Best for Last

I woke up early the next morning, unable to sleep because I was thinking way too much about what the day would consist of. The first show of tour was always the hardest, but it ended up being the most rewarding; while the nine of us had never rehearsed together, we’d learned the choreography and basically had everything all planned out.

To my surprise, the boys weren’t awake yet. I knew that London was eight hours ahead of Los Angeles, and I felt bad when I thought about the jetlag they had to look forward to, but I applauded them for trying to get up at a normal hour.

In order to keep myself busy, I made a large breakfast, even decorating the table with a centerpiece of fresh flowers from the backyard. By the time most of the food was ready, I could hear murmurs and footsteps upstairs.

Niall was the first to appear, “I could smell the food,” he said awkwardly. He looked tired, with deep circles under his eyes and his blond hair sticking up every which way.

I smiled at him, then suddenly became all-too-aware that I wasn’t wearing any makeup. I looked down again quickly at the bacon I was frying. It wasn’t like I usually wore a lot of makeup in the first place, but I’d been so programmed by magazines to look presentable at any given moment, and here I was making breakfast in my pajamas. “You can go ahead and eat,” I told him. “There’s food on the table. Do you want any tea or coffee?”

He sat at the table, “Tea, if you’ve got any.”

“I’ll put a kettle on,” I said, deciding that this was the best opportunity to slip into the nearest bathroom to inspect myself before anybody else showed up.

“Hey, Jordan,” he suddenly said.

I winced and turned slowly around, looking at him full-on. “Yeah?” I asked nervously. I didn’t know why I was so embarrassed—I’d talked to Liam without makeup on and that was fine.

“So, Demi…” he said, looking down at his plate, “Is she… Ye know… Seeing anyone?” he looked up at me anxiously.

I knitted my eyebrows in confusion, no longer worried about my appearance for the moment. “I thought I covered that,” I said.

“You did!” he said quickly. “I just… She’s cute and…”

Then it hit me. “You like Demi,” I said, a smile spreading across my face.

He shrugged sheepishly, “I’d like to get to know her before I decide that.”

I crossed my arms and thought about it for a second, “That can be arranged.”

Then Louis’s voice sounded, “You look sexy, Babs!” he called. He was walking into the kitchen, where Niall and I were.

“Let’s keep this between you and me,” Niall said quietly.

I winked at him before looking down at myself to see what Louis meant. I was still wearing this knee socks that I bought with the intent of dressing to impress, and this long dress shirt that belonged to my boyfriend, Carter. I looked at Louis, “Who is Babs?”

He placed a hand on my elbow and kissed both of my cheeks, “Why, you are!” he said, remarkably energetically when one considered the time. “It’s your middle name!”

He walked past me and took a seat next to his friend, where they began a quiet, idle conversation. “My middle name is Barbra,” I said.

“You’re a quick one,” Louis said. “Babs is short for Barbra.”

“I’d prefer Jordan,” I said, like I had a choice.

“I don’t reckon I asked,” he replied nonchalantly, buttering a piece of toast. He shot me a charming smile and I rolled my eyes.

I finished the bacon and put a kettle on, finally getting the opportunity to run upstairs and put some makeup on. I warned the girls about how award being made-down was and woke up Zayn and Harry, because Niall and Louis hadn’t.

Liam was the last person to get up. His room was close to the kitchen, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the noise had woken him up already. Nevertheless, I knocked on his door and waited for a response, only to get silence. I held my breath and walked inside.

He was stirring, laying on his back with my stepmother’s cat on his chest. He smiled tiredly when he saw me and I suddenly felt this strange urge. I wanted to lock the door and saunter over to him and slide into bed. And then I would hold him and he would hold me. I could practically feel his strong arms around me, and his legs intertwined in mine, thighs so strong they could crack walnuts and hands so soft they could—

“Good morning,” he said huskily. His accent was delicious.

I could feel hysteria crawling up my throat. “Good morning,” I said, humiliated by the giggle I had to suppress, “Sleep well?”

He nodded, “Relatively. Your cat seems to have taken a liking of me.”

I smiled, “Let me get him for you.” I slid onto the open side of the bed, sitting on my legs with my knees against Liam’s side. I grabbed the cat and came to find that there was plenty of free space to—

“What’s his name?” he asked, thankfully knocking me back into reality again.

