Neon Red [Order The eBook] [Zayn]

13

(DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. It's important to remember this is all totally fabricated, embellished, and exaggerated for entertainment purposes.)

**********

When we got back to the hotel at the end of the day, only returning briefly earlier for her to change into this long belted off-the-shoulder look, G had the bags lugged up to the room and hosted an unsolicited fashion haul in the master suite where she tried on a lot of the new pieces as I sat on the bed in a stupor.

"That one's pretty cool." I said, in one of the varied responses I'd been repeating since the start: That's dope. That's sick. Wicked babe. Good find. I thought of what to say next as she sauntered out in a pink cocktail dress that flopped around at her chest. It was unzipped because it fastened up the back and she couldn't quite reach. I thought that was an impractical way to make a dress. Most women didn't just have extra hands sitting around the house to help them get dressed whenever they needed, so why not put the zipper along the side?

Now she jumped onto the bed in the half-zipped dress and lay across my lap, taking my phone from my hands. She slid it across the mattress where I couldn't reach without a fight, before pulling me into a kiss. Her breath smelled like French Onion Soup.

"Youh have fun today?" I asked, meeting her eyes as she opened them.

"Hell yes, babe! Too bad you couldn't come inside the thrift shop. They had tons of things I thought you would've loved." She hopped up and moved across the room to the heap of bags.

"Check this out." She presented me with a vintage Louis Vuitton belt from the 70s.

"For me?" I asked, accepting it.

"Duh..."

"Thanks... I actually love it..."

"And Anna loved you! She adored you, Z! I'm so proud of how sweet you were to her. You made us look soooo good. I can't wait to do Vogue together. You deserve the recognition more than anyone."

Something warm and violent welled up within me and I almost wanted to vomit. She was so fucking good to me sometimes. Thinking of that, coupled with how awful I'd been to her since New Year's, I just couldn't fathom how bad things had become. I nearly blurted the truth and started "The Talk" just to feel unburdened for a second. Just to halt the betrayal and draw the curtains on this tormenting performance, but that would only serve to alleviate myself, sparing no care for how the news of Harry and I would affect her career and her outlook right now. I wouldn't dare fuck that up, not during Fashion Week. And although she deserved to know, this was one the most important trips of her life and I needed to see it through, no matter how damaged it left me.

As she went to raid the fridge for snacks, I called up Daniaal and chatted for a bit about his plans to come to NY in a few weeks. I could use a familiar face around every now and then, since G was always surrounded with her friends and family and had loads of people to confide in outside of me.

Every now and then she would come lean on my shoulder to join the facetime and joke with him. They seemed to get on really well since they met in Bel Air back in 2015. Sometimes I thought she liked him more than me. If he weren't my closest relative and best friend on the planet, I'd probably be kind of pissed at how much he was smiling at her just now.

When I hung up from him, G came and climbed back onto the bed, sitting on her legs. I could tell by the smirk on her face that she wanted something that would annoy me, and she was just trying to butter me up.