Dance With Me {l.t.} ✔

Chapter Twelve

"It's so hot here!" Harry complained as we stepped off the plane.

"July in California is no joke, mate," Liam laughed at him.

"No biggie for me," I shrugged. "I'm used to it." Louis squeezed his hand in mine.

It had been around four months since we got to make our "big" public debut, and things had been going mostly well. I was out of my cast, and my foot had healed near perfectly. Every now and then, it would be incredibly sore, but it was nothing compared to the pain I had felt while it was still hurt. Another new thing is that Zayn was gone, and that was weird.

Shortly after Louis and I went public, Zayn started making up stories and excuses about being sick, and then one morning, he just didn't meet us at the airport. It took us nearly a full day to get ahold of him, but by that point, management had already told us the news: he was gone, no longer a member of the band.

Just like that.

Which, I knew it wasn't a sudden decision. He had been going through some stuff that I believe was self-instigated, but there's no way the stress of work and travel had made these issues any easier to deal with. I guess that was just his way out of the struggles: leaving. I just absolutely hated how gutted he had left the four remaining boys.

Still, we were in the middle of a tour, and things had to move on. We did our best to appear seamless, but we all felt the gap. We were in the States again, now, and I was just hoping that we would all continue moving forward. A big thing that I hoped would help was their next album. They would start working on that soon, as well.

"Are we stopping to eat before we get to the hotel?" Niall asked.

"That's a hard 'yes'," I answered, slipping into the car seat next to Louis. "I won't be going back to the hotel with you guys. The stage set up is different now, and J.R. has put me in charge of re-blocking and reconfiguring our routines before we have sound check and rehearsal tomorrow."

J.R. was the creative director that was in charge of me and the male performers on the tour. He really liked my eye for attention, and I didn't stress about change. I just did what needed to be done for a flawless performance. Because of that, he had been giving me more and more responsibility lately. I was excited to add choreography and creative assistance to my resume at the end of this job.

"Just don't work too hard, yeah?" Louis grinned at me. "We have date night tonight, remember?"

"I'll never forget," I smiled. We always set aside an evening for date night if we were going to be in a city for more than just one night. Besides travel times, these date nights were just about all the time we got together as a couple, and I knew we were only getting busier as work for the new album increased, along with my extra work with the tour performances.

I was grateful Louis saw the importance of these nights the same way that I did. I didn't feel like I was having to force him to spend time with me, and I was beyond happy about that. I wasn't sure what was going to happen tonight because it was Louis' turn to plan. He really wanted to be the one who planned our date night in Cali because I am so used to life in the California area.