we're just friends //larry stylinson

eight

TRIGGER WARNING: mention of self harm (not in this chapter but within the book. I realised that I forgot to mention it in the beginning.)

t u e s d a y

The boys sat at the table, having breakfast when their landline rang. Niall was closest so he took it and answered.

"Good morning, Simon", he said and looked at the boys with an unreadable expression. "Yes, we'll be on our way soon. Okay. Of course, yeah. See you this afternoon", he put the phone down and took a bite of his sandwich.

"Simon just asked us to come in half an hour earlier", Niall shrugged and reached out for Liams cup, taking a sip.

The meetings weren't too bad. They talked to their merch team, their tour manager and a few other people.

Around half an hour before their meeting with management they got going, knowing how much they hated it when they were late.

They sat down at a long table in a colourless room with a few big windows. After a few moments a few people, who were wearing suits, walked in and sat down at the table as well. The room felt like its temperature dropped few degrees.

"Good afternoon. I hope you had nice holidays", a rather old looking man said, not even bothering to smile. "It was nice, thank you", Liam answered, holding his glass tighter.

Louis wondered if they had done something wrong. They weren't ever very kind or nice to be around, but it was different today. They even asked them to come in half an hour earlier.

After a few minutes Simon walked in and sat down at the head of the table.

"We have quite a few things to talk about today", Simon started and did not look like he was in a good mood. Louis nervously moved around in his chair and noticed his friends were doing the same thing.

"Firstly, I want to talk about your coming album. Do you have any ideas for the name?" "We were thinking about maybe naming it 'take me home'", Louis spoke after a few moments of silence.

"Take me home", Simon said after a while and looked at the other people in the room. "We'll think about it but it's- fine."

"How far along are you with writing?" "All of us have a few good ideas but I think that-" Liam got interrupted by Simon "very well. I believe you saw that I gave you four full days next week to write. Hope you'll have more then."

About an hour passed and they had spoken about all sorts of things.

"I wanted to ask you about this thing the fans call 'larry stylinson'. What the hell is that supposed to be?" Simon asked, sounding rather unamused. Louis swallowed and looked at Harry.

"It's been all over twitter and I even noticed a few people ask about it yesterday. So, I'm not going to ask again for you to explain it to us."

"It's- a few fans have the theory that Louis and I are in a relationship when in reality we're just friends", Harry said quietly, not daring to look up.

"In a relationship?" a man asked and raised an eyebrow. "Yes, they think that we're dating."

The people in the room started to turn to each other and talk. Louis was able to make out words like gay, disgusting and girlfriends.

After a while Simon cleared his throat and everyone looked at him. "But there is no truth to it? It's just crazy fans making a thing out of nothing?" Simon asked looking... angry?

"No, we're friends", "No truth to it", Harry and Louis answered looking down at their tables.

"Good because no one would like to know that two boys from their favorite band are fags", Simon said, and Louis and Harry looked back up within seconds and stared at him. The other people in the room just simply started getting up and walking out of the room.