A/N: Drama at the end! Ohhhhhh there goes Phoebe xP don't forget to vote or comment! Anyone else starting to dislike Phoebe?
-C.M
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"And then Louis was all like, 'let me smell your skin!'"
The girls and I crack up as Niall finishes one of the boys' many tour stories. Louis immediately chucks a slice of bread at him.
"We were in Mexico!" Louis complains. "The water there isn't clean!"
"It's OK, Lou," Zayn says in a comforting tone. "We all know by now that you have a thing for sniffing other people."
Caitlin coughs as she tries to swallow her first bite of sandwich. "Don't make me laugh!" she whines to Zayn. Then she takes another huge bite, stuffing her face.
"So how old are you guys?" Harry asks, looking over at us. "Seventeen, eighteen?"
"Eighteen," we all reply.
He nods. "That's cool. Sometimes our fifteen and sixteen year old fans get really crazy."
"People send us the most perverted tweets," Liam exclaims. I stop myself from telling him that most of those tweets are probably mine.
"So," Niall says, after already finishing his first sandwich. "We told you guys some stories. Now tell us something interesting."
"Enlighten us," Harry adds, sipping his soda.
I look around at the other girls, who are either eating or have no idea what to say. Think of something, I tell myself. Don't make One Direction think you're boring. Say something!
"I caught my brother trying on one of my bras last week," I blurt out.
"PPPFT!" Harry immediately spits out his soda, all over his blanket. The rest of the boys burst into laughter, clapping their hands and slapping Harry on the back.
"Was that really necessary?!" Harry cries out, wiping his mouth but still laughing.
"I enlightened you, didn't I?" I respond, wiping off a drop of soda that landed on my shoe (ew.)
"How old is your brother?" Liam asks, amused.
"Eleven," I shamefully reply. "He said he just wanted to 'see what it's like!' Not that he even put it on right side up, anyway."
Harry snorts on his Coke again. "Jesus, woman, are you trying to kill me?!" he protests.
"Say yes," Zayn urges me. "He stole my Twix bar yesterday."
"Because you called Lou and told her I gave Lux a Rockstar!"
Well aren't I learning a whole lot about One Direction today.
"I'll have vengeance on you, Malik," Harry sneers, taking a cautious bite of his sandwich. I laugh as I watch the way he eats, sticking out his tongue first while closing his eyes. Sexy.
Caitlin and Niall reach for the bag of bread slices at the same time. "You love food, too, huh?" he asks, passing her two slices.
"Yup!" she chirps, piling her sandwich high with turkey, lettuce, tomato, and pickles. Niall whistles at the sight.
"There's no way you'll ever finish that," he tells her, making his sandwich just as big.
"Oh, you underestimate my power," Caitlin scoffs. "In fact, not only will I finish this sandwich, but I'll finish it before you can even open your mouth."
A long chorus of "oooooooh"s rises around our circle as Niall sits there with his mouth open. "You'll need some gauze for that burn," Louis tells him, patting him on the back.
"That sounds like such a challenge," Niall tells Caitlin. She shrugs. "If you even have enough skill to make it one," she replies cooly.
"Ooooooooooooooooh..."
"Oh, it's on," Niall challenges, holding his sandwich in front of him. Caitlin does the same. "Zayn, count us down."
I rush to open my camera app as Zayn starts the contest. "Three... two... one... go!"
Niall and Caitlin shove their sandwiches into their faces, while the rest of us cheer them on. I snap a perfect picture of the two, facing each other, mouths full of turkey and lettuce. "Who's gonna win?" I put as a caption. I finish tweeting it just as Niall swallows his last bite, pumping his fists in the air. The boys applaud him as Caitlin throws the unfinished part of her sandwich down.
"I only had, like, two bites left, though!" Caitlin complains. "I just put too much stuff in it."
"Yeah right," Niall says. Without hesitation, he reaches over and grabs the rest of her sandwich, stuffing it all into his mouth.
"Gross!" Caitlin whines, but she has a huge smile across her face. An awkward silence follows as Niall attempts to swallow the huge bite.
"Is there any dessert?" I ask, peeking into the basket.
"My cookies," Harry replies proudly, giving me the bag. "I made them myself. They're special."
"Im sure they are," I say, laughing. Louis and I both reach for one, but they feel as hard as rocks. I take a bite anyway. It tastes like a mixture of raw oatmeal and cardboard.
Harry's watching my reaction the whole time. "Sooo?" he asks me. "Are they delicious or what?"
Louis and I slowly look at each other, with the same look of disgust on our faces. We immediately grab the nearest napkins.
"BLECH!" I spit the cookie into my napkin, hearing Louis do the same. I look up to see Harry staring at us, with an appalled look.
"That was rude!" he protests, but I can see that he's hiding a smile. "Louis and I worked hard making those."
"Oh, now you give me credit," Louis says, in between scrubbing his tongue with his napkin.
"Nina," I hear next to me. I look over Lauren to see Phoebe, holding out her phone. "Is this you?" she asks, a look of annoyance on her face. I squint to look at the screen. It's Harry's Instagram picture. The first thing I see is the likes: 72,538. Then I see the comments.
