Keep This Love (In a Photograph)

Chapter 3

Zayn doesn't get up early on his days off. There are some days where he'd happily not get out of bed at all. Assignments that require him to be up early involve a complicated system of three alarm clocks, his phone, a wake-up call from Harry and then a follow up call where Harry doesn't hang up until Zayn's physically out of bed.

Since the visit to the fire station isn't until the afternoon, Zayn lets himself wake up naturally, which of course means he's still in bed at midday. He messes around on his phone for another 20 minutes checking his emails and texting his sister back before he finally crawls out of bed and stumbles into the shower.

Sleepy but clean, he puts on his usual work attire of skinny black jeans, black boots and a plain, dark t-shirt. He's aware that he should probably wear long sleeves to cover up his tattoos but since he got his hand tattoo three months ago, he's stopped bothering. Besides, it's August. It's actually hot for once.

He messes with his hair until it looks half-decent before heading downstairs to feed Tiger, who's purring loudly because when Zayn's on holiday, Tiger's mealtimes get completely out of sync.

"Sorry buddy," Zayn says as he places Tiger's bowl on the floor. He gives Tiger a little scratch in apology before he straightens to put two slices of bread in the toaster and realises that he's now almost running late. While his bread is toasting, he packs his bag with things he might need as well as two different cameras in case something catches his eye or he needs to take a few test shots. It's unusual for a first visit but it happens sometimes and Zayn might be lazy, but he's still a professional.

He grabs the toast and sticks around long enough to liberally smear honey all over it before he's yelling goodbye to Tiger and slamming the front door. He climbs into his Qashqai, which he'd bought for space rather than style, slings his bag into the passenger seat and reverses out of the drive, toast hanging out of his mouth as he makes a left turn towards the town's fire station.

Zayn idly hums along to Usher as he tries to remember the fastest route to the fire station, eventually deciding on straight through town and hoping that traffic isn't too bad. He pulls up at the station with one minute to spare, checks his hair in the mirror out of habit more than anything and reaches for his bag.

As he gets out of the car, he's already sweeping the location for lighting and angles.

"Hey! Are you Mr Malik?"

Zayn turns towards the voice and sees a guy standing by the door. He's in bright yellow trousers held up by braces that stretch over a dark navy t-shirt. His arms and face are covered in what Zayn assumes is soot, although it looks like he's tried to clean himself up a bit.

"Hi, yeah, is this a bad time?" He moves towards the guy and fixes a polite smile on his face. "I can come back, if you prefer?"

"Oh no, it's fine, I wouldn't want to put you out again," the guy says cheerfully. "So long as you don't mind the dirt. We've just got back from a call. I tried to wash up but this stuff can cling to your skin for hours."

"I'm good if you are," Zayn tells him. He can't see much of the guy's face but he's got bright white teeth and smiling dark eyes. He's just taller than Zayn himself, and his shirt is straining over his chest and biceps.

Harry's going to love him.

"I'm Liam. I'm the station manager so I guess I'll be your contact for this calendar stuff."

Something about his tone has Zayn smiling ruefully. "Not a fan of the calendar idea, huh?"

Something like panic passes over Liam's dirty face. "How could you tell? It's not the charity thing though because we're always more than happy to help."