on your mind, Tommo?"
"Nothing. We're almost there. Let's just," Louis sighs. "I'll tell you later."
"You'd better," I say, narrowing my eyes at him. "Put on that famous Tommo smile right now before I have to come over there and tickle you."
"That won't be necessary," Louis says, holding up his arms, ready to defend his ribs from the jabs from my fingers. "I'll smile. See?" He plasters on a huge fake grin that slowly shrinks into a real smile, and I'm satisfied, so I hold up my hands in surrender. He nods when he sees that I'm content and turns back to face forward. He bobs his head a bit to the music, but it isn't the same as his hip thrusts and mumbling.
"Oh! I recognize this street!" Niall says, leaning out of the semi-cracked window. Since we left, the end of winter has come and passed, leaving us with the mild late-spring weather, always heavy with rain and thick on your skin.
"Yeah, this is right near the shop! The one we found her in," Zayn says. The car begins to slow down, and Tom starts checking addresses, so my stomach, as an instinct, starts to tie up in knots.
Sienna's flat is bigger than expected, with big windows all around and dark wood floors and a fuzzy white carpet in the center of the floor. All around, there are doors, but in this room, there is only a television and a couch, a big white leather one.
"Everything is so posh," Niall mutters, pulling off his shoes and setting them by the door.
"Anyone home?" Zayn calls out, shrugging off his jumper. Instantly, I hear a pair of small feet running full speed through the flat. A door to our left swings open and out comes AJ, her hair up in a high ponytail. She dawns a pair of trackies and a Ramones t-shirt, a pair of mismatched socks on her feet.
"Zayn!" AJ screams. She runs across the room and leaps into his arms. She latches her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck in a death grip, like she never wants to let go again.
"AJ!" Zayn screams back. He's laughing, and so is she, until she spots Niall over Zayn's shoulder and pecks his cheek quickly before squirming out of his arms and onto the floor.
"Niall!" AJ says cheerfully. She wraps her arms around his legs and sits down his feet, her eyes shut tight as she holds on. It's like she doesn't want him to leave again.
"Hey," Niall says, reaching down to pat her head as if she were made of glass. He always said he was scared of breaking her.
"Liam!" AJ says, turning her attention to me. "Why did you leave, Mister?" AJ says. She stands up from Niall's feet, stomps over to me, and crosses her arms.
"We had to," I say. "But we're back now, aren't we?" I kneel down and open my arms for her. She nods and races forward, burying herself in my shirt. "Why don't you go hug Harry?" I whisper. I know Harry's scared she doesn't like him. AJ pulls back and nods quickly, smiling.
"HARRY!"
"AJ!" AJ tumbles into his arms and whispers something to him. Harry nods, and she places a kiss on his nose before letting go. She turns around in a circle, her eyebrows knitted in confusion. "What's up?" Harry wonders.
"Where's..?"
Then, on cue as always, Louis pops up from behind Zayn and waves his arms around excitedly. AJ laughs and runs over to him. "Hey, Little Lady!"
"Louis!" AJ giggles, letting him scoop her up, bridal style. Louis swings her around in a circle, kisses the top of her head, and then sets her down. "Do you wanna see my new room?" AJ asks, her eyes wide with excitement.
"Sure," Zayn says. She grabs his hand and drags him off, waving us all along. "Where's Shannon?"
"Having a shower," AJ says. She opens the door she came out of earlier and ushers us all inside. "Mommy bought this brand new flat with some money she said was a gift. It's right near where our old flat was, in the building across the street.
AJ's new room is spectacular. Light blue walls covered in newspaper and magazine clippings, pictures of cities far away, and adverts from magazines. There's a big bed with brown and green bedding, covered with stuffed animals and pillows. The most impressive part, however, is the closet. The door is propped open, and inside are the thousands of pounds of clothes we bought her. In the past three months, we've been having them deliver clothes from all around the world to her, and they've all piled up here, in her colour-coded walk-in closet.
"May I take a nap?" Louis wonders. When AJ nods, giving him permission, he takes a running start and leaps onto the bed. Instantly, he pretends to snore, a small smile on his face.
"Hey, this hat is from Belize," Zayn recalls, picking up a hat that's drifted to the otherwise clean floor. He places it on the toy chest in the corner, for lack of a better place to put it.
"Belize? Where's that?" AJ asks. Harry opens his mouth to answer, but then spots something on her wall across the room and walks over to it.
"Here," he says, pointing to a spot on a map. AJ walks over and smiles, letting her fingers glide across the papers. It must've taken forever to find enough clippings to cover this much space.
"AJ? Where've you gone off to?" Shannon calls from outside.
"The boys are here!" AJ calls back.
"I can see that," Shannon says, poking her head into the room. "Hello. Anything to eat? Drink?"
"Both?" Niall asks sheepishly.
