The President's Daughter (Liam Payne) Book 6

Chapter 38

 

Liam’s POV

“Where do you take a girl who doesn’t like anything?” I ask the boys as we’re in our seats at the awards. I wasn’t fully serious when asking that. I knew she liked things. She was just very vocal about the things she didn’t.

“Are we talking about girls in general or a specific girl?” Harry prods. I’d smack him if it wouldn’t draw attention.

“A specific girl,” I grit.

“Is it a girl we know?” Louis teases, joining Harry as he makes fun of me.

“Leave him alone,” Zayn says before I have the chance to knock their heads together. “When do you need it by?”

“Tomorrow.”

He nods, pausing a second as he thinks it over. “Remember last year when we were here? I disappeared on our day off? Well one of Emily’s friends had an empty studio that she let me use for the afternoon. I got to do a ton of big pieces. All different sorts of mediums. I could see if she still has that studio and if she’d be willing to let you use it,” he offers.

“That sounds great, thanks mate,” I say with a smile. He nods, taking out his phone and texting someone. I take out mine also, checking to see if I had any new texts from Elodie. When we were doing interviews, I’d gotten one from her about the dream catcher I’d found. She’d liked it and a sense of relief had fallen over me. It was incredible how nervous I got over her liking the things I got her. It’s like, everything had to be perfect. And this date was no exception. I wanted to make her happy in order to make up for all the hell she’d been through.

No new texts. I was impatient for this award show to be over so I could get back to her. I think the others were feeling that way also. It had been a long tour and we were almost done. Two more weeks before we were home free. And then all of us would be going to separate sides of the globe. Niall was going back home, Lauren and Louis would be staying in America for a bit with her brother, Zayn would be joining Ladies First on their trip to Japan so he could be with Emily, and Harry was taking Maedbh on holiday. What would happen with Elodie though? I could stay in America for a while, but what would we do? Go back to the White House? I can’t imagine she’d want that. And she’d be graduated and old enough to not have to go back if she didn’t want to. What was her plan for her future? It was something we’d never discussed. I push it out of my mind as we’re called up to the stage to accept our award.

It’s late when we get back to the bus. Almost as soon as we’re on, we’re on the road again. I half expect to find everyone asleep, and for the most part they are. Tom was still up, but Lou and Lux were asleep and Caroline was getting ready for bed.

“Hey,” I whisper when I walk back to the bunks and find Elodie reading a book by the light of her phone.

“Hey, how’d it go? You guys win?” she asks, dog-earing the book as she closes it.

“Yea, two out of three,” I answer back quietly as I start changing out of the suit and into a pair of sweatpants and an old t-shirt.

“Let me guess, you lost the sanest fans award,” she teases. I chuckle as I toss the nice outfit onto my bed in a rumpled heap, crawling into her bed and falling on top of her. Lou might give me hell for the condition I left it tomorrow, but at the moment I didn’t care. Right now the only thing I cared about was that she hadn’t kicked me out of her bed. Yet.

“Be nice. Without them we wouldn’t be where we are,” I scold her.

“Mhm, sure…” she says disbelievingly, her fingers running through my hair while I rested my head on her chest. It felt good and the conversation drifted off as she did it.

“So you liked the dreamcatcher?” I ask quietly, a couple minutes later. I feel her stretch as she looks up at it above her head.

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “But I was wondering. Why’d you get it for me? I wasn’t exactly the nicest person to you the day before.”

“I was hoping there might be some truth behind the myth,” I reply. “Maybe if you could sleep through the night, you wouldn’t be so grumpy all the time,” I add jokingly.

“Hey,” she says with mock indignation, flicking my ear.

“My point exactly,” I joke, rubbing my ear. She chuckles and I push myself up on my elbows, leaning forward to press a kiss to her lips. “So how was your day?” I ask. She tenses up beneath me and I see a flash of anger flit across her face. “What is it?” I press when she doesn’t speak.

“It’s nothing,” she says dismissively.

“No, there’s something,” I press, concerned about what had gone wrong today.

“Look, do you want to talk or…” she trails off, taking my head in both hands and pressing a long kiss to my lips. “We could do other things?” she asks, raising an eyebrow with a smirk. I feel a flash of annoyance of my own at the fact that she’d try to avoid talking about something by using my desire for her.

“Elodie stop,” I say, taking her hands off my face.

“What?” she snaps. “Don’t you want to?”

“You know I do, but not when you’re trying to avoid something else. I-I want our first time to be special. Not an avoidance tactic.” She snorts, rolling her eyes.

“Sure didn’t seem like you cared if it was special when you wanted to fuck me against a bathroom sink at a club. Sex is sex. It doesn’t have to be special,” she says flatly.

“That was a mistake and you know that,” I say trying to keep from getting angry. “And besides, I didn’t know you then. I want it to mean something.”

“Fine well you can be special with yourself then,” she snaps, pushing me off her and rolling onto her side so I’m facing her back. I let out a sigh, feeling the anger slide out. I always used to wonder how Lauren and Louis fought so much, but I was beginning to understand it. I roll away from her to slide out of bed, figuring I’d been sentenced to my own bed for the night. I’m almost choked though when she reaches over and grabs ahold of my t-shirt.

“Fuck you, you’re not leaving you asshole,” she growls. I look back in confusion as she rolls back to face the wall. I hesitantly roll back over, putting an arm over her waist.

“You’re such a goddamned romantic,” she mutters. If we weren’t in the situation we were in, I’d probably find it funny she was cussing me out while demanding I stay. But it was her so it wasn’t. She had so much anger and it seemed like every time I tried to figure out what was wrong, I just let out her tidal wave of fury. Sometimes it felt like I was Moses trying to part the Red Sea. I just wish I knew it would eventually get better.

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Sorry this chapter is a bit short, but the next chapter is the date and that'll be longer. I hope you guys are enjoying this so far! Let me know what you think :)

Dedication to KeeToMyHeart