faded

63.0 - zayn

"What makes me laugh the most about this whole thing is how easy it has been to clean up my record."

The glasses clink. The light from the chandelier reflected off the expensive flutes, the bubbly liquid swirling. Elegant music played in the background. People ate and talked around the two but it was as if they were so small, no one actually made a sound.

The other men felt fortunate to be in the company of Zayn, despite what everyone said about him. What might only be considered a casual conversation was much more. You never knew when he was really paying attention.

Alex Sayre had recently graduated from Harvard but had managed to burn all his bridges by associating with the wrong people. Unfortunately being a good lawyer had consequences, those consequences were easy to imagine when you though about what someone like Zayn would do if he found out just exactly what type of person Alex was.

Zayn was someone that could help, make things happen for him in a way he hadn't been able to himself. But it seemed easy for Alex to keep making the wrong choices. Help from Zayn Malik came at a very expensive cost with additional interest.

Breakfast came.

"I'm sure you know it wasn't that easy," Zayn replies to Alex as if already bored of his company.

It had been too long since Anastasia but not nearly as long as Elena. It wasnt like he loved her, or he didnt know yet, but finding her had become more of a challenge. It was something that he needed to do, regardless of consequences because this is what had mattered to him for all those years.

It was because of her that he had even traveled and took that job with Anastasia's father. It was Elena that had ran away and disappeared. She always preferred Harry.

Could he blame her? Would he ever admit that in the back of his mind, behind all the evil and calculation, he knew that Elena deserved better?

And that maybe Anastasia did, too?

Alex took a drink of coffee nervously, his hands just slightly shaking. "You married, boss?"

He stared at him, then he remembered he was wearing a ring. "Yeah."

The younger man smiled and shook his head, almost as if fondly remembering something.

"What?" Zayn said, annoyed.

"Nothing. I just think thats cool. I wanna get married, not right now obviously," he chatted away less anxiously than before, "but I haven't found the right one."

It all comes back to him. Abandoning her immediately after their brief honeymoon. Aside from everything he had already done to her, breaking her heart that way seemed unnecessarily cruel. With everyday that passed, Zayn wondered if he would ever even return.

It seemed so wrong to.

"Relationships are weird," Zayn murmured. "Not everything is easy."

"It hasnt worked out for you?"

He rolled his eyes. "It has. We're just apart now."

The younger man fortunately realized how irritated his boss became when the subject came up and he decided then to drop that conversation and just try to enjoy breakfast. He could get to know him without asking super personal questions.