Illusion (Ziall Horlik) AU

Chapter 8

Zayn's POV

I walked into the art shop after my classes and set my messenger bag down behind the counter. I heard Jace shuffling around in the back, so I just waited at the counter for him to come out. When he did, he had a small box in his hands. He placed that on the counter before looking at me and smiling a smiling that made his green eyes look like they warmed up about ten degrees.

"How were your classes?" He asked me kindly before taking a few steps to me. I smiled at him, then felt a blush on my cheeks because I didn't really pay attention that much today. All my classes were just lectures and with the help of Niall sending me stupid selfies the whole time, I have no idea what I was supposed to get out of the lectures.

"They were fun, I guess. I don't really enjoy the history of art, so that was interesting. What has business been like today?" I asked Jace to change the subject before I started blabbing about my new friendship with Niall. It was like I had to be careful about it because I knew him and Niall had some sort of hatred towards each other that I'll never fully understand. Niall told me to be careful around Jace, while Jace just gives Niall filthy looks anytime he sees him.

Jace went on to tell me how things were slow today and not to expect anything more while I worked my shift. He told me to take over the small box of guitar picks that accidentally ended up here by mistake. I don't know why he couldn't do that while he was leaving, but maybe it was better that he didn't so that there would be no fighting between him and Niall.

"So, I'll come back after my classes and work the last hour with you. Also, after do you want to go do something with me? It's been two weeks that we've been working together and going to school, I think we should take a break and let loose. What do you say?" Jace asked me after he put on his light jacket. The weather had been changing drastically from even lightly warm to a cool fall. I shrugged at his invitation because I had told Louis I would call him tonight because we hadn't talked at all since I got here. I wanted to hear how his college experience was going and I wanted to tell him I met Niall in real life. It's hard to keep our friendship the way it used to be before I went crazy, but it's like neither of us are even trying anymore. We text all the time, but it's never how we're doing or anything. It's just him asking me how to work a microwave and me asking him if it's okay to drink milk past the expiration date.

"Come on, Zayn. It will be fun and maybe you can loosen up a bit. As fun as you seem, you're really boring." Jace told me with light sass to his voice. I laughed and smiled at the begging puppy dog face he was pulling towards me. I ended up telling him I would go with him to wherever he had planned and it better be fun. He reached ove the counter and kissed my cheek before running out of the shop. That left me completely flustered and bright red.

As the day went on, I got bored and ended up opening the box of guitar picks I was supposed to take to Niall. They all seemed to boring, just being plain white, so I dug through my messenger bag and got out my case of paint pens I wanted to return because I didn't think I would use them ever. I went through for shelves until I got the can of gloss that you can paint over stuff to keep the painting on there permanently.

After getting all my stuff situated and taking my afternoon pills, I picked up a guitar pick from the box and painted a cute cartoon on one side with my paint pen. I set it down on a news paper to dry and got the next guitar pick out. I continued to paint every single guitar pick with cartoons or flowers or even really cool designs until the whole box of five hundred picks was painted. I went over the dry ones with the gloss layer and let those dry.

Once all of them had that layer over them and were all dried up, I put them back in the box and set them to the side while my first customer of the day came and checked out her colored pencils she was buying. The bell dinged to the door as someone was coming in as well, just as I put her stuff in the bag. I looked up and saw Niall smiling at me as he made his way to me.