“Babe, I’m sure you’re not seducing me?” Harry arched an eyebrow and smirked.
“Shut up, Harry. We’re going to lose the crowd.” I pulled myself off of him and headed to the door barely viewing Liam’s quickly receding back as he headed to the cars.
Both Liam and Zak had their faces buried deep in their iPhones when we caught up to them outside.
“What’s going on?” Harry asked with a shake of his hair.
Liam looked up momentarily from the phone with a frustrated look set on his handsome face. “Do you know where they’ve gone?”
“Yeah, Lou texted me” was Harry’s quick response, much to Liam’s surprise.
“Oh.” He nodded. “Well then, after you.” We all piled into the waiting car, me with Harry and Zak by Liam. Clearly everyone else had ants in their pants and couldn’t wait to be rid of us. I rolled my eyes in Zak’s direction but he barely caught it, he was too busy paying attention to Liam out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he didn’t think I’d catch it but I did.
Harry squeezed my thigh with a big smile before announcing to the whole car, “Alright, let’s party!”
The car stopped at a large restaurant about fifteen minutes from the stadium. Belatedly, I realized we were all kind of under-dressed but we were with One Direction after all so no one was going to turn us down. I slipped my hand in Harry’s as we walked up to the door and were let in without question. Closely behind us Liam and Zak trailed slowly deep in conversation. I vaguely heard mention of the plot line from Once Upon a Time? I couldn’t be sure. The flashing lights were enough to blind our group but we made it safely inside and were directed to a large table at the back. Seated there were a smiling Zayn, a petite blonde, Niall with a mouthful of food and a quietly smirking Louis.
“Hey guys, this is my girlfriend Perrie. She hardly gets time away from work like me but… here she is.” Zayn introduced the pretty blonde with a proud grin. It was clear how much in love they were. I tucked away a reminder to chide Harry and the boys for making fun of him and how much time he spends texting her. She seemed wonderful and she made him happy.
“Hi! It’s good to meet you both!” Perrie exclaimed with a genuine smile straight up to her blue eyes.
Was it just me or did I see a flicker of annoyance pass Louis’ gaze? On second view, he seemed back to normal. Maybe I’d imagined it.
“That was a wicked premiere. I, like, got a bit of stage fright there once the arena lit up? Jam-packed.” Liam’s brown eyes sparkled in amazement as he crunched down on the gourmet burger he’d ordered.
“Yeah, mate. It was sick.” Harry nodded in agreement before digging into his own meal. “Surreal.”
“Right. We still going out after this?” Louis abruptly cut in, his lips set in a straight line with his serious eyes. Oh… this ought to be interesting. I didn’t dare look at Zak next to me. Everyone’s eyes panned to Louis with various amounts of shock written on their faces, mixed with a twinge of embarrassment.
“Wow, let’s just get through dinner, man. This food isn’t gonna eat itself!” Super Niall swooped in to rescue the night. He flashed us a toothy grin before shoveling in a mound full of food.
Somehow we survived the remainder of the meal without much more tension. When the bill was paid and we’d separated into our respective cars, I finally felt a rush of relief. Throughout the concert I’d truly thought all Zak and Louis’ breakup fighting was done. Good thing Liam was around to distract my best friend though, because I hardly had the energy to tackle that.
