Behind Closed Doors

28. Paul

Later that evening the two men were cuddled together beneath the stars as they lay on a soft blanket Zayn had set outside for them.

"Youh listen to my album yet?" Zayn whispered despite the fact that it was just the two of them on his own private property. He'd been dying to ask Harry, wanting the younger man to bring it up himself but the anticipation had gotten the best of Zayn.

Harry moved to rest on his forearm, looking down at Zayn. "Are you kidding? I listen to it constantly."

The admittance caused a satisfied smile to take over Zayn's face. "Ya? What's your favorite track then?"

After he lay back down onto Zayn's chest Harry sighed. "That's a hard one. Let me think."

After a few moments Harry told him he really loved "Borders," "Pillowtalk," and the intermission: "flower," but that nothing compared to the feeling, "It's You," gave him. That was undoubtedly his favorite. "Haunting that one is," he'd said when describing it. "But beautiful, nonetheless."

"Given the fact it's about you, beautifully haunting seems like a pretty accurate depiction, ya?"

He felt Harry chuckle against his chest. "I really hoped it was about me but didn't wanna be presumptuous, ya know?"

Zayn frowned at that and moved to pull Harry up towards him. Once they were eye to eye, Zayn gave him an incredulous look. "Don't say shit like that. Youh mean the world to me, Haz. Even when I try to write a song that isn't about youh, it's like ya still find your way into it even if it's subtle 'cause that's how it's always been. Give yourself some credit, babe."

"I'm flattered, Z. Really I am and I know what you mean but..... well some of those songs aren't very nice. Angry, at that. I don't want to be a source of your anger."

Zayn laid his head back down to gaze up at the stars. "Oh Hazza, always the negatives with you, innit?" He huffed, feeling annoyed.

"C'mon, give me a break. 'Truth,' 'Lucozade,' even 'Wrong.' I dunno if I wanna be a part of those feelings is all I'm sayin."

"Hate to take the rose colored glasses from ya babe but shit wasn't always rainbows and sunshine between uz. That's the reality."

Harry sat up, wrapping his arms around his raised knees, "I know better than anyone how bad you got. To have been a cause of that downfall fucks with my head, ya? Makes me rethink a lot."

Following suit, Zayn sat up to wrap an arm around Harry's shoulders. "If we were perfect it'd be boring, Haz. I don't want youh to be perfect, I juz want you. As you are babe. I want uz. Good, bad, and ugly."

Seemingly comforted by those words, Harry rested his head on Zayn's shoulder. "Ya. I guess so."

"Besides, Haz. Those songs you mentioned aren't about you specifically. I didn't have you in mind when I wrote specifics of most those verses soh don't get all tied up over this. I just meant that youh helped form my perspective on certain instances and soh when I write my songs, I keep you and your presence in my memory and it always gives me some clarity on stuff I guess."

Zayn suddenly had flashbacks to teary eyed goodbyes with Paul and fights with Martin, both were members of Modest Management. Still to this day he kept a lot of the conversations he'd had with Modest one on one, to himself.

Before Paul's departure, There were times Zayn could have sworn Martin and some of the others purposely tried to exclude Zayn. His time slots got mixed up a lot for recording sessions so that he could only do the bare minimum in the booth, "no time to add new runs or sound," he'd been told on more than one occasion. It was the subtle things and Zayn always felt like an outcast but blamed it on his own insecurities, not wanting to believe he was being done wrong by his own team.