“Henry,” I said, easing the cat off of Liam’s chest so he wouldn’t be scratched. I did my best to keep my eyes away from his defined chest. “He’s my stepmom’s,” I said, cradling the large gray cat in my arms.

Liam moved his hand from underneath the blanket to pet Henry, but he accidentally brushed my exposed thigh in the process. “Sorry,” he murmured, turning pink. His hands were warm, I noticed.

“It’s okay,” I said automatically. I sat up straight and let Henry go. “Breakfast is ready,” I said. Dear Lord, I needed to call Carter.



We left for the venue shortly after breakfast, needing to get there as soon as possible to run over choreography and do a sound check. There were a handful of duets on the set list, and some of the dances were a little racy—like, classy lap dances at one point. And Los Angeles was about half an hour from Hidden Hills without traffic, so we were rushed.

“I’ll drive,” Zayn offered as we all made our way out to the ten-passenger van.

“No,” the girls and I all said together. Demi added, “It’s not that we don’t think you can, it’s just that, legally, you shouldn’t without an American license.”

The boys gave us that. We argued for a second—Selena was an awful driver, but Demi didn’t like driving big cars, and Miley didn’t have the best traffic record, but I didn’t know how to get there. We finally decided I would, since we didn’t have the time to fight and I had the worst excuse.

I frowned, “Fine. But someone has to ride passenger and give me directions ‘cause I can’t look it up on my phone and drive at the same time.”

Liam, who was about to open the passenger door anyway, received my phone and was given the order to look at directions from Hidden Hills to the Staples Center. Everyone piled inside and we were off.

Getting to Los Angeles was easy enough, but the city itself was so big that I didn’t know what to do from there. Liam, thankfully, knew how to give accurate directions. “Have you got any gum?” he asked while we sat in traffic.

My fingers tapped the wheel in time with the radio, “Check my purse.”

In the rearview mirror, I could see the girls smirk. He pulled my purse into his lap and began to fish through it, pulling out items in order to find the gum. “Pain killers,” he said, pulling out an entire bottle. He continued, listing items and pulling them out in order to clear his vision of the inside. My ears got hot with every item, “Makeup, tampons, perfume, breath mints—condoms? Why do you have condoms?” And sure enough, he pulled out a string of condoms.

Demi, Miley, Selena, and I all suddenly gasped, a mixture of drama and excitement in our voices. Large smiles spread across our faces and we glanced at each other. “He who questions the condoms always ends up using them,” Demi told him.

And then, naturally, the rest of the boys started asking about them.

I interjected, loudly clarifying, “The question only works when relevant. Ladies,” I said, cuing them to give instances in which they had to use them.

Selena went first, “Three months ago, Jordan was holding my phone and I asked why she still had them. A few weeks later, Justin and I consummated our relationship.”

I giggled at how corny that was. Harry scoffed, “That doesn’t prove anything—I’m sure you had it planned.”

Miley made a buzzer sound, like he got the wrong answer, “Actually, they were gonna wait till they were married. Liam—my boyfriend, not you—and I were going through a dry spell and I found them. We did it in the back of a makeup trailer that afternoon.”

“I found them a little over a month before Wilmer and I broke up. I mean, we broke up the night we used them, but the sex was amazing.”

They looked at me, waiting. “Midnight, New Year’s Eve,” I said simply.

Liam was silent for a moment. He said skeptically, “So, basically, there’s a chance that I’ll need them, but it may take several weeks.”

“Five weeks, tops,” I said, waving him off. It was silly to believe that finding condoms in the bottom of my purse would lead to having to use one, but I knew that everyone secretly wanted it to be true. Which it was.

“I’ll bet you one hundred pounds you’re wrong,” Harry said, probably bitter that he hadn’t asked about them first.

Liam opened his mouth to protest, but I interrupted him. “I only take dollars or euros, my friend; the currency of my countries.” I had lived in a small town in Austria until I was 14 and it would have been nice to visit my family before I started school.

“Deal,” Harry said confidently. I turned around briefly to shake his hand.

“Hey,” Liam said defensively, “This is me you’re talking about.”

“Oh, shut up, Liam,” Louis said, “You win either way.”