When We're Alone, It Could Be Home | Zarry

Part 2

Fortunately, Zayn's illness somehow made Louis start to value the health condition of his employees (or maybe he just wanted to make sure his worthiest property wouldn't die before he found a better one). Zayn was offered a weeklong vacation after his current project drew to an end. It was the most cheerful news Zayn had received ever since the first day he stepped into the office. Niall invited him to come to his brother's wedding in Dublin, but Zayn kindly declined since he was so tired that he'd rather be home alone all day doing nothing than going for a long trip.

The first two days were great. Zayn could finally wake up at noon, and then sat down in front of his 32-inch screen with a beer can in his hand and a blanket on his lap, finishing all these shows that he never had a chance to catch up with and then falling asleep to the theme song of Game of Thrones. He would be awake again half an hour later and stared at the DVD's main menu, watching the same dragons fly fifteenth time and then finally turned off the TV.

This kind of ease didn't last too long. Zayn's phone rang on the Thursday night whilst he was catching up with How to Get Away with Murder Seasons 2. "No!" Annalise raised her arms, but Wes already fired the gun. Everyone was screaming.

"Hello?" Zayn answered lazily. He was too concentrated on the sudden plot twist to look at the caller ID.

"Well well well, how's your holiday, Zayn? Everybody's missing you."

Annalise was lying on the floor. Her white blouse was dyed into blood red. "Hi, Louis." Zayn regretted picking up the phone. But he didn't think the consequence would be better other way round. "My holiday's great, so far. And I kinda miss you guys too."

"Nice, nice. I hope you had a good time 'cause we really miss you," said Louis in a blissful tone. Zayn bet he's still in his office now, resting his legs on the desk or spinning the swivel chair with a pen between his fingers. "Where you at now? Home?"

Wes walked closer to Annalise. His gun was pointed at her head. "Yeah I am. Why?" Zayn pressed his fingers on his lips, keeping down the sigh that he almost let out.

"Okay. Do you still keep the package samples you made?" Louis asked leisurely, Zayn couldn't tell what his intention was from his lazy tone. "Yeah I do." Zayn replied, looking the remote in order to lower the volume of the telly. "Why? My design was rejected, wasn't it?" His three proposals for the last project were all rejected. That was where his vacation started.

"S'right. But after today's meeting, our client decided to reconsider your proposals." Louis explained, "Don't worry, you can still enjoy your vacation. But they requested more details for the package. You just need to take a few more photos of your package and send them to me."

Zayn felt much relieved, but also suspecting. "Really? Some photos? That's all?"

"Yeah? What do you expect? None of us has time for another boring presentation." Louis replied with an exaggerating tone, "I'mma go get something to eat now. Where is the burger store Kevin mentioned the other day? I could never find it." He didn't even give time for Zayn to answer and continued, "Anyway! Hopefully when I'm back, your photos will have been in my email already! Gooood luck."

He hung up the phone without another word. Zayn finally let out the sigh loudly, raising the remote up. Wes' confused face froze on the screen. He returned to his room, and found the package samples under his bed. It was a series of packaging design for a coffee company - from the pouches, glass cans to the small package of the instant coffee. Zayn was pretty proud of his project till it was declined for being too "juvenile." If it were from several weeks ago, Zayn would be full of passion to finish Louis' demand right now in order to promote his own design. But now all he wanted to do was to go back to his sofa as soon as possible and figure out how Wes was going to deal with the gun-shot.