I Love You ~ Louis Tomlinson

Short List

Today, Natalie finds herself with a lot of downtime without any of the boys around, they had to go over some choreography and other things to get them ready for tonight's show. She's taking her time to reminisce om their first few weeks of tour. Her favorite cities they've been to so far are Columbus, Ohio and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She's just finished updating her travel journal for the week when she notices Louis' just come in to the room with her. 

"What are you doing there love?" Louis asks with a smirk on his face. 

She's never really been one for journaling, but she figured time on tour would go so fast she'd forget a lot of things and this would be a good way to keep track of it. She bought it just before they left and she's really been enjoying it. She picked one that has you write the name of the place you visited at the top, along with the dates you're there. There's a space for a picture and on the next page it has different prompts like: what was the best thing you ate while there, most memorable moment, or simpler things like what was the weather like. 

"Mmm, nothing," she says shrugging and shutting her book, just to be annoying. Just because she can. 

"Are you listing out all the things you love about me?" He asks, making his way over to her on the couch, but not sitting down. He leans against a table, crossing one leg over the other and staring at her.  

Love. 

She's kind of stunned by it for a second. Not that he even said he loved her, they aren't there yet, but thinking about love and him kind of takes her breath away for a moment. They've only been together about 3 months or so, it's not like she expects him to say it.

She shakes her head to try to get rid of her thoughts and tries to disguise them with sarcasm. 

"Short list that is," she scoffs and looks up to see a look of fake bewilderment on his face. 

"You're really gonna get it baby if you don't stop with this little attitude." He says menacingly, but the smile that tries to fight it's way onto the corner of his lips gives him away. 

"Bring it on," she replies, motioning him over. 

Louis lets out a full belly laugh and lays on top of her, bracketing his arms next to her head and keeping her close to him. She feels like she has to kiss him, there's no way she couldn't.

Her smile is a mile wide as he pulls back and lays down on the couch next to her. She'd be embarrassed, but when she looks at him, he's looking back at her the same way. 

"Where are we by the way?" She asks. She did really well the first bit of the tour, knowing the order in which they'd be going to different cities, but as time went on she went with the flow and didn't bother to memorize which state is which. It's not like it really mattered, she was following them blindly whether she knew their intended location or not. 

You'd think it would be easy to tell, but they travel a lot in the night time, so if they aren't sleeping it's too dark to know where they are. 

"Oh," Louis sits up a bit, looking flustered. "Well I mean you're my girlfriend, I thought, and we're traveling together and well if you want more I-" Louis starts rambling and running a hand through his hair anxiously. 

"No, no. Baby," she says, increasingly fond. "Which state are we in today?" She rephrases. 

"Oh," he huffs and throws himself back down on the couch. "Oh my gosh," he laughs. "New York my love." He smiles at her and she kisses him for it. 

"You were so flustered," she giggles against his lips. 

He looks down sheepishly, "I thought you were unhappy with our situation or something."

And oh. 

She wasn't expecting that and it makes her heart hurt. She doesn't know how to make him believe her when she says she's in it for the long haul, but the problem is you can't make anyone believe something. You can't make someone trust you. 

"Louis," she says, sitting up on her knees and grabbing his face in both of her hands. "If I can be honest with you, when you said love before, just in a regular sentence my heart skipped a beat because I know I'll love you some day. We might have been together like three months, but I feel like it's going to be sooner rather than later. Lou, you're the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm so so happy with you." She says as sincerely as humanly possible as she rubs her thumbs back and forth against his cheeks. 

"I'm sorry," Louis whispers, bowing his head a bit and kissing the inside of her wrist. 

She's really not sure where all this is coming from. She's been nothing but happy to be able to spend all this time with him. She'll never lie and say things are perfect, that's an unfair standard to put on anything, but with him she's never even questioned for a second whether or not he makes her happy. 

"I don't want you to be sorry Lou, I just want you to know I am very extremely happy. So happy it might be teetering on disgusting." She says with a small smile. 

"It is a little disgusting," Niall says, walking into the dressing room. 

Louis laughs and throws a pillow at him in response, sitting up more and wiping under his eyes before his tears fall. 

"Pinky swear?" He asks, holding his pinky up expectantly. 

He looks so fragile in that moment, in a way she's never seen before. He's always been strong, and he is strong showing her how he feels, but she's just not seen him express himself quite like that before. 

"Of course, Louis." She says, wrapping her pinky tightly up with his. "I wouldn't lie to you," she whispers, the conversation feeling too personal for other people to hear even if it is just Niall.  

"I'm happy too you know," he tells her, his eyes boring a hole into her soul, but in a good way.

In a way that makes space for him that he happily takes over. That comforts her and keeps her whole. 

He looks at her so intently, but with all the thoughts swirling around her mind she replies simply, "That's good baby, I'm glad."