Highway To Love (Harry Styles)

Chappy 8 // Advice From A 40-year-old Man with Crinkly Eyes

Niall, I decided, was the most stubborn person I've ever met.




Instead of letting me droop my head back onto the couch's inviting armrest, he insisted that I should freshen up quick and tag along to their interview at noon. He threw my pillow away and stashed my blanket into his room, leaving me with no equipment to enjoy my sleep-fest.




Stubborn as he is, he persisted still. He poked my arm again and again, each jab accompanied by "come with us". He tugged at the hem of my frayed The Script shirt I bought on eBay, and nearly ripped the sleeves off as he kept on persuading. When tugging and jabbing didn't work, he tried tickling me.




I guessed he thought that this would be a cliche fanfiction moment: he'd tickle both sides of my stomach, I'd react and squeal as if a volcano eruption had happened nearby and deafening the ears of those around me at that moment, he'd force me to come along or he won't stop tickling, and I'd agree happily, looking dreamily into his eyes. Yeah frickin right.




I sat still as a stone, leaning against the couch as I settled myself down infront of a good ol' Spongebob cartoon episode with Niall beside me attempting to tickle me.




"Why aren't you ticklish?" Niall groaned, giving up on his attempts and flopping back onto the couch beside me.




I shrugged. "Why should I be?"




Zayn, who was carrying along a tray of muffins, shot me a look. "Alex, just come along. It'll be fun."




"You call being interrogated about personal questions that you may or may not want to answer fun?" My hand shot up and stole a muffin, unwrapping it in one curl. "Thanks."




"Great, now I have to bake one more," he muttered, retracing his steps back to the kitchen. "Harry, give me one more muffin! Alex ate one!"




The chocolate burst inside my mouth, hot and melting. My eyes widened. "Whoever made this, I frickin love you!"




"Love you too!" Harry's familiar voice shouted from the kitchen.




I stuffed a chunk of the muffin inside my mouth before retorting, "Only because you make chocolate muffins. That's it."




"It better be," Niall mumbled quietly. His fingers fiddled together. Waving his comment off, I finished my muffin and tossed the wrapper into the trash can.




"What's the muffin for anyway?" I drew my feet up, sitting cross-legged. Louis walked into the room, plopping down beside me, holding his phone in one hand.




"It's for Paul," Louis answered, leaning back against the couch. "To celebrate his baby. We haven't seen much of him lately." He pressed a button on the remote, and the screen switched to a re-run of a football match.




"Hey! I was watching Spongebob, dude. Not cool." I flimsily tried to reach for the remote, but Louis took advantage of his height and brought it out of reach.




"Wifey, you gotta do better than that," Louis laughed. The remote was circled around, my hands still scrambling to get it. Finally I gave up, sullenly accepting the fact that today's morning television show is football.