The Neighbors

Chapter 11

"Is Noah going to sit with us again today?" Jane asks and I shrug.

"I don't know, you might have scared him off," I say and she playfully hits my arm.

"Louis sits with us," she says and he laughs.

"I'm gay, I don't have to deal with females so they don't scare me," he shrugs. Louis came out last year. He's not flamboyant, but he has always been slightly more 'fabulous' than the other guys.

"About that, Harry told me you invited him to your party next Friday?" I ask.

"Yeah, he's pretty cool, he's ok with my sexuality and I could use some more straight guy friends," he smiles. Not a lot of straight guys stayed friends with him after he came out, he was pretty sad. Zayn stayed friends with him because he's smart enough to realize that gay guys don't just hit on anything with a penis. Louis has high standards

"That's good. If you hang out with any more girls, your balls will fall off," Jane says and I roll my eyes.

"Hey guys, sorry I was late," Noah says and sits down next to Louis, across from Jane and I. He has the exact same things on his tray as I do. An apple, the school spaghetti, and a bottle of water. Yesterday he had the same sandwich that I did.

"Are you stalking my lunch order?" I ask with a laugh.

"I guess great minds think alike," he says before biting into his apple.

~

"Hey Liam," I say as I put my poster board on the Styles' living room floor.

"What's up Shea?" He smiles.

"Doing this project for my lame geography class," I say and he laughs.

"Yeah, I know the feeling," he says and waves his in the air.

"I've got tape!" Harry says and runs down the stairs, followed by Logan.

"And I've got glitter!" Logan says an waves tubes of glitter in the air.

"We are going to be making a map of Europe, we don't need glitter," I say and he rolls his eyes.

"Shea, every continent could use some glitter," he says as if it's obvious.

We work on our geography projects until they are finished. Liam ad Harry's map looks perfect and very professional. Logan and I's map would have looked professional, but he decided to glue glitter to every inch of it.

When we are done I run upstairs to was my hands in the bathroom. I look at my appearance and I am covered in glitter. God dammit Logan. This will never come out of my hair. I wash my hands and decide it is hopeless to try to get this mess out of my hair.

I open the door to leave the bathroom and slam into a shirtless Noah. I step back and he is covered in glitter and red paint. He must have been painting in his room. I look down at myself and now I am covered in the same mixture.

"Look at the mess you've made on me," I say jokingly and he looks at himself.

"You made the same mess on me!" He laughs and so do I.

We both walk back into the bathroom to try and wash the paint off of our hands under the same sink. He washes it off of himself with ease and looks over at me struggling.

"Do you need help?" He asks and I nod. He pumps soap onto his hands before scrubbing mine. It's sort of.. Romantic. He looks into my eyes and smiles while he scrubs my hands.

"What?" He laughs.

"Nothing," I say and feel myself blush.

"Ok, dork," he winks and turns off the water. He pulls a towel off of a hanger and dries my hands.

"Can I see your painting?" I ask.

"No way, that's like looking in a mans diary," he says and shakes his head.

"I suppose it is, well, I'll se you tomorrow," I smile.

"See ya Shea," he says before heading into his bedroom.

~

During school Noah and I talked about what we were like as kids. We talked about how I used to be afraid of everything and he used to never talk. Apparently, Noah finally broke out I his shell when they moved to America and he told me that girls would always flirt with him and his brothers. He says that it made him uncomfortable, but he sort of warmed up to the attention.

I wondered why he would have the guts to dare me to kiss him, but I was in class and I didn't want to ask when Zayn's friends were around.

Zayn drove me to work, just like he said he would.

"Are you hanging out with those Styles guys?" He asks as he drives me.

"Yeah, they live across the street from me.. They are pretty cool," I explain.

"Yeah.. But they seem.. Flirty," he says.

"I can handle myself, Zayn," I say and roll my eyes. I've never been annoyed with him like this before. Well, I have once. When he punched that guy.

"I know Shea, but I just don't really want you to hang out with them," he says and gives me puppy dog eyes.

"I understand Zayn, but I will still hang out with them, they are my friends," I defend and he clenches his jaw. If these were different circumstances and we weren't arguing, I'd think that him clenching his jaw is the sexiest thing.

"I guess, I'm going to drive you to school from now on," he says.

"But you have to get up half an hour earlier to come to my house," I say and he shrugs.

"I don't care, I'd rather be driving you than have them do it," he says and I roll my eyes.

~

Zayn drove me to and from school on Thursday and Friday. I still talked to the Styles in class and he couldn't stop that. On Friday he went to go see Munis and I decided I didn't want to be bored all weekend.

I paid the pizza man at the door and walked across the street with three boxes of pizza. I shifted the boxes to one arm an knocked on the door.

((A/n hey, hope your liking it so far, j would love I you guys would comment your opinions. I might not get much writing in tomorrow, I'll be at an amusement park with my family that I dot usually get to see. I'll try to write whenever it's possible.))