Project Popular (A James Mcvey Fanfic)

Chapter 13

We said goodbye to Miss Atkins and Katie when she returned bang on half twelve, Katie had fallen asleep on the sofa but refused to go to bed until her mother came home. When she walked through the door Katie slowly got up and smiled tiredly at her, she was even cuter now she was tired.

"Thank you so much for watching her." Miss Atkins smiled, scooping the young child up into her arms.

"It was my pleasure, she's been a delight." I smiled back.

"Is ten pound enough? I haven't been able to go to the bank."

"You don't need to pay me." She shook her head and fished out the ten pound from her pocket, insisting that I take it. I sheepishly did so and thanked her before heading for the door.

"Will you two be safe getting home? I can drive you?" We shook our heads.

"We'll be fine thank you." We said goodbye and left the house, tightening our jackets around us due to the cold September air.

"You looked like you had fun tonight." I said, peering up at James who had his eyes locked on his phone.

"Mhm." I frowned but continued walking, silence fell between us as we slowly made our way back to our houses, the heaviness of James' breathing vibrating my ear drums.

"El," He said, nudging my arm. I looked at him,

"Do you want me to walk you, like, walk you the whole way to your house or can I go home?" I stared blankly at him, what a gentleman like question.

"Do what you want." He nodded as we stopped at the traffic lights,

"Well I'm going to leave you here then, going to go see the boys." I rolled my eyes at him and pressed the button to change the traffic lights, he just continued to watch me as I rubbed my hands together and waited for them to change. The lights changed to red and I stepped forward onto the road, however I was yanked back again by James and collided with him.

"What are you doing?" I snapped, sorting my jacket out.

"What's wrong?" I pulled my arm out of his grasp and shook my head,

"Nothing's wrong James just go to your friends." He laughed lightly.

"Is that what your problem is? Because I've spent almost all my night with you and I want to spend some time with my friends?" I felt a pang of guilt, the way he said it made me seem like the bad person.

"You know that's not what I meant James, of course you can see your friends, it was just a little rude making me walk home alone at this time of the night." He nodded and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

"Well we'll all walk you home then!" I suddenly regretted speaking, if my mum was still awake and saw all four of the boys outside of my house I'd dread to think what would happen.

"No James it's fine, I'll see you wh-" He pulled me along with him and cut off my sentence.

"They won't mind, come on." I trudged along with him as we walked towards Mcdonalds. As we approached I spotted his friends goofing around outside, they were apparently chucking chips at each other and seeing who could catch them in their mouth, at 12:43am might I add.

"Thought you were gonna be alone?" Tristan said as he spotted us, James squeezed me slightly and laughed.

"She wasn't happy that I was going to make her walk home alone, so we're all going to do it instead." Brad and Tris began making jokes whilst Connor stood at the side, eating his chips rather quietly.

"You'll have to wait a bit princess, James needs to eat and we're getting pudding." Tris winked,

"I'm fine with waiting, but don't call me princess." He held his hands up in defence, dropping a few chips as he did so.

"Well we're going to get the food now, you coming Con?" he shook his head as he continued to eat his chips.

"Fair enough, come on lads." James said releasing me and wrapping his arms around Brad and Tris. I turned to Connor who had taken a seat on one of the tables, his feet steady on the bench.

"Are you alright?" He looked up at me and nodded, I knew he wasn't. I walked over and sat down next to him, knocking my knee with his.

"Come on, tell me what's up?" He stayed silent.

"Family problems?" He shook his head.

"Friend problems?" He shook his head again.

"Girl problems?" He stood up and tossed his rubbish into the bin.

"I wouldn't say girl problems, but it involves a girl." I laughed, it clearly was girl problems then.

"Tell me about it?" He got his big mac out and took a bite,

"I'm not discussing girls with you, sorry love." The door in front of us was pushed open and the other three lads walked out, laughing hysterically at something.

"I hope you took care of her Con." James said, handing me a McFlurry. He shrugged lightly and got up off the bench,

"She's a nosy one." I felt my cheeks flush and I turned away, prodding my ice cream with the spoon. The boys continued to talk about random stuff and I took my phone out from my pocket, I had a text from my mum.

mum.x : gone to bed, hopefully you're home soon, don't be loud x

I slid my phone back into my pocket and ate my ice cream, James walked over and leant next to me.

"What's the matter?"

"I'm tired."

"We'll start walking you back." He instructed the boys to go and I thanked him for the McFlurry and walking me home.

"I think now is an appropiate time for the seven second challenge." Brad perked up, waving his spoon around. All the boys agreed and I rolled my eyes, who would play the seven second challenge at almost 1am?

"Tris you're first." James said, he nodded and opened his arms wide.

"Hit me." Connor slapped him quite hard in the chest and everybody began laughing, except for Tris who was now in pain.

"I didn't literally mean it, come on give me a challenge."

"Seven seconds to scream as loud as you can." Brad said, my eyes widened as Tris opened his mouth and screamed at the top of his lungs. I couldn't believe they were doing this, people were in bed.

"Real mature." I said once he had finished,

"Losen up a bit." Tris grumbled, turning to Connor and saying it was his go.

By the time we'd reached my house, Connor had serenaded Brad in someone's front garden, James had taken as many selfies as he could lay on people's cars, Brad had done a seven second strip tease, and Tris had screamed real loud and swapped people's bins around. I couldn't believe they'd misbehaved so much, but it was definitely entertaining. We reached my house and I told them to quieten down, I didn't want them to be waking people up.

"Thanks for walking me." I said to them all, getting my key out of my pocket and heading for the door.

"Eh!" Tristan shouted, apologising when James hit his arm.

"What?"

"Where's our hugs?" Tris called out, I was reluctant to go back but I did. I jogged back down the stairs and walked over to Tristan who pulled me into a tight hug, making childish noises at James because he wasn't first. I then shared a short hug with Brad and a half hug with Connor, before finally going over to James who opened his arms wide and wrapping them around me tightly.

"Thank you for tonight," he whispered as he hugged me,

"I'll see you soon El." He pulled away and I said my goodbyes to them before heading into my house and up to bed.