"I'll make some pasta," Shannon says, sending him a small wink. "Sound okay, babe?" Shannon asks, turning to AJ. AJ nods in reply, so Shannon ducks back out of the room, but leaves the door open behind her.
"She's fit," Zayn announces, plopping down on the foot of AJ's bed.
"Agreed," Niall says, picking up the book about monsters from the bedside table. "Do you read this a whole bunch?"
"Yeah! I can even read all the words by myself now!" AJ says proudly.
"Mind reading it to us?" I ask. AJ nods and takes the book from Niall's hands. She climbs onto her bed and sits with her back against Lou's stomach. He laughs and wraps his legs around her, which makes her jump a bit, but then she cuddles in deeper. Niall and I sit down next to Zayn and turn to face her. Harry's sits down next to Lou's head and grabs a stuffed monkey to wave in his face. Louis swats at it and grumbles about how bothersome Harry is.
"Once long ago, or maybe just a day," AJ says, reading from the book. "Eight tiny monsters snoozed the night away." She turns the page. "The first little monster-"
"AJ!" Shannon calls out, interrupting the story. "Your mum's car is outside."
"What?" Niall whispers. "Thought she was at work all day."
"We can't be here! She doesn't like us!" Harry says in panic.
"We have to hide or something," Zayn says.
"Closet," Louis announces, rolling backwards off the bed. We all follow him, as he is the leader, and shove ourselves into the closet. "AJ, come back for us when the coast is clear," Louis says. He then shuts the door, and we all sit, crammed into a closet in the dark.
"I'll follow you into the dark," Harry sings quietly.
"Shush with the quirky music," Louis snaps, covering his mouth. Harry shrugs sheepishly, like he's apologizing for almost blowing our hiding place from one of the scariest ladies I've ever met.
"Sorry," Harry mumbles through Lou's hand. Lou rolls his eyes and removes his hand in reply, scooting back a bit so that his face is covered from my view by the dress my mum insisted on sending from America.
"Mummy, don't!" AJ begs, her footsteps re-entering the room.
"Why not? I want to take you out for lunch. You need some actual trousers, not trackies," Sienna says. It's funny, she sounds decidedly less scary when she's speaking to AJ. That's to be expected, sure, but I wasn't expecting the difference to be so significant.
"I can pick out my own trousers," AJ insists.
"What's this? Where'd you get this?" Sienna demands. I pat my pockets and my eyes widen when I realize that I must've dropped my phone in my haste. "Shannon doesn't have this sort of mobile. Don't tell me those teenage idiots sent you a mobile! What's a seven-year-old going to do with a mobile?"
Sienna, while grumbling about what idiots we are, briskly walks in our direction and flings the closet door open. This causes Niall to tumble out backward, due to his position leaning against the door. Sienna jumps back in shock, and opens her mouth to scream, until she flicks on the light and sees that it's only us.
"Hello!" Zayn says cheerfully, jumping to his feet. He grabs a pair of khakis from a hanger to his left. "I like these. Where are we headed for lunch?"
"We? We aren't going anywhere," Sienna says, snatching the trousers from his hands. The rest of us stand up as well, ready to be thrown out.
"Well why not? It's on us," Louis insists. "Oh, and I like this," he adds, grabbing a gray sweater and tossing it to AJ. AJ nods and slips it on over her t-shirt.
"You'll pay?" Sienna asks, raising an eyebrow. Gently, I take my phone from her hands and put it into my pocket.
"Yeah," Niall says. "A gentleman always pays on the first date." With that, he grins and glides past her and out of the room.
"Well, let's let AJ change," I suggest, following Niall as he swaggers over to put his shoes on.
"Can we go to that place where they do a play while you eat?" Harry asks, poking out his bottom lip like a little kid. "Pretty please?"
"It's ladies' choice, Haz," Louis says, slinging an arm over Harry's shoulder. "But I do love that place. They're doing a pirate thing this month."
"Pirates?" AJ asks. "Oh, mummy can we please go? Please?"
When we arrived at the dinner theatre, Harry, Zayn, AJ, and Louis were all pretending to be swashbuckling pirates. Zayn had AJ on his shoulders, and they were sword fighting Harry and Louis with imaginary swords.
"Why do you do it?" Sienna asks me. She's standing next to me, a comfortable distance away.
"Do what?" I ask.
"Insist on making everything so damn difficult," Sienna says. I open my mouth to answer, but then close it. What could I possibly say to her to make her like me? How could I change her mind about us? She wasn't that much older than us. There was no way she was even 30 yet. Surely she could relate to us somehow.
"We're teenage boys," I joke. "It's what we do."
"Don't I know it," Sienna mutters. "Tell that to sixteen-year-old Sienna. She would've laughed in your face. She was so sure she was in love... all she needed was a teenage boy with, I don't know, shaggy hair and big arms."
