Ladies First (Zayn Malik) Book 4

Chapter 40

“Bye mom” I say hugging her one last time, before pulling back and looking at her teary eyes.

“Bye sweetie. I’m so proud of you. I love you so much” she says.

“I love you to” I say. “Bye Maddie” I say hugging her with a smile. “We’ll have to get you to come visit again soon ok? Maybe when we have a little more time to hang out yea?” I ask with a small nod. She smiles, nodding her head also. “Bye Hales” I say hugging my best friend.

“Can’t I come with you? How am I supposed to finish summer without you?” she asks, giving me her best puppy dogface.

“We’re going to be in studio the rest of the summer. You’d be bored,” I say with a laugh.

“I’d be in LA. How could I be bored?” she protests. I smile, shrugging my shoulders slightly.

“But you have a job here. But you can come visit whenever you want. I’m going to miss you” I say. She nods her head.

“Maybe I can transfer to a college in LA. Then you wouldn’t be able to avoid me” she jokes causing me to laugh.

“Yea, you get on that” I reply with a grin. I grab my carry-on, glancing back with one last wave before heading over to where Zayn was signing autographs for a few fans.

“Ready to go?” I ask, shifting the strap of my bag over my torso, smiling at the fans.

“Yep” he replies, handing back the paper with his name scrawled over it. We say a quick goodbye to the fans before turning towards our terminal. He takes my hand as we walk away and I suppress a smile as I hear the fans behind us gasp and start whispering.

“Any bets we’ll be trending in 10 minutes?” he jokes quietly as we take a seat, waiting for the plane to arrive.

“10?”I joke. “I bet it’s 5. Even without the holding hands, you met my family and I’m wearing the onesie again. People were going to assume just based off that.”

“True” he chuckles. “We could give them even more to talk about” he says cheekily, leaning in to kiss me. I laugh, turning my face so his lips miss mine, hitting my jaw line instead.

“I don’t like PDA, you know that,” I jokingly scold.

“It didn’t seem like that last Thursday, or our first date.” he teases as I rummage through my bag, pulling out my book for the flight.

“I thought that was our third” I reply jokingly. “Or was it our fourth? I’m not sure where you were fitting the Skypes in. Besides, those were different. Last Thursday was dark and no one was paying attention to us. And for the other one, it was our first kiss…” I say “Well our first real one in my mind” I correct when he opens his mouth to interrupt me. He nods and I smile to myself as I lean back against him, kicking my feet over the arm rest and onto another seat and cracking open my book to the dog-eared page. Zayn’s arm rests along the top of the seats as he fiddles with his phone, tapping it against the seat to the beat of the music playing in his headphones as he stares off into space. When our flight is finally ready, we head through the gate, taking our seats.  About a quarter of the way through the flight, I feel my eyes slipping shut so I close my book and put up the armrest between Zayn and I, curling into his side. I feel his chest rumble as he chuckles at my actions, putting his arm over my shoulders to hold me close. Zayn wakes me up as the plane lands and we head out of the terminal. Security meets us before we leave, escorting us out, hurrying to the car as questions are thrown at us left and right.

“So I’ve got an interview tomorrow” Zayn states when we’re safely in the car.

“Yea?” I ask, wondering why he might be telling me this.