All's Fair in Love and One Direction

10: All's Fair in Best Friends & Irish Accents

Chapter 10

We are all sitting in a circle talking about random things (mostly the X-Factor video diaries, since I know them by heart. I can feel you judging me.) and laughing, but Zayn looks uneasy. He glances over both of his shoulders, seemingly paranoid and announces that he needs to take a walk.

My mind wanders for a second and then I remember. Zayn wants to go for a smoke. My heart breaks a little bit as he gets up.

"Harry, go with Zayn. I need to have a word with Andie," Louis orders. Harry looks at him like 'What the heck?' and obeys. I look at Louis like 'What the heck?' and scoot closer to him.

What the heck?

"Liam, Niall. Play pattycake-pattycake or something of the like while I have a talk with Andie." Louis suggests. I chuckle as they actually start to play. Louis and I commence our walk.

He begins: "I'm not going to sugar coat it for your pretty little head... No. To be quite frank, Harry has a mega-uber-huge crush on you, and you seem afraid of him. He isn't used to girls not playing into the palm of his hand, you know?"

Wow, Louis. You are quite a long-winded fellow. I think he took one breath during that entire thought.

"I . . . kind of figured that, yes. But..."

"But what?"

"Is this conversation completely confidential?"

"Of course."

"Are you my official best friend?" I joke.

"You know it! Now spill the carrots."

I sigh and look up at him, knowing exactly what he's referring to. After all, we were just talking about the video diaries...

"Okay, I'll tell you. I think that Harry needs to realize that not every girl wants to make out with him. I mean, obviously, in a perfect world, it wouldn't even be an issue, but I want to be in a true relationship -- where kissing and... and other things don't even matter, and you can entertain each other for hours just on personality and true love. Sure, I snogged a poster of Harry a few times, but that wasn't serious at all. It was for fun. I'm rather afraid that if I ever had feelings for Harry, he would take advantage of those feelings, you know? I've heard things about him, and whether they're true or not ... well... worries me..." I look down at the pavement which I symbolically just spilled my guts onto.

I think Louis reads my mind, because he immediately embraces me in a hug and whispers into my ear, "From now on you can tell me anything, okay? Anything. I understand. It's a legitimate concern."

In this moment, I feel like Louis is the big brother that I've never had, the comfort of a hug that I so desperately need.

"It's just so weird." I mumble, "For so long I've obsessed... um ... I mean thought about having relationships with the members of One Direction, and now it's becoming so much different than I thought it would be."

Louis breaks away from the hug and puts his hands on my shoulders, looking directly into my eyes. "It's okay. I get it."

"Thank you, Louis."

"Anytime. Oh yeah, and Liam hasn't admitted to it yet, but I think he fancies you also. Just the way that he acts," he says with a smirk. This gives me butterflies. Why? I don't know.

"So Harry HAS admitted to it?"

"...Possibly."

"Good to know."

We both laugh a little bit and start walking back toward Niall and Liam, who are pretending to be American-accented girls catfighting.

"Wait." I stop. We're still out of earshot of the other boys.

"What?"

"Now that we've declared conversation confidentiality... I have to bring something else up."

"Which is?.." He asks, unsure.

"Zayn smoking..."

Louis' face becomes serious. Serious Louis? I just created a contradiction. "It makes me quite sad sometimes, actually," he says quietly.

"I want to help him quit." I stomp my foot without meaning to.

"Meee tooo!" Louis mimics me by stomping his foot on the ground and crossing his arms.

"I'm serious!"

"Okay, okay," he whines.

"We'll continue this conversation later," I proclaim, because Zayn and Harry have just rounded the corner and entered my view.

Louis holds out his hand. "Give me your phone so I can put my number in, lady!"

I playfully slap him and take out my phone. I set it on 'New Contact' and hand it to him. He types away for an extended amount of time and then turns the screen off.

"Don't look at it until I text you. I'll get your number from Liam."

"Okaaay."

The group is reunited. I smell the tobacco smoke coming off of Zayn. He has an embarrassed look on his face. I get that feeling in the top of my stomach, like when you're trying to keep yourself from crying. I don't cry, but the way he's acting right now is pulling at my heartstrings, and at old memories.

Get over it, Andie.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

About fifteen minutes of awkward conversation is interrupted when a sizable group of people wanders out from behind the side of the building, obviously looking around for something... Or someone. A little kid points to us and screams "THERE THEY ARE!"

This is not good.

Now a group of at least two hundred people, a mixture of screaming teenage girls and paparazzi, are yelling at the top of their lungs while sprinting toward us.

"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Niall screams.

I giggle. Niall is Irish. Niall has an Irish accent.... What the heck, brain?! Now is not the time!

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(A/N: My thoughts right now: AHHHHHHHHHHH OMG OMG OMG OMG AHHHHH O M G.

*deep breaths*

THANK YOU, BUTTERFLIES! Today has been the most eventful day for this story so far. When I woke up this morning, we were on the border of breaking 400 reads. About an hour ago, we broke 500 reads. 500! That's 139 reads away from our goal!(; TODAY HAS BEEN ABSOLUTELY INSANE TO US. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

We also received our first fanmail today. This wonderful person whom we will love FOREVER (Lexzbug) was so kind to send us a message and basically tell us that we are doing ok on our story. (: You will always have a special place in our hearts as one of our first supporters. Thanks a million.

I know I've said thank you a lot in this author's note... But thank you for reading / voting / and (I can say it now!) commenting.

So let's talk about the chapter. Can you see the internal conflict a little bit better now? And what about Zayn? What do you think will happen next? You may be promoted to the rank of Honorary Butterfly if you can guess(;

I will leave you with words of Harry Styles: We'd just like to say a massive thank you.

LOVE YOU<3

- Katie)