Little Louder Now (Harry Styles/One direction fanfic)

Chapter 34: A spy amongst us

Chapter 34:  A spy amongst us

*Holland's POV*

"Just stop there Zayn," Charlie said.  The boy had been talking for about 15 minutes straight now.  "I'll forgive you if you want, but I honestly don't know why you need it."

"Yeah," I added.  "I'm  more worried about you and this whole Perrie bullshit.  Are you alright?"  I asked as I got up.  Charlie was now following suit and standing next to me.  The two of us walked over to Zayn and engulfed the lad in a big hug.  He seemed startled by our gesture but soon wrapped his arms around us.

"I'll be okay.  I just am curious how Thalia is doing right now.  Louis showed me the gossip rag before I called you all in here and I just want to know that she's doing okay.  Plus I still don't know how she feels about me," he murmured.

"If she's sane and she's straight, you've got nothing to worry about," Charlie chirped.  "Right Ollie?"

I looked over at Ols but she was staring intently into space.  She startled a bit when she heard her name though.  "Errr, I totally agree," she said uncertainly but got up from her seat and started to shuffle over to the 3 of us.  "I'm proud of you Zayn.  It takes a good, strong man to admit when he thinks he made a mistake, but you didn't do anything really.  All you did was miss a stupid, boring interview," she said, throwing her arms around Zayn also.

"I agree," Louis added.  "I would've skipped out too if I had known that was option," the Doncaster boy said as he jumped into the ever-growing hug.

Niall hopped out of his seat and excitedly ran around the group and jumped on Zayn's back.  "I can't stay mad at one of my best mates!"  he said with joy.  "We're a team."

Liam and Harry finally stood up.

"No way I'm missing out on this love orgy," Harry said, trying to wedge himself in between Zayn, Ollie, and I.  I snorted at his efforts to always be so close to his girl.  It was cute really.

"Enough of this," Liam shouted.  We all stopped the hug to look at Liam.  I was confused at his loud behavior.  "Move.  All of you," he said evenly.  He strode up and grabbed Zayn's arm and pulled him away from us.  "Just let me get this out before you say anything," he told Zayn.  I started to interrupt but he held out his hand, stopping me in my tracks.

Zayn looked into Liam's face nervously and kinda flinched a little as Liam brought up his hands and placed them firmly on Zayn's shoulders.  "Look.  I agree with everybody."  Zayn seemed to relax at his bandmate's words.  "I just need you to know, don't go about this the way I did.  Don't bottle it all up and hide.  I know a little bit about having someone cheat on you, so you can come and talk to me any time you want.  If you choose not to talk to me, that's fine too but you need to talk to someone about all this.  Make sure you move on in a healthy way.  Don't get stuck and fixate like I did.  It's just not right and I don't want to see you spiral," Liam finished. 

Zayn pulled Liam into a tight man hug.  "Thanks mate," Zayn said, although the sound was slightly muffled by Liam shoulder.

As the two pulled away, Liam added "I can't wait to meet this Thalia girl.  She seems like she has a good soul from what you said."

"She does.  Thalia's a great girl," Zayn said with the first genuine smile we'd seen from him all morning.  The sparkle in his brown eyes had returned.

I turned because I heard sniffling coming from beside me.  Charlie had tears streaming down her cheeks and Niall was standing next to her, shedding a few too.

"What's wrong Char?" I questioned.

"Boys," she replied simply.  "They can be so sweet some times," she said while wiping the moisture from her face.