"who is she? tell us. now."
"that girl's pretty, but who the hell is she?!?"
"lol Hazza ur such a player seriously you've been back in London for wat, 2 days?"
"ugh Harry im so much prettier than her follow meeeeeeeee!!! :)"
"OMG AKDJSKD YOU'RE ON THE EYE AREN'T YOU AJHFSJKFJ I'M COMING FOR YOU"
I swallow deeply as I try to remember Phoebe's question. "Yeah," I say. "Well, it's half of me." Phoebe pulls back her phone, looking jealous and angry at the same time. I'm not worried about her, though. I'm worried about what will happen if people find out it's me in the picture. You'd think it wasn't a big deal, but by the looks of it, people aren't exactly thrilled to see a strange girl in Harry's gallery.
"Nina!" Caitlin says next to me, snapping me back to reality. "Niall and I want to see the picture you took of us. I could hear the shutter click."
"Just check my Twitter," I reply casually.
Caitlin stares at me with wide eyes. "You... tweeted it..." she says slowly.
"Yeah..." I say back. "It's not unattractive, it's actually kinda cute! Plus," I lean in close to whisper to her, "Niall's in it!"
But she doesn't hear me. She's too busy digging through her purse for her phone. She pulls it out, opening up Twitter, and types my username into her search box. My profile pops up and she scrolls to my latest tweet, opening up the photo.
"Eww!" she cried out, leaning in to see the picture. "I look weird in it!" She still favorites and retweets it, though. She hands the phone to Niall. "Is that gross or what?"
Niall takes the phone and studies it. "It's not that bad," he says, handing it back. "I've seen far worse pictures of me out there, trust me."
"It's fine," I assure her. "Besides, it only has," I tilt the screen towards me, "482 retweets."
"What does?" Harry asks from across the blankets, hearing our conversation.
"A picture I tweeted of Caitlin and Niall eating," I tell him.
"Ooh, I wanna see!" he says. Caitlin starts to hand the phone over, but he's already taking out his own phone. "What's your username?" he asks me.
"Nina, underscore, boobear," I tell him, catching Louis' attention.
"Boobear." Louis says flatly. "Really."
"What?" I say innocently, knowing what the deal is though.
"That's my nickname," he replies in a faux angry tone. "Get your own!"
Harry sits and thinks for a little. "What should your new nickname be..." he wonders aloud.
"I call her Neeners," Caitlin offers. I nudge her in her rib cage.
Harry laughs. "Neeners it is!" He starts typing rapidly on his little keyboard.
"Harry..." I start in a warning tone. "Whatcha doing..."
"Nothing," he replies, stuffing his phone back into his pocket. He sits there with his arms crossed and a cheeky smile. I quickly refresh my timeline and see at the top, a new tweet from @Harry_Styles.
"@nina_boobear And I now officially pronounce her as Neeners! How embarrassing."
"Oh, you're gonna get it," I tell Harry, not even thinking twice about the fact that he just mentioned me for the second type. Now all 4.8 million of his followers know my humiliating nickname. I pull my arm back to chuck a rock-hard cookie at him when I hear laughter coming from Zayn and Liam.
"That's hilarious, Neeners," they say, obviously reading Harry's latest tweet. "This is you, right Nina?"
I shoot Harry eye daggers. "Unfortunately, yes," I tell them.
I watch as they tap on my username, scrolling through my tweets. They come to the one from yesterday and open up the picture.
"HAHAHA!" they crack up, looking at the picture of Caitlin sprawled out on the bed, asleep with the remote in her hand. "Oh, this is gold," Liam says.
"What is?" Caitlin asks, motioning for them to pass her the phone.
"Nothing!" I protest, but it's too late. She's already looking at the picture, eyes wide and jaw dropped.
"Now, Caitlin," I say cautiously, "it may look weird at first, but I promise that..." I trail off as she looks into my eyes, a mischievous look on her face.
"Aargh!" She suddenly reaches out to pin my shoulders down to the ground. I cry out and struggle under her strong arms. I must be weak if a 100-pound girl is keeping me pinned to the floor.
"Chick fight!" Niall announces, as the rest of the boys watch, cracking up. I roll Caitlin to the side and start swatting her hands, and soon we're just lying there, clawing each other playfully and laughing. We only stop when we hear Phoebe's perky voice next to us.
"Do I get a nickname, Harry?" she asks, flashing a bright smile at him.
"You already have one!" Lauren tells her. "Feebs, remember?" Phoebe turns from Harry and glares at Lauren, with a mean look in her eye. I instantly feel sorry for Lauren.
I reach over to hand Liam back his phone, which is still lying by Caitlin and I. I see my profile open in Twitter, and catch a glimpse of my profile picture before Liam takes the phone back. It's of me on a boardwalk in Hawaii, turned around, facing the beach. I always though it was artsy, but now it's just old.
"I need a new profile picture," I complain out loud.
"Take one now," Caitlin suggests. "Your hair and outfit's cute." I take my own phone and try to open the camera app, but my thumb slips and I open CamWow instead. But then I get an idea.
