As He Moves

Chapter 4

Diamond Dancers.

Zayn stares up at the neon pink words and the flashing, also neon pink image of a woman swinging her hips on the sign above the blacked out windows of the building. There's a closed Italian restaurant just next door, and Zayn looks down at the paper in his hands, wondering if he heard Liam wrong and if he's supposed to go to 196 Lansdown, not 198.

Which has to be the case, because there's no fucking way. There's no fucking way. His mind refuses to process; he can't put the pieces together even though he knows they'd fit perfectly if he'd just take a second to think about it. He doesn't think about it. He can't think about it.

So instead he takes a deep, not-at-all-calming breath, and then he pushes open the heavy door of the strip club.

The room he steps into isn't very big, and there's another door just across from the one that shuts behind him, only there's a burly man standing in front of it with his arms crossed. To his left, there's a small, glassed in booth where a bored looking guy with a crooked pair of glasses on lazily scratches things down into a notebook and reads over a textbook.

The guy looks up and Zayn realizes that he's been sort of standing there since he walked in. "Can I help you?" the guy demands, a little snapped.

"Uh." With a quick look at the muscles blocking the door, Zayn steps towards the booth. "I was just, um."

The guy behind the glass raises the pencil in his hand and taps it against a poster taped to the inside of the glass. Thursday, Saturday, Monday— Ladies nights is written in bold white letters on the plum coloured page. "Maybe try back tomorrow," the guy adds.

Oh, god. "I'm think I'm supposed to meet a friend here?" Zayn tries, and it comes out sounding more like a question than he meant for it to. "I mean I am. My friend said he works here and he, uh, told me to come by."

Glasses-guy gives him a long, hard look, and then he shrugs and says, "Whatever, I'm not here to judge. Thirty-five to get in the door."

Zayn blinks at him in surprise. "Are you serious?"

"If you were wearing eyeshadow, I'd let you in for ten. But you're so not getting the ladies discount looking like that. Sorry, man."

Grudgingly, Zayn pulls out his wallet and hands over the money. Liam is so paying him back for this. Liam is paying him back for this because it's a joke. It's a prank. It's a poorly executed, shitty prank, and he can't figure out why Liam would do it but he has a feeling Liam's just inside those doors, sitting at a booth with a grin on his face that'll widen when Zayn comes in, and then he'll have a nice, long laugh at Zayn's expense over this whole situation.

Maybe Niall convinced him to do it, actually. He owes Zayn for that April Fools prank when he and Harry slipped temporary blue dye into his shampoo and everyone called him Blues Clues for a week. But even for them, this is a pretty shitty joke. It's not even funny. It's just uncomfortable and awkward.

Or, he considers, maybe this is Liam's way of getting back at him for prodding into his personal life.

"Enjoy your time," Glasses-guy says, waving him off and returning to his textbook.

The giant guy at the door steps aside, and Zayn ducks past him, pulling it open.

He's never been in a strip club in his life, and he has a feeling it's different tonight than it normally is. There's a large group of women near the stage, and they're either a bridal party or it's someone's birthday, judging by the plastic tiara on one woman's head. There are more seated around the small club, at round tables and on the stools at the bar.