Imprisoned in my Heart Book 1 (Imprisoned in my heart trilogy...Larry)

Chapter 2

 Louis surveyed the semi-circle of chairs surrounding him, feeling glad that whoever had arranged the setup had considered that he would find it off-putting to have people sat behind him where he couldn’t see them. Several faces were sullen, most were just bored. Only two people looked genuinely pleased to see him: the smiling blond boy who looked like the happy glow never left his face…and Harry Styles. The boy was looking at him with interest, eyes appraising as he watched him. Louis dragged his gaze away from the distraction and coughed carefully.

“So, guys,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I’m your new psychiatrist!”

Those who hadn’t already heard the news looked aghast.

Louis chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tie you up and stick electrodes to your temples and try to make you move things telekinetically.”

A few people smiled weakly at his bad joke, but most of them just rolled their eyes. The blond boy laughed without a trace of irony, the only one who seemed genuinely amused. Harry shook his head, lips pressed together to hold back a laugh – but Louis got the feeling that the boy was laughing at him, not his appalling joke.

“So, anyway,” Louis continued briskly, “one of the main factors of a good relationship is trust, so I thought we could all get to know each other a bit! Kind of like those things they make you do in primary school where you say your name and a bit about yourself – only this time, you tell us what you did to end up in this place.” He gestured vaguely around the room. “Anyone want to go first?”

“Excuse me?” somebody asked.

Louis glanced over and saw a boy with devastating brown eyes, black hair and a jawline to die for looking at him. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would say ‘excuse me’, but from the way everyone was staring in his direction, it had clearly come from him. He was from the group of people Louis had dubbed ‘the attractive ones’.

“Yes!” Louis cried enthusiastically. “You! What’s your name?”

“Zayn. Malik. Hello.” He waved, smirking slightly. “Anyway, um…what I wanted to know was, do wehave to do this?”

“Hmm? No. Oh, God, no! You don’t have to do it. But the point is that I’m a nosy git and for curiosity’s sake I want to know how you guys ended up here. Would you deny me of the opportunity to stick my nose in?” Louis grinned.

A laugh rippled through the semi-circle, and for the first time, Louis felt like he was actually getting somewhere. Encouraged, he smiled at Zayn, who shook his head, smiling back in spite of himself.

“Yeah, all right, then,” Zayn said, “fair enough. I’m in here because I stole a plasma screen TV. Or two.”

“Or twenty,” someone muttered, and everyone laughed again.

Zayn grinned. “Yeah, all right, so the number was closer to twenty in my last shipment. I guess I should say that I’m in here because I stole a plasma screen TV and got caught. I’d stolen and sold over a thousand before I got ratted out.” He rolled his eyes.

“Okay,” Louis said. “Right, who’s next?”

 To his surprise, most people seemed more than happy to disclose their circumstances, and very few crimes seemed worse than petty. Some of them were as simple as silly little robberies or frauds, and a few people, such as Zayn, had been arrested for stealing – ID, electrical goods, clothes, that sort of thing. One of these people, to Louis’ surprise, was the friendly blond boy.

“I’m Niall,” he announced in a lilting Irish accent, “and I’m here because I…I guess I, uh, ‘stole’ some money. From an old lady.” He made it sound like whether or not he had stolen it was debatable.