Midnight • (Zayn Malik)

pale skin and ukuleles

Waking up to an obnoxiously bright morning was a lot more cheerful when it was way past ten on a Saturday morning. I stretched as far as my limbs would reach without ripping off of my body, ran my hands through my disgustingly matted hair and smiled dreamily to myself. There was nothing I loved more than Saturdays. I might just marry the day and take it somewhere exotic. I could use a vacation, even though most would consider here a vacation. I sat there in my warm bed dreaming of a trek through the Amazon Rainforest when I heard my phone buzz on top of my nightstand. I frowned. That could only mean one of two things. A) It was my mom telling me to get my ass up and do chores or B) It was Zain being annoying. Either way I groaned. I picked up my bare iPhone and growled in my throat. Actually I think Zain was worse than chores.

From Annoying Monkey Face: What's it like bein on the other side of the Earth during the day?!

I would've rolled my eyes at the ridiculously stupid text but I had recently changed his contact name which managed to make me giggle a little bit.

To Annoying Monkey Face: Kind of the same as having ur head up ur own ass. Dark. U should be able to relate :)

I snickered childishly to myself. It probably wasn't a good comeback but I just woke up and I didn't really care that much.

From Annoying Monkey Face: How poetic !

I laughed at the sarcastic blushing emoji at the end of his text. He could be entertaining sometimes. Like twelve percent of the time. I yawned, stared at my ceiling for a few more minutes then threw my covers off to-

"Get out of bed you lazy slore bag, we're going to the beach with friends and you're going to enjoy the sun and wear that new swimsuit that I got you that you have yet to wear!" Violet yelled as she barged into the room.

"How the motherfuck did you even get in here?" I yelled back exasperatingly as I rubbed my temples.

"Mumsy gave me a spare key to your house," She baby-talked me, reaching over to pinch my cheeks.

"I honestly hate you so much," I glared at her.

My mom always took a liking to Violet. Probably because Violet was such a kiss-ass around her. Making small talk about selling condos and shit. I hated listening to my mom drag on about our successful real estate company. Estelle Realty. I hated being considered rich and I hated that my mom had to be a snob about it. She was really no better than the rest of these beach head scumbags.

Violet kissed her hand and instead of blowing it she stuck out her tongue and spit in my face. I'd smack her if I was fully awake right now. I shoved her out of the way as I hauled myself out of bed and went to put This Is All Yours on my phonograph. I walked into my bathroom to shower (even though I was supposedly going to the beach today) to escape Violet's awful singing. Alt-J was one of her favorites and I guess that's my fault for not thinking that one through. I smiled as I lathered my white mop of hair in my completely age-inappropriate glitter shampoo. It claims to make my hair smell like the stars so I thought it couldn't get much better than that. Zain had teased me about it when I told him what shampoo I used in a random question game once. Since he had this thing for bringing up my name and the moon in every conversation. He used green apple. How basic.

By the time I was finished my legs were bright red and that was probably a pretty accurate shade of what they were going to look like after this little beach trip today. I walked out of my steam filled bathroom with my towel turban/sari on and was greeted by Violet "singing" I want every other freckle (times eight), whipping her brown waves everywhere. I took a snapchat of her and sent it to Lucky, trying not to laugh too much.

I walked over to my dresser and dug deep beneath my many pairs of grey, black and white socks to find the tan colored crochet swimsuit Violet bought me for my sixteenth birthday in July. I dropped the towel (it's not like Violet was paying attention to me anyway) and slipped the two piece on then walked over to my closet to pull out a pair of white highwaisted cutoff shorts. I took my hair out of the towel and shook it a bit before I twisted it into a wet topknot.

"Wipe that smirk off of your face," I rolled my eyes at Violet's dumb reaction to me in her birthday present.

She picked up one of my wet towels, twirled it and smacked my butt, "You is white as frick."

I erupted with laughter and shook my head as I grabbed my purse and sunglasses. Violet called Lucky to tell him know we were ready to be picked up.

As we all piled into Lucky's windowless black jeep, Violet had failed to mention that Louis was also tagging along. My face turned bright red. I looked like a ghost compared to everyone else and there is no way Louis would find that attractive. Violet looked back and smiled as she sat shotgun and waited for me to take my seat between Louis and Monte. I seriously wish death glares were true to their title.

"Nice to see you again Luna," Louis smiled wide at me with that calm ocean gaze.

"Louis," I grinned back at him, "ready for your first time at the beach?"

He answered me by putting on a straw sun hat and swiping a line of sunblock down his nose before adjusting his shades, "Ready."

I covered my growing smile and laughed a little under my hand. Monte propped his sandal adorned feet up on the console and situated his ukulele on his stomach and smiled at us.

"Louis there is one thing one must always do while driving to the beach for an hour, and that is sing to the ukulele, even if you are tone deaf like Violet," He smirked and lowered his sunglasses at her.

"Monte I am not that-"

Lucky cut her off, "In other words don't stress if you can't sing. I play the guitar some trips just to avoid it."

"Cool, well, I'll try not to embarrass myself then," Louis nodded.

"That's the spirit!" I said.

"Any requests?" Monte asked.

"Oh! Oh- what's that one that talks about a house in France?" Violet asked.

"You and I it is," Monte grinned and started strumming his ukulele.

Louis' face lit up a little, "I know this one. Great song. Ingrid Michaelson has a lovely voice."

I nodded in agreement and smiled before we all joined in singing.

Don't you worry there my honey, we may not have any money, but we've got our love to pay the bills

My eyes widened as I listened to Louis next to me. He was actually a decent singer. I gave him a look and he just shrugged, smiling sheepishly. I'd wait until the song was over to talk to him about it.

When we got to the last chorus everyone (except Lucky) stomped their feet and clapped like they did in the original song. It was nice. The whole 'trip to the beach' thing. We were all singing cute songs with the warm summer breeze whipping through our hair and we were laughing even though we hadn't gotten to the beach yet. I guess Violet was right when she told me I was going to have fun. I guess the beach and the sun weren't all that bad. (but seriously I was still pale 'as frick', like where's the world record people I swear.)