Fifteen Minutes (Zarry AU)

Chapter 2

Most Londoners get a nosebleed when they go north of Watford. Ben Adeyemi gets one if he goes north of Old Street.

‘Where the fuck are we going? It’s not even closing,’ he says with a frown as he and Zayn head out of the pub.

Zayn, predicting resistance, is prepared and whips a bottle of Peroni out of the pocket of his leather jacket with a grin.

Ben stops walking, looks at the bottle of beer then at Zayn. ‘Alright,’ he says, tilting his head and arching an eyebrow at him. ‘What are you up to?’

Zayn smiles sweetly. ‘Nothing.’

‘Then tell me where we’re going.’

Zayn hesitates. He has a lie prepared, one about blagging his way onto the guest list for the Laura Mvula gig at the Jazz Café, which will be enough to get Ben on the bus, but he’ll have a shit fit when he realises they’re going to the Dublin Castle and nothing is worth that. Not after the Lady Gaga incident. Zayn thought Ben was going to punch him.

‘The Dublin,’ Zayn admits with a reluctant sigh.

Ben’s eyebrow arches a little higher. ‘Tell me you’re joking, Zed.’

Zayn steps back and looks down at the beer bottle in his hand. ‘What?’

‘Will Dan be there?’

Dan.

Jesus. Just hearing his name makes Zayn’s heart beat too hard.

‘It’s just a drink, Ben.’

‘It’s never just a drink with you two.’

That makes Zayn’s heart beat even harder. He hasn’t seen Dan for four days, not since that night at the Superstore, and the memory of it, of the two of them hiding in the disabled toilet, Zayn kissing him fiercely as though if he kissed him hard enough – and held on tight enough – he’d stay, as though it was a magic trick he had to get just right or it wouldn’t work. But he didn’t and Zayn hasn’t heard from him since.

‘He’s playing tonight.’ He can feel Ben staring at him so starts picking at the corner of the label on the beer bottle. ‘I just want to say hello.’

‘It’s never just hello with you two, either.’

Zayn tries not to smile because Ben’s right; he can’t remember the last time he saw Dan and they didn’t end up stumbling into a toilet stall.

But that just makes Zayn want to see him more.

‘When did you start hooking up again?’ When Zayn shrugs and peels the label clean off the beer bottle, Ben sighs. ‘You didn’t stop hooking up, did you?’

He knows what Ben is thinking and he can’t blame him. Zayn’s done this before – too many times – he’s been with guys who don’t call, only text, who don’t kiss him if anyone’s there, only when they’re on their fifth beer and they follow him outside for a cigarette. Zayn’s the guy they can’t stop thinking about, the one that keeps them up at night, but he’s never the one they leave their girlfriends for. He’s the one they think about – in the shower, in bed, their girlfriend sleeping next to them as they jerk off thinking about his mouth – but he’s never the one they love.

He’s the one they won’t let themselves love.

But with Dan it’s different. He says that every time, but this time it is.

‘You don’t have to come,’ Zayn says with another shrug. ‘I’ll go on my own.’

He hopes he sounds nonchalant, but when he turns and continues on towards the bus stop, he’s stomping, which definitely isn’t nonchalant.