Counting Stars

The flashing lights almost blinded them all, but they were used to it.

"Can you move to the side? Give a little smile, that's good!" the photographer shouted, his finger on the shutter button like a trigger, blazing off round after round.

"Now make it playful, like you're trying to get that girl to notice you," he continued to coax. He had been the most vocal so far, every line dripping with sarcasm and cheese. They were convinced that they had even heard him mumble a few insults between set ups.

"This is torture," Liam muttered from his place off camera, the girl fitting him with a blazer politely ignoring him.

"Only you left, so I wouldn't be complaining too much. The rest of us have to stand around listening to him shout at you," Harry pointed out to him, handing his own blazer off to another stylist or whatever their job title was.

"Smile Liam, with your eyes. No, like you're seducing us, seduce the camera," Zayn mocked, dodging the arm that tried to fly around his neck, the disgruntled look of the girl causing him to chuckle. "Sorry love, we'll be going now."

He grabbed Harry by the arm, dragging him over to a large table. Every inch of space was taken up by food or drink, anything they could have ever wanted presented to them. Harry dove in while Zayn scanned the contents for something he really wanted.

As the flash bulbs began to burst, something caught just the corner of his eye. A flash of red exploded into his vision, like a movie when someone got shot and the blood spatter rained into frame.

She had been quietly standing in the corner on her phone all day, diligently answering emails, reading news articles, whatever it was that she did. He wasn't entirely sure, she was the assistant to someone, who did something for them while they travelled. Her jobs seemed to vary, before the obsessive phone checking she had agonized and scrutinized the table he was currently picking off of. Yesterday she was fetching coffee before mulling over a stack of papers.

This wasn't the first time he had noticed her, for some reason though this was the first time he had noticed her like that, eyeing her up and down in a way that would have made the photographer proud.

She was thin, her height slightly under average which worked well enough for his five feet nine inch frame. She seemed to abide by the rule of practical footwear, a pair of nude flats adorning her feet, trying for the same look with the rest of her wardrobe. A pair of ink black jeans clung to her lower half, while a baggy white jumper hung off the top, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. The print in the middle of the jumper, a large stag's head, was as bold as her hair.

He could see the subtle gold bow standing on both her middle and ring finger, wondering how it stayed on. As he worked his way up, he noted the soft pink colour of her lips and though he couldn't see them through her downturned eyes, the thick black lashes helping to cover them like a fan, he knew they were the colour of honey. But the brightness of her hair, it was so red it resembled a cherry. Not the kind found in a jar, but the kind picked straight from a tree, dark, almost purple.

It would be hard to lose her, he thought, that bringing a smirk to his face.

"So she told me to fuck off, which was hilari- Zayn? Zayn, mate are you listening to me?" Harry asked, nudging the boy beside him with his elbow.

He was lost in something, clearly. So lost that he hadn't heard the amusing story Harry was telling, much to his annoyance. Furrowing his brows, his own eyes followed the direction Zayn was looking, the knots unthreading when he saw her.

"Oh dude, what are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"You heard that but you didn't hear nearly fifteen minutes of a story I was telling?"

Glancing over at Harry, Zayn narrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"It's never going to happy mate," he told him, shaking his head.

"What do you mean?" He asked again.

"She won't speak to you, you're her boss. Ethics or something," he muttered, waving his hand around to dismiss it.

"Want to bet?" Zayn smirked.

Not waiting for an answer he crossed the room in a quick fashion. He did wait until she looked up from her phone, throwing her a smile before he opened his mouth to say hello.

"Is everything okay, did you need something?" She asked, immediately springing into work mode.

Putting his hands up in front of him he shook his head. "No, i'm fine, everything's fine. I just wanted to say hello, you seemed lonely over here."

She sighed then, it seemed to be out of annoyance more than relief. "Hello," she said simply, her tone flat but polite.

"I'm Zayn by th-"

"I know who you are," she cut him off, waving her phone in his face. "If you'll excuse me Mr. Malik, I don't want to be rude but i've got a lot of work to do."

"Oh," he meekly breathed out, watching her brush passed him before he could say any more.

He glanced around, hoping nobody had just witnessed her blowing him off in such an icy manner. When his eyes landed on the spot across the room he had just wandered over from, he cringed at the sight of Harry now joined by Louis, both practically doubled over with laughter.

Stomping towards them, he shoved each boy by the shoulder with the intention of shutting them up, which only made them laugh louder.

"Will you two be quiet!"

"Oh shit that was great," Harry managed, clutching his stomach.

"I can't believe you'd even try," Louis added, hunching over to place both hands on his knees.

"I don't see what's so funny."

"I told you not to bother, I told him," Harry said, calming himself down.

Louis stood upright, still chuckling. "He should have listened to you."

"What's going on?" Niall cut in, having appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

This got the other two rolling again.

"He tried to, with her," Louis cackled, waving a finger towards the girl who had thoroughly embarrassed him now.

Sympathetically, Niall closed his hand around Zayn's shoulder. "She shot you down then?"

Brushing him off and slapping Louis' finger down he growled. "No, I just went to say hi and it did't go as planned."

"I told him not to bother," Harry pointed out again.

Ignoring him, Zayn put his attention on his more sympathetic friend. "It's no big deal really, I just wanted to say hi and she brushed me off…maybe get her name," he mumbled the last part.

Things went eerily quiet, the music in the background rising in volume while the click, click, click faded out behind them.

"You don't know her name?"

"He doesn't know her name."

"How can you not know her name?"

"Whose name?"

Spinning around, Zayn almost smacked into Liam, who had an eyebrow raised. It felt like they had been caught looking at dirty magazines by their father, it made him squirm.

"What's going on?"

Both Harry and Louis shrugged, Liam's gaze breaking Niall down faster than an egg hitting the ground.

"Zayn went to say hi to…her, and she iced him out, and he doesn't know her name," he explained quickly.

"I told him not to."

"We get it Harry," Zayn snapped.

Shrinking slightly, he raised his hands up in defence. "Okay, jeez relax."

Liam pursed his lips in thought, shrugging his shoulders after a lengthy pause.

"Ellis," he said simply. "Her name is Ellis."