"Everyone squeeze in!" I say, holding out the phone in front of me, with the camera facing us. I choose the fisheye lens and, when the other eight all manage to fit their heads in, I take the picture. I crack up at how it turns out.
"Let me see!" several of them say. I roll over to lay down on my stomach, facing everyone, and I hold out the phone. The boys, Lauren, Phoebe, and Caitlin lean in to see the hilarious picture. I'm in the bottom center, so my forehead is swelled up, and in the top right all five boys are there, still recognizable but with their faces weirdly stretched. On the other side is the three girls, who mirror the boys' mutilations.
"Wait, gimme that," Harry says, taking my phone. Everyone else has lost interest and is going back to talking, but he keeps scrolling through the effects.
"This one's awesome!" he says, coming to the twisty one. He opens it and motions me over. "Now this should be your next profile picture," he tells me as I scooch over to sit next to him. We both lean in to fit ino the frame, and my heart rate builds up as my face gets only an inch away from his. We both stare into the camera, which twists our faces into totally unattractive lumps. Harry taps the camera button and we look at the picture.
"Oh god, don't put that up," he says, laughing at his messed up nose and eyes.
"Oh, really?" I say, turning to face him. "You don't think Neeners should make that her profile picture?"
I close out of CamWow two minutes later, but not after taking two more pictures; one is of us in heat map colors, crossing our eyes, and the other is in sepia tone, where I'm sticking my tongue out and Harry's staring at me, with a questionable look, like I'm a freak.
"I think this one's a winner," I say, making the heat map photo my profile picture. "Too attractive for words."
"Way too hot to handle," Harry agrees, and I blush, finally noticing how close I'm sitting to him. I stand up and shake my legs out, also noticing that my butt has totally fallen asleep.
"Good idea," Zayn says, also getting up. "Does anyone else feel like walking around for a little?" Everyone else agrees and stands up, and after checking in with Paul and the others, we start taking a short stroll around the edge of the park, accompanied by three bodyguards. I watch as Phoebe bounds in front of me, straight to Harry.
"Hey, let's get a picture!" she says, holding out her phone and leaning into him. They both smile into the camera and she immediately goes to work with the picture, walking off without even a "thanks." I roll my eyes. She's probably making it her profile picture for every social networking website known to this earth.
I walk over to Caitlin, who appears to be talking again to Niall, this time about Tumblr.
"So there's new pictures of us from, like, ten minutes before?" he asks her, sounding genuinely interested.
"Yup," she replies. "Like if any of you guys post a new picture on Twitter, it's put onto Tumblr by someone in the next minute, and within half an hour it has like twenty thousand reblogs."
"That's crazy," he says, shaking his head. "What else don't we know about fans?"
"Yeah, tell us something we don't know!" Liam calls out from behind us.
"Well," I start, "there's tons of videos out there that fans make, you know, about the bromances and stuff."
"Nothing new," Louis says, shaking his head.
"But," I say, giggling, "the best ones are the videos like 'One Direction Candyshop.'"
Harry stops in his tracks in front of me. "That sounds... interesting..." he says, turning to face us.
"It is, believe me!" I exclaim, and by now I have all the boys' attention. "I could probably pull it up now, if you guys want-"
"Yes! Do it!" they urge me. I laugh, not knowing what I just got myself into. I stop walking to fish out my phone again. I pull up YouTube and search the video.
"Here it is," I say, holding up the small screen as the boys watch from over my shoulder. The music starts, and everyone cracks up as the video begins. I stand there awkwardly, watching Louis' thrusting, Liam's pole dance, and Harry being smacked in the balls.
"This is amazing," Niall says, bursting into laughter as Harry licks his lips on the screen.
"I don't even remember doing most of that!" Louis exclaims, since of course he was one of the main highlights of the video.
"So seductive," Harry whispers, and we all crack up again.
"You guys are missing out!" Caitlin says as we all resume walking. "If only you saw half of the videos fans make."
"I'm pretty sure that's all we're gonna be watching tonight," Zayn replies.
I laugh again, and feel a tap on my elbow. I turn to see Phoebe walking next to me, smiling sweetly. It seems fake.
"Hey, hun," she says. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"
"Um, sure," I say, and she leads me away from the group to about twenty feet away.
"What's up?" I ask. "Wasn't that Candyshop video just pure gold? I swear, when they were watching it they-"
"Save it, Nina," Phoebe snaps. I step back, surprised. "Just save it. Save all this BS and just get out of my way."
My voice is shaking. "What?" I ask, scared.
"You know what I mean!" Phoebe shouts in a hushed tone. "Stop kissing up to Harry because everyone knows he doesn't like you. He's obviously tired of you. He likes me. So just stay OUT of my way, and more importantly? Stay AWAY from Harry."
Then she walks off quickly, as if nothing happened. I'm left standing there, shocked, still recovering, as she returns to the group, flipping back her hair.
I don't want to believe it. Harry didn't seem tired of me a few minutes ago during our mini photoshoot. But what if Phoebe's right? I decide to just ignore her. I know what I want, anyway. Not to get in her way, that's for sure. But I'm not about to lose my possible friendship with Harry just to please her. She just proved herself evil, after all. I should have seen it coming, I tell myself. I should have known.