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

Chapter 5

The door had barely clicked shut behind Niall before someone was tapping gently on it again. This time Louis made a valiant attempt to knock some of the dust off his clothes and rub his face to try and wipe off some of the dirt before he told his next visitor to enter, but judging by the look on Zayn’s face it made little difference.

“I know,” Louis sighed, “Don’t even say it. Cleaning is a messy business.”

Examining the room, Zayn murmured “Well, don’t give up your day job.”

“This place was a lot messier before I cleaned it!”

“Mmmm.” Taking a seat, Zayn focused his attention on Louis. “Could you attribute your desire for cleanliness as a subconscious need for organisation and closure in your daily life?”

“Hey, I’m the psychiatrist here; take note of who has the coolest chair.”

“I know.” Zayn grinned. “But I wanted to see whether I could be a psychiatrist myself. Was I any good?”

“If you were being one of those annoying, old-fashioned textbook psychiatrists, then you were spot on. But personally, I prefer to say things that actually make sense rather than paraphrase tired language from a psychological dictionary.”

“Good.” Pause. “Are you taking notes?”

Louis’ pen scratched against the paper and he didn’t look up. “Yeah, sorry. I need to get a recording device set up. I’ve written myself a memo.” He waved vaguely at a lurid yellow post-it note pinned to the pot that housed his limp plant.

“It’s, uh…it’s kind of distracting.”

“Oh, is it? Sorry.” Louis put the pen down.

“Thanks. What are we supposed to talk about, then?”

“Anything you like, really, but so far I think that discussing ‘your big mistake’, as Niall likes to call it, is as good a place to begin as any. You know what I mean. Tell me about the plasma screen TV-stealing business.”

Zayn reached up and ruffled his hair absently as he considered. “Well, it was never intentional. I never set out with a deliberate plan to steal TVs. I was working in the repossession business, as a bailiff. That’s how it started.” He looked anxiously at Louis.

“Interesting career choice.”

“It pays well. I didn’t enjoy it. But what happened was, we repossessed this house, and this woman had a flat screen HD TV – a pretty expensive one, too – and we ended up selling it to pay off some of her debts. We got heaps of money for it – that’s what gave me the idea. A friend of mine worked in a factory and we reckoned we could make a killing if we sold the TVs at a cheaper price; you know, retail prices. So every so often, he’d sneak a few off the production line and we sold them. We had a proper little business going on. The problem was overconfidence, I think. Tried to take a few too many. We got caught.”

“Ah.”

“What really annoyed me was that he let me take the wrap for the entire thing. He claimed that I threatened him into it. I’m not the threatening type, ask anyone – but people expect you to be, when you’re in the line of work that I was. So he got off with community service and I got thrown into this place.”

“That would explain your trust issues,” Louis murmured.

“Huh?”

“According to my sources, you’re not one of the chatty ones around here.”

“Well, people think I’m a hard nut. Who am I to prove them wrong? I don’t really have anything worth saying to any of that lot anyway. If I wanted to talk to them, then I would.”