The sun beat down on my skin as the sound of people splashing in the pool filled my ears. The smell of chlorine, sun tan lotion and heat smelt like the sweetest perfume that I never wanted to be discontinued.
I rolled onto my side to look at Bay on the sun lounger next to me. Her hair was piled into a pony tale and her large sunglasses covered her pale face.
"So…" I said. "Are you ever going to tell me what's going on between you and Niall?" Silence. She carried on staring into space so I dipped my fingers in the glass of water next to me, plunging deep under the ice cubes, pulled it out and splashed it on her.
"LILO!" She screamed. She whipped her glasses off and glared at me. "I was asleep! Thanks for that!"
"It's fine" I grinned. She frowned and pushed her glasses back onto her face.
"What do you want?" She grumbled.
"I was asking, are you EVER going to tell me what's going on with you and Niall? He brought you to L.A, there must be something going on!"
She stopped frowning and broke out into a huge smile. "We're um, a couple."
We both looked at each other and squealed excitedly. "How long for?" I leaned forward on my lounger eager to hear more.
"We started officially being 'a couple' about a week before we came out here. So only for about a week and half but we get on really well and he treats me so nicely. He's so generous and romantic."
"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"We wanted to keep it quiet for a while, we just wanted to know for definite and it is, so we were going to officially tell you all some time this week."
"Oh my god Bay this is so exciting!"
"I know" she laughed. "Who'd have thought two random students would end up dating two of the boys from One Direction?"
"Definitely not me!" I giggled.
"I just want to thank you; I wouldn't have met him if it wasn't for you. He's made me so happy after Nan and everything and he's just perfect."
"Don't thank me, thank fate! This doesn't happen to everyone, we're incredibly lucky."
"We are!" she smiled.
We both lay back down on our loungers, gossiping about our relationships and the rest of our holiday when we were suddenly plunged into shadow.
I shielded my eyes to find Harry looking down at me with a massive grin on his face.
"Come on!" He said as he grabbed my hand and ran towards the pool. Only when he was jumping in, still holding my hand and I was falling in after him did I realize he was in his swimming stuff. It happened so quickly I didn't have a clue what was going on.
I plunged under water and opened my eyes, I used my free hand to push the hair out of my eyes and saw Harry face to face with me. His eyes were also open. He grinned and we bobbed up to the surface, both of us taking a breath once our heads were out of the water.
"Hey Babe." He smiled. His usually perfect hair was slick to his head, mine can't have looked much better. He saw me looking at it and ruffled it up with his hands. He grinned sheepishly and then wrapped his arms around my waist.
"Hi" I giggled as we bobbed over to the edge of the pool. We stopped moving when I felt the cold edge hit my back. "I thought you were at work?"
"I was, Liam didn't turn up, Louis and Zayn were just messing around and Niall and I were shattered so they sent us home. I got back to the room and you weren't there, so I thought I'd go for a swim then have a nap, but I found you, which is even better." His thumbs rubbed small circles on my hips under the water as he smiled at me.
"Liam must be with Danielle. We haven't seen or heard from her all day. I'm glad you got back early." I wrapped my arms around his neck and he pulled me forwards into a hug by the hips.
"Probably. What've you been doing today?" His lips moved against my neck as he spoke.
"Not a lot: looked at all the stuff about us on the internet. There are already pictures of us from last night on sites! Can you believe that? And then I came down here."
"That's the magic of paparazzi and the internet. Nothing is secret for long. I'll have a look later. I haven't missed much then." He pulled away and smiled at me.
All of a sudden we were both being splashed. Harry spun around and I looked over his shoulder. Niall and Bay were both stood with their arms braced, ready to splash us again. They did.
We had a twenty minute war of splashing each other, them against us, and then we attempted to play chicken. We soon realized Bay and I were no good at it as we both kept sliding of the boy's shoulders, so we swapped.
I ducked under water and Louis wrapped his legs around my shoulders. I locked my hands around his ankles and straightened up. His hands were holding my head, balancing him out so he didn't fall off. Once he was steady we waited for Bay and Niall.
Bay pushed up out of the water with her hair covering her face. "Niall" she spluttered. He looked down as much as he could and had to grip onto her head so he didn't slip off because he was laughing so hard. He pushed it out of the way and they got themselves ready in front of us.
"3…2…1…GO!" Harry yelled.
*****
I sat down on the bed as I watched Harry button up his shirt. His tanned hands did up the buttons quickly and expertly. I'd been ready for the last 10 minutes but had to wait for Harry to do his hair before he could put his shirt on.
"So what did Liam say?" I asked as I checked the time on my phone.
"Um 'We have news. Meet us in the restaurant at 7pm.' and that was it. God knows what the news is, but it will probably explain why they've been awol all day. You ready?" He checked his hair in the mirror and turned to face me.
"I've been ready for ages. We'll be fashionably late like usual." I took the hand he offered me and we left the room.
We walked into the restaurant and found them all sat around the table waiting for us.
"Sorry we're late. Harry was stressing over his curls." I explained as Harry pulled the chair out for me to sit down.
"There's no change there then." Liam laughed.
We all looked at the menu and made general conversation before ordering what we wanted. As usual Niall had the biggest meal.
"So…" Liam started. "We have some exciting news." He looked at Danielle and smiled happily. "I proposed to Danielle last night and she said yes!" Danielle grinned and opened her hand out so everyone could see the ring. The large square diamond glinted in the light and looked perfect on the platinum band. It suited her slender fingers perfectly.
"CONGRATULATIONS!" we all called! Everyone looked so happy and excited.
"We're so happy for you both!" Louis grinned slapping Liam on the back.
"Thanks guys" they both said. They looked so in love and happy.
The rest of the night was spent celebrating, drinking lots of champagne and reminiscing on their relationship. They were so loved up and couldn't stop touching and looking at each other.