"What does present-day Sienna think about teenage boys?" I wonder.
"They're all the same," she tells me. "Self-involved. Obsessed with image.The only reason you even bother with AJ is that she's a good publicity story. You don't give a shit what happens after you've milked all the headlines."
"Hey," I say, pausing outside the door. "That's not true. We care about her! If you let us, we'd stick around forever. If you haven't noticed, there isn't a single picture of her face. We've been keeping her safe and giving her clothes. We want to keep her life stable, something that you haven't been able to do."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're providing for her with stolen things! It means that you're a criminal! You're a great mother, and I can tell because AJ is an amazing little girl. But you can't provide her with the stability that we can. I don't care if you want our help. We're going to give it to you. We care about you, AJ, Shannon, even your drunk mum. We want to help."
"You can help by staying out of our business," Sienna snaps.
"Just give us a chance! Let us prove that we truly do care!"
"One chance," Sienna agrees. With that, I pull the door open for her, and we follow the others inside.
"Hurry it up, Payne! The next show is about to start, and our table is right near the front!" Harry cheers. He's holding AJ's hand as they weave through the crowd and through the doorway. I jog to catch up. Our security hang back, because it'll be dark in there, and we probably won't have any trouble.
"Nice of you to join us," Louis says. He, Zayn, Shannon, and Niall are already seated at our table. I sit down next to Harry and AJ, and Sienna sits down next to Louis. He gives her a warm, genuine Tommo smile, which she returns. I elbow Harry and point at the two of them, who are now having a hushed conversation. It's not a fight, which is a shocker, because they both have such different, strong personalities. I mean, I didn't even get along with her, really. It's a wonder they haven't started a screaming match.
"What in the world..." Harry's eyebrows are knitted in confusion. I open my mouth to reply, but his eyes go wide as a cannon fires to our left. Everyone else jumps, but all Harry does is giggle and clap. "Shush, Li, it's starting!"
The show is great; funny, action-packed, and the entire room is the stage. There's a large ship in the center of the darkened room. The pirates walk around the room, interacting with the patrons, although they've all thankfully steered clear of our table. We don't want to draw attention to ourselves.
In their seats, Shannon and Zayn are singing and dancing along to all the sea-chanteys and love ballads- yes, its a musical- and Louis is sword fighting with me across the table, using breadsticks. It's going great, and AJ's laughing along, holding her breath when a stunt is performed, and gasping when the bad guys take the princess captive.
Much to AJ's delight, the princess has long ginger hair, just like her. She's sassy and smart and brave, so I'm sure to tell her that this princess just happens to be Princess AJ from the future. She totally goes for it, and she's sucked in from that moment on. She barely peels her eyes away from the action for even dessert.
We ordered one of everything on the menu, thanks to AJ and Niall's curiousity. The food was good, but dessert was the best part. There was this completely delicious-looking piece of chocolate cake, which I shared with Harry. By the time the plate was licked clean, Harry had chocolate all around his mouth, like a child, but I assured him his face was clean.
When the lights went up and the show was over, Louis tossed some cash onto the table, enough for the bill and tip, and we booked it out of there. Sienna and AJ were in the lead, shuffling their way through the crowd a few feet ahead of Harry and I. I didn't have the heart to let him walk outside with chocolate all over his face, so I helping him clean himself, when Louis invited Sienna, Shannon, and AJ back to ours for tea and movie.
Shannon said that she had to get back to Scarlett, but AJ cheered and agreed to come. As she was begging Sienna to come, Sienna and Lou launched into an argument about AJ attending the tea and movie session.
"Oh come on! You two can spend the night, leave in the morning! It'll be fun," Louis says. "You said you'd give us a chance!"
"Yeah, well I meant I'd give you a chance on my own terms," Sienna says back. Zayn walks closer, probably to pick AJ up and leave, but as the crowd starts to thin, I see that she is nowhere to be seen.
"AJ?" I call out. She was next to Sienna a moment ago.
"Little Lady?" Louis wonders, pausing in his argument to pay attention to his surroundings.
"Well, shit," Niall says. "We lost her."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi. Guys, I know this took FOREVER, but I hope it's worth it. Cliffhanger, I know... but there will be at least one more update this week, so don't get scared!
ALSO HEY PEOPLE STOP TELLING ME WHAT MY STORY IS ABOUT IT'S REALLY ANNOYING! Like, you basically are assuming AJ's going to be adopted by the boys. I'm not saying she won't be, but give me some credit! I'm a MUCH more creative author than THAT! There are trillions of other possibilities as far as the story, guys, so stop putting TLS into your "adopted by 1D" reading lists or whatever and come up with some more creative possibilities! Most creative guess gets a dedication! (I'm being funny guys. Don't take me seriously. Although, I'm serious about that last bit! Come up with some more creative guesses! Dedication!)