Falling For My Shoe Stealer // l.t.

Are You Picking Up What I'm Putting Down?

Chapter 43:

Louis' POV:

"You know, I used to work in a Toys 'R' Us," I chimed into our current conversation.

Zayn scoffed. "Yeah, I already knew that."

"I didn't," Jessica flickered her eyes over to me curiously. Her gaze fell back on the numerous items on the shelf before us. I gave Zayn a crude look behind her back.

"Yeah, before One Direction and everything I worked at a store. Much smaller than this one, of course." I felt like an idiot after saying that. Of course the one I worked at was smaller than the one we were shopping in now. We were in the world's largest Toys 'R' Us for God's sake. Jessica laughed, catching onto my mistake.

"Back in the days when you had your cute, fringe-y hair cut," Zayn snickered. My eyes widened at his input while Jessica laughed only a few feet away. How dare he bring up that disastrous memory in front of my crush?

"Oh yeah, Mr. I'm-Too-Embarrassed-To-Dance?" I shot back.

His eyes narrowed in my direction. "I really don't think you want to be picking on this apple," he warned.

"Wait," Jessica interrupted us for a brief moment, setting the water gun in her hands back on the shelf, "did you just refer to yourself as an apple?"

Zayn sighed. "Yes."

"What if I want to pick on that apple?" I continued our banter. In a way, I enjoyed arguing with Zayn. He is creative when it comes to these moments.

"This apple knows a lot of things that you may not want to hear right now," with his hand, he raised his sunglasses to set on the top of his head, falling into his heap of hair he left naturally today. Why? Because Jessica said she liked it better that way. She didn't tell me how she liked my hair.

"What kinds of things would the apple say?" I quizzed. I crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for his reply. Instead of speaking, he slung his arm over Jess' shoulders, smirking at me. I was thankful for the sunglasses that still sat on the bridge of my nose because then he wouldn't be able to see my deadly glare.

"Thanks, Zayn, you messed up my hair," she huffed, pushing his arm away and tending to her misplaced wig. Despite her pleading, Lauren forced her to wear yet another blonde wig. To be honest, I hated it. Her hair was one of my favorite qualities about her, mostly because she hated it.

"Things you wouldn't want to hear in this particular location," he mimicked my pose, crossing his arms and standing directly across the aisle from me.

"And why is that?" I replied.

His daring smile grew wider as his eyes landed on Jessica, who was looking at her reflection on a metal box in order to fix her hair. "Are you picking up what I'm putting down?" My eyes widened for a second time, and he knew I surrendered.

Zayn laughed and patted me on the shoulder. "I have to use the loo. I'll be right back." Jessica hummed in acknowledgement, thankfully not seeing the wink he threw my way. There was no way I was making a move on her. Not here, not now.

Once he disappeared behind a stand of beanie babies, I took a huge gulp of air. Jessica and I were alone, again. Well, not technically because there is a woman with two little boys a few feet away from us, but I mean alone from the group.

The boys and I learned over the years of being famous that there is one very important rule when going out in public: never travel together in one group. With 5/5 boys out in the open, it's like Christmas for the paps, and it's not pretty.

So, we split up. Eliza and Niall wanted to check out Chinatown because they thought it looked exotic, Liam and Harry left to see Spider-Man on Broadway, and Lauren was doing some adult stuff that we weren't allowed to know for some reason. Whatever. Jessica wanted to go to Toys 'R' Us. I wanted to go wherever she went. Zayn had a plan.