Pick The One... (COMPLETED)

Chapter 12 - Safe Words

Chapter 12 – Safe Words

Niall’s P.O.V.

“Come on, Niall, it’s your turn!” Lou shouted at me, pointing to the free seat near to him. I sighed and made my way to her, not really looking forward to either having someone pulling my hair in different directions, or the interview itself. But a job was a job and I couldn’t call in sick and have a day of. Or the rest of the week. And the week after.

I flopped on the red salon chair, trying to avoid looking at the blinding colored neons on the edges of the mirror in front of me. Weren’t they supposed to be simple light bulbs? I shrugged off the silly thought in my mind and tried to focus on the reality and Lou asking me how I wanted my hair.

“Whatever, just finish it already, ok?” I answered in a low voice. She laughed at my behavior and ruffled my hair playfully, making me growl silently and shift in my seat.

“What’s up, pretty boy, what crawled into your pants?” she asked between soft giggles as she searched for anything she needed to style my hair as usual, in a simple quiff.

“Nothing.”

“Well, maybe that’s the problem,” Zayn said laughing next to me, while the new girl, I think her name was Penny, was applying some blush on his cheeks and down his jaw, accentuating it. Both girls laughed at the sexual meaning of his joke, but I just rolled my eyes at the lame attempt to be funny, growling “Shut it” and “Idiot” under my breath, through gritted teeth. Eventually they stopped making fun of me, seeing that I wasn’t taking my glance from my reflection in the mirror.

I kept frowning at the idiot in front of me, judging very hard his every single flaw. Why did I have such a pale skin? Neither my cheeks had any color, like I was lifeless. My lips were dried and chapped and, no matter how much water I drank or how many times I licked my lips, it didn’t change a thing. I moved my eyes to my hair where Lou’s hands were trying to style it. Why did my hair had to be so plain and the color uneven? Maybe dirty blonde was not for me. Then what was it? The last thing, the eyes. The dark blue, dull, tired eyes. I couldn’t protest, indeed I was tired, lifeless and the huge bags under my eyes proved it. Just like a zombie, I felt brainwashed, following the orders the others gave me; move here, go there, do this, answer that, this is how the past day had been. Nights weren’t helping me either, as I couldn’t close my eyes. Actually, I could, but every time I did this, Rosie’s image had appeared, attracting me in a wicked game, living a beautiful nightmare. I was living a beautiful nightmare, and all because of her and her stupid amazing personality.

Honestly, it wasn’t fair for me. Love was supposed to be a good thing and the butterflies shouldn’t be that bad; well, not in my case, because my feelings for her were sucking my life out of my body, leaving me like a vegetable. The beautiful feeling in my stomach could be described more accurately as millions of angry rhinos, running up and down and making me frown and act like a douchebag every time Rosie came in my sight. But they couldn’t blame me, after all it was her fault for my current state and I had every right to be mad at her, to hate her. I hated Rosie.

“Done. Now time for makeup, pretty boy, I can’t cope with you PMSing anymore,” Lou joked, pushing me from the chair and towards to the other girl. Zayn checked his imagine in the mirror for the last time, before he stood up and whispered in my ear.

“Listen, Niall. I don’t care what your problem is, but stop acting like a baby who didn’t get his favorite toy for Christmas and man up a bit. For the fans sake, so don’t screw this up.”

I rolled my eyes and moved forward, slightly brushing my shoulder over his. In the background, the makeup girl’s voice complained that she couldn’t cover the bags under my eyes. But again, it wasn’t my fault.

“Now, boys, some of your fans has sent us some questions and I’d like you to answer them, ok?” the host said and we all nodded to these ‘game’.

“First one; Denise from Manhattan, New York, wants to know if you can iron your own clothes?”

“Well, only Harry and I are able to complete this task,” Liam replied. “Louis once burnt his shirt while ironing it, Niall has difficulties with turning the machine on and, actually Zayn wears most of the time clothes that either don’t need to be ironed, or are already ironed.”

“Ok, so future girlfriends of Niall and Louis, learn how to use the iron machine!” the man joked and I forced a happy laugh escape my mouth. “Nest one is from Mary, in New Haven, Connecticut, and she asks what your favorite type of cupcake is.”

Well, I like the chocolate chip ones, with mint frost over them. They taste so good!” Zayn answered.

“I’ve recently eaten one which tasted like an interesting combination between coffee and caramel. Yeah, this one has to be my favorite one,” Louis continued.

“I like the ones my mum bakes,” Harry said slowly.

“My favorite type of cupcake is the butter cupcake, with vanilla frost,” Liam concluded. “What about you, Niall?”

“I agree with Zayn,” I hardly smiled at the camera in front of me.

“I’ve got another interesting one… ‘Favorite clothe item?’ This is from Anna, in Perugia, Italy.”

“Shirt.”

“T-shirt.”

“T-shirt, as well.”

“..Boxers…”

“Um… tank tops?” I spoke. The host asked “Why so?” and I gave them some dumb reasons which they fortunately accepted and questioned no more my choice.

“And the last one, ‘Who’s your celebrity crush?’. This was asked by Nadine from Stockholm, Sweden. Since you’re all single, I suppose we can pull a few strings and play the match makers around here, right?”

“Actually I’m dating a girl,” Louis smiled cheekily at the thought of that girl he was blabbing on and on about.

“Me too!” Liam added. Yeah, I remember the dancer…

“Really? Well, that’s great. Are you willing to give us some clues about these two special ladies, as I suppose you’re not dating the same girl?” the man joked again, quite lame in my opinion. They both shook their heads and went on with the question.

“Leone Lewis.”

“Mega Fox.”

“Perrie Edwards.”

“The Little Mix member, Perrie Edwards?” the host raised his eyebrows, and Zayn agreed. “Well, what about you, guys?” he shifted towards Harry and I.

“Well, I think it’s safe for both of us to say that Rosie Hart is the most wonderful girl we’ve ever seen and she’s our celebrity crush for sure,” Harry said between giggles. The other boys laughed at the response, admitting that we weren’t saying that because Rosie had a very dangerous, violent inner side, or that they’d heard she is god at karate and she’s shown them some painful moves some days before.

“I don’t like Rosie.” I said out of the blue. The laughter suddenly stopped and all the eyes turned on me. Band mates, host, camera, camera men, producers, the whole team, everyone was staring at me with their mouths open.

“She’s not how you think she is. Rosie is definitely not my celebrity crush. I choose Emma Watson.” I explained my words.

Needles to say, the interview ended abruptly and lots of questions were thrown at me the following minutes, hours, days and so on, but I shrugged them off. I really needed to sleep.