Best Night Ever

chapter eleven

Louis POV

I was sat at a long table with the lads and some Chinese takeout while we planned out the technicalities of the tour. Or more accurately, while we listened to our management tell us what they already had planned. The one thing we really had imput on was the setlist, which took longer than necessary to finalize.

We eventually decided upon three songs from our first album, five songs from our second, and all songs from our newest. And by we, I mean the lads. I didn't decide anything, I just nodded and kept my mouth shut aside from the occasional, "mhm"s, "yeahs", and "sounds great"s.

I distractedly pinched my noodles with chopsticks, wiggling them around like little brown worms. I stifled a chuckle at the thought.

"So what's the deal with rehearsing?" I heard Liam ask our manager Paul.

"You guys'll start within the next day or two in the studio downstairs." His gruff, authoritative voice bellowed.

I nodded with the rest of the lads, staring mindlessly into my box of noodle worms. For the first time ever, I wasn't interested in being here. I just wanted to be back hanging out with Liz.

"And when do we fly out to Columbia again?" Niall asked.

Our first shows were going to be in South America and we were kicking off that leg of the tour in Bogotá.

"April 23rd, so you can rehearse in the stadium the day before your performance." Some random lady from the management team informed us. I couldn't remember her name, nor did I recognize her from any prior encounters. It was difficult to keep track of everyone we worked with personally, as we had so many people on the team.

We all nodded in consensual agreement while Paul stood up with the people from our management company and stepped out of the room, leaving the five of us alone.

I suppose we should have been concerned that they were discussing further tour details without us, but we were kind of used to it at this point. We loved our jobs and we loved everything it entailed, we just wished we had a tad more independence. Hopefully things would change with our next album and we'd be lucky enough to get more of our own tracks placed on it.

"Well that was absolutely dreadful," Liam sighed, breaking the comfortable silence between us.

"Tell me about it," Zayn chimed in drowsily.

I groaned, dropping my head to the table. The abrupt sound emitting from the collision attracted the attention of the boys.

"Are you alright, Lou?" Harry asked.

His forehead creases pinched tightly together, giving him the appearance of a concerned parent. I shut my eyelids tightly before shrugging my shoulders.

"Just tired."

I suppose that answer was partly true. The night before, I had stayed up fairly late, watching stupid films with Liz at my apartment.

Thinking about her only made me want to leave the meeting more. I wanted to be hanging out with her, watching awful American reality shows and eating junk food. I wanted to hear her laugh and catch glimpses of her smiling at the television when she didn't notice me staring. I wanted to be wrapped up in her bed sleeping beside her again. I wanted her legs to be tangled with mine. I wanted her hair in my face and her fresh scent to engulf me. But instead, I was here.

This can't be healthy, I thought suddenly. When I wasn't with her, I constantly found myself thinking about her. I couldn't manage to get her out of my head, not that I'd want to, even if I could. Thinking of her and being around her brought me feelings of pure excitement, feelings I hadn't felt in ages; and to an extent, ones I hadn't ever experienced before.