admiration [l.t]

xiii

[Think I might have accidently mixed up present and past tense. Sorry, haven't looked over it yet.]

Louis' day was like any other; he went to classes in the morning while texting Bella throughout the day and then went to work in the afternoon. Bella had said that she wasn't feeling well and that she ended up not going to any of her classes today, so Louis made sure to make time to go and visit her after work.

She hasn't texted him since, though, so Louis just assumed she fell asleep.

As the clock ticked closer and closer to nine, Louis sent her a few messages asking if she needed anything from the store while he was on his way over, but he still got no reply.

He also asked if it would be best for him not to come over, because maybe she just wanted to sleep and be by herself, but there was still no reply.

He was beginning to worry slightly, his leg bouncing up and down as he sat behind the counter, constantly looking up at the large clock in the front as he waited for his shift to end. He had nothing better to do no naturally he sent her a few more messages just asking if she was okay.

Maybe he was overthinking this, which he has a bad habit of doing. Maybe she just put her phone on silent and fell asleep or she ended up listening to music so she couldn't hear her phone ring. There were a lot of reasons as to why she wouldn't be answering the phone.

Once the clock reached nine, Louis immediately jumped out of his chair and locked up the shop, thinking to himself that the day was rather pointless because only a few customers came in and even fewer actually bought something. He quickly got into his car, making a pit stop at the local store before heading over to the North side of the campus.

He finally reached her dorm at 9:21 and made his way up the steps. Once he reached the door, he hesitated, wondering if he should just use the key she gave him or knock first and let her answer. Deciding on the latter, Louis slowly knocked on the door and stated who he was. He wanted to beat himself in the head a thousand times for feeling so nervous like it was his first time coming here again.

A few moments passed as he stood there, rocking back and forth on his feet waiting for the door to open and to be greeted by her tired face. However, when he felt he had been standing there for too long, he raised his fist once more to knock. But before he could, the door swung open, revealing a not-so-tired Bella, who didn't look sick at all.

"Hey, love," Louis greeted, smiling down at her, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and wrapping his arms around her. "I thought you were sick?"

She chuckled slightly, weakly hugging him back. "Nah, just didn't want to go to classes today."

Although her actions-or lack of them-hurt, Louis didn't saying anything about them, returning the conversation to her sickness and he stepped inside the dorm. "So why'd you tell me you were?" he asked, sitting himself down on her couch, opening his arms for her.

Bella smiled as she sat down next to him, resting her head on his lap. "Well if anyone asked you, we had to keep the story straight."

"Oh yes, because college is full of snitches that go to class every day and listen to all the rules," Louis laughed, combing his fingers through her hair.

Bella frowned as he began to do so and slowly sat up once again, standing from the couch. "You never know," she said with a smirk as she walked to go get a drink of water. Louis sat there dumbfounded, watching as she poured herself a drink. Something wasn't right and he didn't like the vibe she was giving off.

"Are you okay?" Louis asked as he stood as well, walking over to where she was standing. The underlying of his question, though, was 'are we okay?'