Twenty-Two ➳ l.p.

Chapter Sixteen: Leaving it Alone

“What are you doing? That’s my diary, Liam, stop, close it!”

                  Liam rolled his eyes. “I’m leaving it alone; calm down.”

                  (But I didn’t miss the smirk on his lips and the ‘I know who you fancy’ that he mumbled later.)

Chapter Sixteen: Leaving it Alone

                  Matt raised his brows when Liam and I eventually descended down the stairs, after I had familiarized myself which each crevice of his body again and hugged him until I smelled of raspberries too.

                  “Thank you so much,” I whispered, and he gave me a small smile, biting his cheek and showing off a not-so-subtle thumbs up. I’m sure that Liam noticed, which is why he gave off a low chuckle when his fingers brushed my shoulder, and I went to sit down on the sofa with the rest of the crew. Zayn had apparently joined in when Liam and I went to talk, and he already had a look on his face that told me that I wouldn’t have to inform him of what took place upstairs; he already knew. Stupid Zayn and his stupid psychological insight.

                  “Well?” Mum chuffed after a moment or so, when I was leaning against the couch cushions on one side and Harry on the other. He started twiddling his fingers in my hair (which I didn’t mind), giving me a small smirk.

                  “Well what?”

                  Her eyes darted between Liam and I a few times before she drummed her fingers against the arm of her chair. “One of you is going to tell me what’s going on, and Matthew, I know that you know too.”

                  It was embarrassing enough to have my mother asking me what went on between Liam and me when we were upstairs, but it was another thing entirely to ask while said Liam and others were around. I could already feel my cheeks heating up even though there was nothing to blush over, and I fiddled with invisible wrinkles on my shirt, clearing my throat.

                  “We just had to… Clear a few things up. That’s it. Nothing happened.”

                  My mum shut her gob-smacked mouth; pout etching into her face like she didn’t believe me. “What things? I heard you telling Matt about some kissing that’s been happening. I’m not stupid, Alice.”

                  “Mum,” I groaned, because I didn’t really want to do this; not in front of the guys and Liam, because oh wow my mother was something else. I couldn’t even describe her as a firecracker, because at least with a firecracker you knew when it was going to explode, and that was a lot more than I could say about my mum. She didn’t even really care about who was eavesdropping—if she found out, then the whole world would too. She had no filter.

                  “So you did kiss—”

                  “No! We didn’t—me and Liam—no, Mum. No.” I could feel as Harry stifled a laugh beside me, and I already knew that my face was almost the shade of my hair. I ran my hands over the back of my neck, biting my tongue. “Me and—no, okay? We just didn’t.”

                  She rolled her eyes. “Then what did you supposedly ‘clear up’ then?”

                  “Just a few things, don’t worry about it.”

                  “A few things like…?”

                  I sighed, scrubbing my face because she clearly wasn’t going to let this one go. I prayed that maybe my dad would intervene and steer her off topic or perhaps Matt would interject with one of his dumb stories or Louis would crack joke or something, but none of it happened, of course. “A few things that we should’ve talked about a long time ago, alright?”