wild life | l.p

Chapter Six.

Arianne pulls into the driveway with Zayn's mother in the driver's seat. She wishes more than anything that it were Zayn himself, so she could tell him to just keep driving and never look back. She's fairly certain her life is over at this point as she notices what must be Liam's car parked on the road outside.

She climbs out of the car unwillingly, frowning at the sight of her car peeling away from the curb and off into the distance.

Ari is vaguely aware that she hasn't showered that day, let alone brushed her hair. She still has yesterday's makeup sitting heavily on her face-- she really needs to get into a nightly routine of taking it off-- and she's wearing smelly black pants and the shirt she slept in last night.

Still, she trudges up the driveway and opens the door slowly, hoping that maybe everyone will be chatting and be too busy to notice her slip into the foyer.

But, her wishes remain just that as the sound of the door closing brings the voices to a halt in the living room.

"Arianne?" Her father's voice calls for her. He doesn't sound angry on the surface, and he wouldn't, not in front of company, but she knows that he is.

"Um... Yes!" Arianne calls back nervously, kicking her shoes off of her feet, "I was with Zayn... sorry. I'll be just a minute!" She calls into the hallway, opting to turn the opposite way to make her way into her room and further away from the kitchen where everyone must be. She thinks she hears her father calling her name one more time, but she speeds up quickly. Hoping that he doesn't get a glimpse of her before she makes it to the comforts of her bedroom.

She races into her room and shuts the door behind her, pulling her ponytail out of her hair. The band is caught in the knotted mess, and after a few seconds of pulling painfully and with purpose, she gives up and leaves her hair half down. She changes her focus onto her clothing, pulling her t-shirt over her head and peeling her tight jeans off of her legs as quickly as she can, eventually losing her balance and stumbling onto the floor in her attempt to remove them.

She groans loudly, throwing both her shirt and her jeans off to the side. She stands up and begins pulling at her hair again, trying to remove the band from her hair and almost debating just cutting it off until she hears a snap and realizes that it's broken in two.

She pulls it out, spinning in circles as she does so, feeling as though this might help her case a little if she just keeps moving.

"Oh god, I'm sorry." A voice says from somewhere within her room.

Arianne's stomach flips. She instinctively brings her arms up to cover her exposed chest as she spins on her heel and faces him.

Liam.

"What are you doing here!" Arianne shrieks, running to the other side of her bed and kneeling down, covering her body so all that he can see is her head.

He's frozen in his place, his head facing the floor. There's colour rising in his cheeks, but still, he seems calm, "There was no hot water in the main washroom. Will said to use this one. Thought it would be better."

"Oh." Arianne says, still extremely aware of how naked she just was in front of her father's intern. She's met him three times now. The first night, she was a sloppy mess covered in wine. The second, she had attacked his girlfriend and her groceries. And now, she was entirely naked in front of him. So, it wasn't really the best way that first impressions could go.

Still, she wondered how every time she seemed to run into him, he got better and better looking. He was wearing blue dress pants and a white shirt, brown shoes and a brown belt. Arianne would normally roll her eyes at an ensemble like this-- knowing all too well that men that wore suits were usually uppity and full of themselves. Or worse, had no idea what to buy and ended up looking like lazy old soccer dads. But Liam's suit fit him just perfectly. No excess fabric dangling anywhere that it didn't need to be. He had a hand in his pocket, and his lean, tanned arm wore the sleeve of his shirt in the most flattering way she could have ever imagined.