I Love You, Man (Larry Stylinson AU)

Chapter 08: Zayn

"So I'm gonna..." Louis leans over Zayn's dining room table, carefully trying to avoid his beer. "What do I do?"

Louis went out on a limb, figuring that hanging out with the husband of his fiancée's best friend would be his safest option. But here he is, sat at Zayn's house with four of the bloke's friends, and he has no idea what the fuck he's doing.

"You don't play much?" one of Zayn's mates asks him.

"I used to play a lot of Hearts in college," Louis states.

"Oh, this is the same- same thing," one of the other guys shrugs.

"I don't even know why he called," Zayn tries to keep his yelling in the kitchen to a mere whisper. "This guy hasn't even played poker."

"I don't know," Perrie rolls her eyes. "I don't know, but it's Eleanor's fiancé, so just shut the fuck up and be nice."

"Well, if I do this, we have sex with the lights on when you get home," Zayn looks down at her, smugly.

"Really?" Perrie cringes in anger.

"Yeah," Zayn nods. "Like in Jamaica."

"Fine."

"All night long."

Perrie lowers her head, feeling herself blush at the cheek of her husband, "Fine."

"Yeah, alright," Zayn smirks smugly.

"Love you," Perrie smiles, pecking him quickly on the lips.

And then she's off.

The six men sit around Zayn's dining room table for hours, drinking beer and blathering on about women and sports and, well, manly things. Zayn is smoking a cigarette indoors; something which Louis guesses Perrie doesn't mind him doing. His smoke is casually resting in his lips as he deals out the deck of cards.

It's not that Louis doesn't like women and sports ‒ trust him, he's a big fan of both ‒ but he would rather talk about things that have more... well, substance. These men are pretty much the opposite of substantial, Louis thinks.

But right now, he needs to take what he can get.

"And the big dog!" one of the lads places a King of spades onto the table.

"There it is!" another guy cheers.

"Let me ask you guys- let me ask you guys..." Louis holds his hands out in front of the group, needing an aversion from this utterly boring game of poker. "Beatles or Stones. On a count of three! One, two, three-"

"All in," Zayn blatantly ignores him.

"Beatles!" Louis grins.

"Fuck you, I don't care," Zayn rolls his eyes, pushing his entire stack of poker chips to the centre of the table.

"All in...?" one of Zayn's friends sighs. "You're an idiot."

"That's you, pal," one of the nicer guys motions for Louis to go next.

"I, uh-" Louis stutters, not really caring to get back into the game. "I will call in."

"Too much for me," the rest of the guys place their cards face down in front of them.

"Anybody else?" Zayn ashes his cigarette, looking up at Louis from across the table. "Just me and you?"

"Yeah," Louis says in less than a murmur. He's still not really sure how to win at poker but he also figures that standing up to Zayn might not be the worst thing in the world.