The Final Leg - Book 4

Chapter 12

"I'll do the honours!" I hear Harry beam from outside of my bedroom, obviously by the kitchen as I hear a popping of some form of alcohol.

"What honours?" Max grunts from his lowered position underneath my desk where he was screwing into the safe I apparently needed desperately in my apartment to make it feel like home.

"First alcohol consumed in Blondie's new place." He chuckles, walking into the bedroom, bottle – not glass – in his hand as he drops to the bed, watching Max at work.

"Beat you to it this morning, Styles." I smirk over to him and he grunts, glancing over at me. "Well, I've had a long and rough day – pretend I just did the honours." He gleams out a small smile.

"Yeah, yeah." I sigh, leaning into the pillows with a prolonged sigh, tired from unpacking throughout the last two days to finally get to where I am. It was practically my final day of settling down and everyone was over for dinner, some came over earlier than others.

"I love it Blondie, it suits you." Harry hums from beside me on the bed as he looks around my room, eyeing off the large window which gave me a glimmering view at night-time.

"I like it too." I sigh, looking about. "I just gotta' learn how to live by myself." I snort, rolling over onto my stomach, leaning on one of my hands as I watch him stare at the ceiling.

"You're gonna' be fine." Harry huffs, shaking his head. "There's amazing security around the place and nobody can get in without your consent-"

"It's not that." I murmur out. "I don't know how to properly live without someone. It'll be strange."

He simply sighs to himself, looking about once more.

"One step at a time Blondie." He huffs. "This'll do you good. Trust me." He nods and I bite my lip, having an inkling of hope that a new beginning could possibly do me somewhat good.

"Breakups are long, cruel things but I reckon you're getting back on track." Max grins over to us.

"What do you know about breakups?" Harry scoffs over to him and Max grunts, dropping his screwdriver and glaring over at us.

"I've been living with Blondie and Malik throughout both of their breakups and I know just how upset they are, still." He snaps and I chuckle to myself at Harry's glaring face.

"Is Zayn alright?" I sigh, having it becoming a daily routine to ask Max just how he is doing.

"Yeah I think so. He was a no-show at dinner again last night but I found him eating by himself at the table when I came home from a job at about midnight." He explains, muttering the last part as he looks back down at his installation.

"So he's eating?" I ask gently.

"Yeah, of course. He just hasn't been speaking to me for a bit. We haven't gone out as a gang in a while." He mutters from beneath the desk, his shirt riding up as he leant back revealing his toned stomach, the side of it covered with some dragon tattoo.

"He's hardly talking to Louis." Harry weighs in. "They ain't hanging out as much as they used to and neither me nor Lou has had an update on Shark without Scarlett sneaking in recordings from a gang meet." He snorts.

I sigh and look down, knowing I'd have no clue as to what's happening with that considering Zayn cut me right off since the antics which occurred last time. All he said to me was that he could easily hire someone with my 'academic ability' and that he'd rather them die stupidly then for me to even be hurt throughout this entire fiasco. So I've been spending my month getting my life back on track; I've taken a couple of teaching courses, finally settled into my new apartment and I didn't have to worry about either getting myself killed in a shoot-out and painfully seeing Zayn almost all the time with the exact planning and details going into this.