Cheryl & Liam: Devotion

Part Thirteen

"Liam – this is a nice surprise!"

Liam gave a shy smile as he stood on the doorstep of the luxurious, North London home belonging to his good friend – and the woman he secretly had a massive crush on – Cheryl. Since he was back home for a few days off whilst on his world tour with One Direction, he had taken his chances really to see if she had been at home, and truthfully, he was glad to see her for himself after he had seen pictures of her lately that left him worried. Though now, seeing her in person – he was still feeling worried and wondering.

Her eyes lacked the normal sparkle, her body looked thinner than she normally did, her demeanor showed signs of being stressed even though she was smiling at him.

"Hi," he greeted, "I came to bring your birthday present, even though it's a week late." He chuckled slightly, holding the bright yellow gift bag up which immediately made her smile more.

"Well come on in, thank you." She giggled, stepping aside. He stepped inside, looking around before chuckling as the two familiar Chihuahuas came to greet him – Coco and Buster.

"Hey guys, long time no see hey." He crouched down to give them a rub behind the ears, while Cheryl watched him with a sweet smile on her face.

"I'll make you cup of tea, babe – or are you in a rush?" she offered before asking as he stood up.

"Nah no rush; Sophia's not due back until late tonight as she's been out in New York, so yeah I'm not in a rush now no," he followed her to the kitchen, draping his jacket over the back of the chair at the island counter top, "Where's JB?"

He then frowned slightly straight away, seeing her frowning at the mention of her husband.

"Work." She simply replied, putting the kettle on to boil so she could make their tea. Liam knew there was more to the story; it was obvious that something else had happened, especially given her reaction like this.

"Is everything okay?" he slowly asked, the concern being clear in his voice. She slowly nodded her head, but the way her eyes glossed over spoke volumes; something was clearly not right, and now Liam was even more worried than he always was.

"Cheryl-"he began before she interrupted him.

"A fight this morning; on our anniversary, we had an actual fight."

He froze; he had forgotten today was Cheryl and JB's anniversary. It wasn't something he really thought about, considering he was pretty much crushing hard on Cheryl and it kind of pained him to see her married off to someone else. All he wanted was for her to be happy, but it was clear that now, she was certainly not happy.

"Cheryl, what – erm...don't cry." He quickly rushed around to her, pulling her into a hug as she buried her face into his chest.

"I'm sick of it, Liam."

He froze, glancing down at her, wondering if she was just saying this because of the emotions that were clearly still running high.

"You don't mean that I'm sure, babe; maybe you're just still angry with him?" he wondered.

"No...no, Liam, no, you don't understand," she sighed, running her hand through her chin length hair, "Liam, this has really been going on for ages – since the beginning of the year but I kept letting it go; so about four and a half months now since things started spiraling out of control."

And Liam couldn't say anything else, he simply listened as she continued,

"He can be really nice; like this morning, he gave me a ring that belonged to his mother and wrote me a really nice card," she shrugged, "I've tried really hard to just put the past things aside, because it's out of control. When he gets angry, it's bad – I've been called every name under the sun by a man that's supposed to love me, and then when he calms down, I'm suddenly his 'babe' and his 'princess', and he's 'so sorry' and all that shit. Liam, I...I think I-"